McMillan Cheekpiece Thumbwheel Adjustment Question

[ShootingNewbie]

Hi there - looking for some advice from the experts here.

I received a new A5 from McMillan a week or two ago, with the thumbwheel-style cheekpiece adjustment, and noticed that it came with an Allen key taped to the stock. Now, given that there were only 2 screws that the Allen key fits on the rifle, I was able to figure out relatively quickly where it's to be used (the two set-screws that are on the opposite side of the rifle butt from the two locking screws that are used to lock the cheekpiece in place), but I can't figure out why the two set-screws are there in the first place - it seems like a bit of overkill to have 2 set-screws, 2 locking screws, AND 1 thumb-screw all just to adjust the height of the cheekpiece.

Can anyone shed light on how the locking screws/set-screws are supposed to be set up, and/or why they're even there at all? Are the set-screws to make sure that there is counter-pressure against the pressure exerted on the elevation rods from the locking screws, so that the elevation rods can't be bent by over-torquing the locking screws?

(Sorry if I'm using the wrong terms for the various parts of the stock here - the stock didn't come with any sort of manual saying what's called what, or what to do with what. If it had, I probably wouldn't be typing this up and inventing names for the various parts to start with!)

Thanks!

 

[maynard]

The thumb wheel will give you fine adjustment and the set screws lock it in place once you have it set, no need to over think it. You don't want your cheek piece to slowly loosen and start dropping on each shot during a match. No need to tighten these set screw with a lot of force, just tight enough that they won't loosen during recoil.

 

[Alpheus]

What Maynard said. I find that without the setcrews tighened, recoil can loosen the two thumbscrews in just a few shots.

 

[ShootingNewbie]

The thumb wheel will give you fine adjustment and the set screws lock it in place once you have it set, no need to over think it. You don't want your cheek piece to slowly loosen and start dropping on each shot during a match. No need to tighten these set screw with a lot of force, just tight enough that they won't loosen during recoil.

This makes sense - the stock is still waiting for the action and barrel to arrive, so I haven't been able to witness anything loosening on it during my daily stock-fondling session...

Thanks for the quick feedback!