The Shotgun Stock Fit Thread

MK2750 said:
You and I are built similar. I had never considered front hand position and swing speed. I have an SKB 100 SXS that has a smaller fore stock and is lightening fast. I always thought it was because of the shorter barrels and weight. What you say makes more sense as I most certainly hold that gun with my forward hand back on the wood. It is deadly on bush Ruffies but I have missed some real gimmies on open field crossing birds. The back peddling often suggests a pattern ahead of the bird.
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Side by sides with their splinter fore ends tend to place your hand a bit further back than most over and unders do which tends to speed up the swing. I find that my front hand is touching a lot of barrel when I shoot my side by sides.
Even with the increase in speed of the side by sides, I find that I can't pull far enough ahead of long fast crosser's as easily as I can with my heavy sporting gun with 31.5 inch barrels. The side by side's just don't have the weight for momentum that I've come to depend upon for long crosser's.
 
Was at the range today, was talking to an old guy, showed me his custom cripple stock shotgun.

As a person myself who never shot trap/skeet, I would buy a off the shelf O/U for a $1000 and just learn.
 
Falconflyer said:
Side by sides with their splinter fore ends tend to place your hand a bit further back than most over and unders do which tends to speed up the swing. I find that my front hand is touching a lot of barrel when I shoot my side by sides.
Even with the increase in speed of the side by sides, I find that I can't pull far enough ahead of long fast crosser's as easily as I can with my heavy sporting gun with 31.5 inch barrels. The side by side's just don't have the weight for momentum that I've come to depend upon for long crosser's.
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A few years ago I changed an SKB 100 SxS with a replaced Fajen (now extinct company) stock in a Prince of Wales style, combined with a Fajen replaced beaver tail fore end to replace the splinter fore end. I also had the chokes ground out to cylinder for steel. This is with 30 inch barrels.

The gun fit me better than the original. A great farm gun for mallards using steel, and Hungarians and Ruffies with Longshot reloads. Why Longshot? It works like the old 7625 when it is cold.

On a serious note, I find Rollin Oswald's book "Stock Fitter's Bible" to be very informative with excellent ideas.
 
So, we often read about the 4:1 rule as it respects LOP changes. Rollin Oswald suggests if you shorten the stock 1/4 inch, it brings your nose a full inch closer to your knuckle. Also heard this from Gil Ash. I respect both of these teachers a great deal, but the suggestion challenged my ability to visualize. The arm and stock form a triangle - almost equilateral - and I can't see how shortening one of those triangle sides could make a 4x change in a spot on the SAME side? :confused:

I've played on the kitchen table with graph paper, calipers, broken pencils and kitchen cutlery so long I darn near ran out of single malt. (That's quite a task around here.) I still can't see how 4:1 works????
 
Rob! said:
So, we often read about the 4:1 rule as it respects LOP changes. Rollin Oswald suggests if you shorten the stock 1/4 inch, it brings your nose a full inch closer to your knuckle. Also heard this from Gil Ash. I respect both of these teachers a great deal, but the suggestion challenged my ability to visualize. The arm and stock form a triangle - almost equilateral - and I can't see how shortening one of those triangle sides could make a 4x change in a spot on the SAME side? :confused:

I've played on the kitchen table with graph paper, calipers, broken pencils and kitchen cutlery so long I darn near ran out of single malt. (That's quite a task around here.) I still can't see how 4:1 works????
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I played around with the adjustable Graco pad on one of my shotguns, and my results did not match that theory at all. I also added a 1/4" spacer to my semi auto, and again, not even close to the theory. Cut a couple of cardboard spacers, and tape them to to the recoil pad, and test the theory for yourself.
 
Westward1 said:
No it isn’t but he crawls the stock at at least as much as pictured, maybe worse. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that there is no one proper way to mount a shotgun because even the best shooters are all over the place on mount style. I guess you just go with what works for you.
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Watched a fella shoot 100 straight from the 27 yard line with his face completely off the stock why?

Because it was a borrowed gun and didn’t fit.
 
Rob! said:
So, we often read about the 4:1 rule as it respects LOP changes. Rollin Oswald suggests if you shorten the stock 1/4 inch, it brings your nose a full inch closer to your knuckle. Also heard this from Gil Ash. I respect both of these teachers a great deal, but the suggestion challenged my ability to visualize. The arm and stock form a triangle - almost equilateral - and I can't see how shortening one of those triangle sides could make a 4x change in a spot on the SAME side? :confused:

I've played on the kitchen table with graph paper, calipers, broken pencils and kitchen cutlery so long I darn near ran out of single malt. (That's quite a task around here.) I still can't see how 4:1 works????
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Sounds like an attempt to equate stock fitting with witch doctery to me.....
 
Falconflyer said:
He sounds like to type of guy who could shoot a hundred straight from the hip.... for the rest of us mere mortals we need a good cheek weld!


Keep the wood on the wood!!!!!! :)
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He likely has the fastest ATA grand slam with the fewest targets.

A pard asked his brother for tips on how to shoot trap he told him no I do everything wrong.
 
I often think that the ideal LOP is something that is not so long as to hang up under your arm when rapidly mounting the gun or so short that you bump your nose.

Rollin Oswald's book on Gun Fitting .... Highly endorsed : " A-1" Information.
 
beretta boy said:
I often think that the ideal LOP is something that is not so long as to hang up under your arm when rapidly mounting the gun or so short that you bump your nose.

Rollin Oswald's book on Gun Fitting .... Highly endorsed : " A-1" Information.
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That's opening up another can of worms altogether! Bulky jackets, sticky recoil pads, fabric that doesn't allow the recoil pad to slide easily, bad technique, all of these things play a part in guns hanging up on clothing and many of them have little to do with gun fit.
 
9.3mauser said:
Shooting style definitely influences stock fit. A lot of English shooters grip the barrels as far out as they can reach, which dictates a shorter pull than for someone who places their forehand closer to the action. It's a bit of a chicken/egg problem, in that it's easier to fit a gun to someone who knows how to shoot and has good form, but it's hard to develop good form without a gun that fits. Under English doctrine, even barrel length and gun type ( O/U or SxS ) influence stock dimensions.
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This suggests to me that any of us can adapt to any LOP, and that forehand placement goes a long way to making it all work.

And the further heresy that comes to mind is that fitting a shotgun may come down to making a new gun more like the one we learned on!

And that suggests that starting with a decent gun is important; those of us who started with a hand-me-down bubba'ed 870 might be dooming our claysports careers.
 
I like to make custom stock butt plates for my shotguns. I really liked the look of them on the couple of guns I have that came with. After reading about the differences angle or pitch makes, I experimented with a few designs. I really like a slight old school crescent shape with no grooves or checkering, at 90 degrees off the comb. Very slight alteration makes a world of difference.
 
Here is one I am working on for my new to me Beretta SP. I am trying to make it the same as my BL4 that I shoot very well.

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So many variables and yes, a good shooter will quickly adapt to most guns and shoot them well, but not as well as one that fits him well and which he shoots naturally without needing to consciously adapt. MK2750 I really like your butt plate, I've done a few of those too. One that I really like is like yours but with a facing of very thin leather in the center area between the screws. And I agree, the curved butt on most of the older guns like your BL 4 works well for me too, I find butt sole placement very repeatable with this style.
 
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LOP is important to me insofar as it affects my sight plane. At 6'2" with long arms and neck, I crawl the stock and see far too much barrel on must guns. Longer LOP puts my cheek farther back on the stock and gives me the flat sight plane I prefer. Berettas are particularly challenging for me; I have yet to handle one that provided me with enough drop in the stock.

I recently had a SxS stock bent cast-on (I'm a lefty) and I'm eager to give it a try.
 
I know little about stock fitting. I just know what works for me. First is ease of bringing my gun up and into place to my shoulder pocket. If I have to push the gun markedly forward then bring it rearward when coming up with it from a rest position the stock is too long for me and is going to severely restrict my swing on hard left and hard right targets once in place and shooting. It needs to come up and into my shoulder effortlessly in one fluid motion. Stocks running 14 1/4"-14 3/8" are my best lop. Secondly when looking down receiver and barrel if the centre and end beads align anywhere from the centre bead half way up into the end bead to stacked like a figure 8 the gun will shoot where I am looking and usually give me a pattern of 50/50 to 60/40. I prefer my field and skeet guns are 50/50 and so set the combs to give me the beads aligned with centre bead halfway up into the end bead. My trap gun I prefer a figure 8 stack(60/40). I cannot shoot at all with any gap in height with any amount of rib showing between the two beads. First off obviously the angle of the eye in relation to the rib is increasing in height causing a higher impacting pattern and second and just as important if not more so is my cheek starts getting thumped especially as that gap increases in size. If somebody offers their gun to try if the beads do not align in a manner I need I politely decline to shoot the gun as I know I'm not going to hit with it and don't want to be hit by it. Since losing a little over 200 pounds all my shotguns have had to be altered with the exception of one which was purchased last fall when I was down about 170 pounds. Thank goodness for adjustable combs and in fact I had to have an adjustable comb and butt installed on a Citori XS Skeet I picked up recently. I've never had to raise the comb on any of my stocks as much as now even years back when I was the same weight as now. I never realized I was the kool-aid man, just a giant head with stick arms and legs! :p Or maybe my head swelled up without my realizing it when I was a AA27 shooter and has since shrunk back to normal proportions since struggling just to maintain a B class average and moving forward to the 25yd line....:yingyang:
 
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