Possibly I should have said a younger man instead of a strong man. The squirrel gun barrel I have weighs roughly 6 pounds on my bathroom scale, is 36 3/4 inchs long, and 15/16 from flat sides on the octagon. Compare that to 36 3/4 overall length on my 22 cal. semi-auto and a total weight of 4 p0unds on the same scale. I have held an actual squirrel gun to my shoulder and don't think I could hold the thing steady long enough to hit the tree limb, much less the squirrel. My 69 cal. smoothbore by comparison weighs 7 pounds, I know, one wouldn't use the 69 for hunting squirrels.