One thing that helps with shooting skeet and trap is barrel length

Usually see trap shooters with 28" or more, some 30 and 32s.

Usually see skeet shooters in the 24-28" range.

The weight out front helps smooth out your movements tracking the birds. Thats the only reason. Changes in barrel length have minimal impact on pattern and velocity compared to chokes.

Trap is targets going from a machine somewhere in front of you and flying away from you. The barrel movement is the least of any of the sporting clays layouts. Hence the longest and therefore heaviest barrels, making them very steady for tracking.

This is also the way most people wind up shooting by themselves or with friends on crown land or what have you. This is probably what you will wind up doing.

Most of the 9 skeet positions you are between 2 machines and the birds fly left and right across you. So youre moving the barrel left and right a bunch more than with trap. Thats why they are shorter than trap barrels. But you still need that mass out front. Theres a reason no skeet shooters have 18 inch barrels.

Rarely do people ever setup a true skeet field on a remote site since your starting position generally has your gun pointed directly at the machine or the person throwing the clay. Dont ever do this without a proper setup.

A barrel length of 26- 28" will give you the mass out front necessary to smooth out tracking and leading birds. This will help you a lot.

It isnt mandatory. Im not saying you cant shoot clays with a shorter barrel. My grandfather could hip fire any shotgun of any caliber length or type and dust clays. But he also did it twice a week for 75 years.

Make sure you have provisions to change chokes. You need at least open cylinder for skeet. And improved or modified for trap.