Mig gun and other ?'s

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Hey guys,I recently acquired a junked century 250 amp MIG welder.  It came without a gun.  I found that the drive transformer had become dislodged from it's base, banged against the side of the case, broke the wires to the gun switch and melted the connection between the primary and secondary windings.The wire feed bearing was also buggered up.  A quick dig for an old rollerblade bearing fixed that.I fixed the transformer, shorted the drive wires and the drive motor stuttered along.    I turned off the stich mode and the drive motor seems to function fine.   I also got an OCV reading of 20V but didn't bother to look at the heat setting when I took the reading.Onto the questions From HTP's website, it appears that this welder originally came with a Tweco #1 gun.  From Thermadyne's site, Best I can figure is this gun is good for 180 amps, 60% duty cycle with CO2.Is this enough gun for this welder or should I step up to a #2?  Is there actually a duty cycle curve on gun or is it more of a vertical line at their rated capacity?Any reason to not go with a longer gun, like 15 feet?Am I correct in assuming that Tweco is the only gun I can put on this machine?  It has a separate gas tube that connects to the plug body instead of O-rings.  It appears that a lincoln style gun (NOT SP) would work but I don't know if the diameters are the same.Lastly,Anyone use one of those offset spool adapters to run a 2 lb spool on a big machine like this?  At present, I don't know if the welder will function and don't need the a 44lb spool of wire sitting around if it doesn't.Thanks in advance and wish me luckDavid
Reply:A Tweco #1 is a good gun and 15 ft cable is standard.  I have one on a 150 amp Miller.  Unless you are welding a lot of BIG stuff, it is entirely sufficient for most work.  It is not the only gun you can use, but parts are cheaper than some of the other name brands.  I can't comment on the small spool question.Get it hot and hit it hard...
Reply:Thanks for the info.  I'm going to get a #2 clone as it has slip on tips I can adjust stickout with.  The clones I found (weldingdepot) are the only one's I found with a century backend.