Sporting Clays
The act of good shooting combines hand-eye coordination with practiced and well-grooved fundamentals, ensuring 100-percent focus on the target throughout the shot. If you have to adapt yourself to the gun to achieve a proper eye-to-gun rib relationship, your connection to the target is broken, your natural rhythm and timing are disrupted, and the resulting correction will cause you to, in effect, shoot the target twice.
In the highly competitive world of clay shooting, the difference between champion and also-ran is often just one target. This margin can be narrowed immediately by a well-fitted gun. It is essential that your gun fits, because during the shooting action there simply isn’t time to adjust yourself to the wrong dimensions. In sporting clays and especially in the field, the act of shooting is so instinctive that any distraction that breaks the visual connection with the target will compromise style and technique, and a poorly fitted gun will do exactly that.
It is impossible to achieve an accurate gunfit if you have not grooved and mastered the essential fundamentals of shooting: stance, posture and a good gun mount. Without these skills, the gunfitting process is going to be guesswork on the part of the fitter. That said, a beginner will make swifter progress with a provisional fitting—enough to make adjustments for comfort and an unimpeded gun mount. This is especially true for ladies and young shooters. But adult men, unless they are extremely tall or short, probably can get along quite well with a gun’s original factory dimensions.
One of the most frequently asked questions in gunfitting is: When being fitted for a shotgun, is there a difference between the measurements for a side-by-side and an over/under? In theory there is not. The eye socket and cheekbone are constants; the eye’s alignment from breech to muzzle does not change because of barrel configuration. However, in practice there can be several factors that have an impact and result in subtle differences in dimensions with different guns. This can occur not only with a side-by-side versus an over/under but also between shotguns with the same barrel configuration. Weight, barrel length, gauge, wall thickness, rib type, overall length, stock dimensions (in particular the thickness at the face), depth at the butt, grip and forend type, the number of triggers and their positions within the trigger guard—all of these elements have an impact on where the gun will place its pattern for the individual shooter. Also, do both barrels shoot to the same point of impact, and if not, which barrel would you like the gun fitted to?
The barrels of a side-by-side can demonstrate several phases of recoil in different directions. The first is down-flip, followed by an involuntary phase of recoil created by the gun attempting to twist left or right on the action depending on which barrel was fired. The lumps and bolt keep the gun locked closed, so the muzzles then rise above the horizontal for the second phase of recoil. The wall thickness, length of the barrels, and gauge all impact the degree of this unwanted muzzle movement.
The over/under’s more rigid barrel configuration reduces recoil to a single phase—backward—resulting in minimal unwanted muzzle movement. The over/under’s single sight plane offers a far more intuitive sight picture that better matches our brain’s natural proclivities. Combined, the natural single sight plane and the single-phase direct recoil give over/unders better pointability and handling, as is often demonstrated at the pattern plate. This makes the fitting of the over/under a simpler process than the fitting of the side-by-side, which more often requires instruction in proper grip and the use of the hands and arms to control the extra movement inherent in the guns.
Many gunfitters advocate that all or part of the fitting process should be carried out on moving targets. In a perfect world, I would agree. But most beginning shooters and many intermediates would not benefit from this method, which tends to fit the gun to idiosyncrasies in the shooter’s style. Unless they can demonstrate superb fundamentals, if they shoot with a gun “fitted” on moving targets, they will only continue to groove or compound their faults, effectively handicapping their improvement and progress.
For the advanced shooter, the tweaking of a well-fitted gun on a moving target makes sense. I have found that competitors with the best moves at the pattern board seldom require any alteration when proving the fit on moving targets.
Many fitters shy away from the pattern plate, as it graphically shows the client where the gun is shooting. This can be both daunting and frustrating for the inexperienced fitter if he cannot “dial in” the try-gun on the pattern plate. Although breaking a target may give a client confidence, the margin for gunfit error created by the variables in shot patterns, shotstring lengths and personal skill levels can result in a fit that is nowhere near correct.
A gunfit has six separate but interrelated dimensions:
• Length of pull (LOP)—The old wives’ tale of placing the gun butt in the crook of your arm and noting the placement of your finger on the trigger only tells you the length of your forearm. No allowance is made for the length of your neck, the height of your cheekbone, the depth of your chest or your shooting style. Also, LOP is incrementally increased or decreased for the grip configuration, ranging from shortest with a full pistol grip to longest for a straight grip. The number of triggers and their placement in the trigger guard will impact LOP as well.
LOP is measured from the trigger (the front one on a double-trigger gun) to the end of the stock at the heel, middle and toe. The individual’s shooting stance and style need to be taken into account in the length. When correctly mounted, there should be a gap of 1-1/4" to 1-3/4" between the back of the trigger hand and the shooter’s nose. Length of pull is very personal and is the only fitting measurement that has an element of flexibility—with the British traditionally favoring a longer length of pull than Americans.
The correct length is critical, as a stock that is too long is difficult to mount and can check halfway up the shoulder or, more painfully, be mounted onto the bicep or upper arm. Such a mount will result in the shooter’s head dropping and the gun shooting high. If the mount finishes on the arm instead of the shoulder, the shot will go to the side—to the left for right-handed shooters and to the right for left-handed shooters. A stock that is too short creates an inconsistent gun mount and will cause bruising of the second finger on the trigger hand or, worse, the collision of the trigger hand and the nose.
• Drop—This is the measurement taken from a parallel line extending from the rib of the gun to the stock, measured at the comb, the face and the heel. The drop determines the height at which the gun will place its pattern. Too little drop and the gun will shoot high; too much drop and the gun will shoot low. Too much drop can cause head lifting or cross-dominance, as the subconscious attempts to follow the target by lifting the head off of the stock or looking down the side of the gun with the off-shoulder eye. Consideration of drop is required to match or adjust the point of impact (POI) of individual guns.
• Face—The measurement at the face is achieved by the combination of the drop at comb and heel. Several combinations can give the same measurement at the face, but the comb should be of such a shape that it presents a near-parallel and level surface at the face. (The comb needs to match the angle of the cheekbone; a true parallel comb will result in the head rocking forward to find an anchor on the stock—a sure recipe for inconsistency.) The correct fit at the face ensures that when the gun moves back under the force of recoil, it does not rise up into the cheekbone. Allowances must be made for different head positions used to shoot the variety of targets on a sporting clays course or in the field. Your head will move slightly forward or creep back on different shots, so having a near-parallel measurement at the face creates a single sight picture on every shot.
•Cast—A vertical line established through the center of the heel of the stock is measured for lateral distance against a straight edge which extends from the gun’s centerline along the rib. Dimensions measured at the face, heel and toe establish the proper lateral alignment of the eye directly along the rib. The correct cast is achieved by shaping or bending the stock to accommodate left-handed (cast on) or right-handed (cast off) shooters. Attention to the cast at toe is important to eliminate canting the barrels. The thickness of a stock, particularly at the face, can vary greatly between different gauges and types of guns and requires specific adjustments to the amount of cast to compensate for it. Just consider the differences between a 12-gauge trap stock and a 28-gauge field stock.
• Pitch—This is the angle created by the butt of the stock in relationship to the rib of the gun. Pitch affects the “standout” of the gun, or how high or low it shoots. The amount of “standout” needs to be balanced so that the maximum of the butt “sole” is in contact with the shoulder pocket. This fit is essential to dispersing felt recoil. Consideration should be given to the shape of the pectoral muscle, especially in the case of ladies, where a negative pitch is the norm, for both comfort and to avoid canting the gun.
• Stock shape—The shape of the stock, type of grip and trigger placement are often overlooked aspects of gunfit. Straight, semi-pistol and full-pistol grips all will result in different lengths of pull. The radius, depth and thickness of the grip combined with the position of the nose on the comb often can transform the performance of a gun. I feel that these measurements are often neglected and that more attention should be given to the stock shape in relation to the size and length of the shooter’s hand.
Once accurate measurements are achieved using a try-gun (and an Arrow Laser Shot) and proven at the pattern plate, your gunfitting “prescription” can be used when ordering new guns or altering those you already own. A note of caution: Before altering a gun, the point of impact of each barrel should be checked and the relationship of the barrel placements compared, particularly in the case of smallbore side-by-sides, which are most prone to barrel flip.
In most cases a competent gunsmith can bend your stock up, down or to the side to achieve the correct measurements. The correct length of pull can be achieved by adding or removing wood or pads to the butt of the stock.
Many competition guns are made with an adjustable comb or can be retrofit with one, allowing for an easy custom fit. If you use only one gun for several shooting disciplines, the application of numbered washers will give you the ability to change the point of impact to match the game being shot. The POI is an individual choice and typically ranges from 50/50 (50 percent of the pellets placed above a line from the muzzles, and 50 percent placed below) to 60/40 for sporting clays, up to 70/30 for trap.
With a properly fitted gun, you will increase your competitive edge in tournaments and sharpen your reaction time in the field, resulting in more birds in your bag. Over time most of us put on or lose weight or find that we need to wear glasses, and in middle age our eye dominance can relax. If there is a falling-off of form, gunfit should be rechecked. You should have single-vision lenses fitted for your shooting glasses; if you wear bifocals or progressive lenses, they create refractions. These can cause frustrating, unexplained misses in the field.
Every gunfitting should include the diagnosis of eye dominance—the determination of the master eye—with any necessary corrections made for cross-dominance. Next time I will discuss “the myth and magic of eye dominance.”
Chris Batha’s book, Breaking Clays, and his DVDs, “Mastering the Double Gun” and “Take Your Best Shot,” can be ordered by visiting www.chrisbatha.com.
- By: Chris Batha
