I'm building a 1/72 Dragon kit of the M4A1 Sherman in Normandy (kit #7273). For this build I purchased a turned aluminum 1/72 M3 gun barrel by armorscale, which looks very nice and is said to be the 75mm M3 gun barrel for M4 Shermans. However compared to the kit barrel the armorscale one is a bit shorter and a tad wider. Both are 1/72 scale and both are supposed to be the 75mm gun used on the M4 Sherman tank. I've got a number of book resources on the Sherman but can't find anything on barrel variations used with the M3 75mm gun (everything talks about either 76mm or 75mm). Is there a shorter barrel and a longer barrel variation designated M3 75mm gun? Anybody have specific info on this? And where can I find additional resources on this matter? Thanks!

Here is the info that comes with the armorscale am barrel:
http://armorscale.com/products/barrels72/B72-007/B72-007_manual1.jpg

The M3 gun was a single length. Some had a slight flare at the muzzle and some were a straight taper all the way to the muzzle, but all were of the same length.

The earlier Gun, 75mm, M2 as used on the early Lees & Grants was noticably shorter, but the M3 was it's longer cousin.

As with many aftermarket parts there is no guarantee that they are more correct than the kit parts. In this case the kit may be right, the AM barrel may be right or even both may be wrong.

If you go to the Track Link site and look for reviews by Kurt Laughlin you'll find several he prepared on a selection of 1/35 barrels. He has some true dimensions in these reviews that you can use to scale your AM barrel to determine if it's accurate.

HTH

Paul