Long bursts more effective than multiple short ones?

[Woke Up Dead]

I was flying a P40 vs 109G6s and I was getting kills by smoking their engines, putting holes in their wings, making them lose controls etc. The 109 pilots were doing their best to avoid my shots so I couldn't get more than a quarter-secon burst in at a time. Many of them took a lot of hits and still kept flying, I was content with letting them go to let them slowly "bleed to death" on their way back to base.

Near the end of the map I caught one pilot unaware, and got a long (one whole second) burst in from a nice angle right at convergence, and he blew up the way that Zeros or 30mm cannon victims sometimes blow up, not a typical 50cal kill vs a decently armored plane like the 109G6. This is what first made me think that perhaps long bursts may be more effective than short ones, even if the short bursts end up getting more hits overall.

Occasionally I get similar results in the lightly armed Yak-9: I can expend all my ammo on a 109, get lots of hits and cripple him by pecking away with short bursts, but a single long burst will make him go pop sometimes.