Here's the Pitch

Pitch is one of those stock measurements that doesn’t matter unless it does matter. A lot of gunfitters consider it something of an afterthought, but I don’t.

Pitch is the angle of the buttplate compared to the top rib. A buttplate at right angles to the top rib would be said to have zero pitch.

Pitch is traditionally measured in three ways. The Brits and many European gunmakers do it by taking three measurements: the distance from the center of the trigger (front trigger on doubles) to the heel (the top of the butt), then another measurement from the trigger to the center of the butt, and a third from the trigger to the toe (the pointy bottom of the butt).

A second way to measure pitch is called “stand off.” It’s the shade-tree mechanic’s way and so simple that even I can do it. Just stand the gun on the floor and slide it against any vertical surface (door or wall), so that the butt is flat on the floor and the rear of the receiver just touches the wall/door. Then measure how far the barrels are from the vertical surface. Note that barrel length will affect the final measurement, so if you are comparing guns, do them all at 26” from the breech to keep things consistent.

The third way is by degrees. Use a straight edge and a protractor tied into another straight edge to compare the angle of the butt to the plane of the rib. +4° pitch is pretty standard, while the usual range is sort of 0° to +8°. Occasionally trap shooters might use a negative pitch of one or two degrees. Using the stand-off method, 1/2” equals about one degree positive pitch.

What does pitch do? Absolutely nothing if you shoot with the butt of your stock on your arm like the old riflemen. But if you mount in your shoulder pocket, it can matter. The whole idea of pitch is to let the full butt evenly contact your shoulder to properly distribute recoil.

Try mounting your gun and see if you can feel whether the butt pushes into your shoulder pocket more at the heel (top) or toe (bottom) or pushes evenly top and bottom. If it pushes more at the top, you have too much pitch. If it pushes more at the bottom, you have too little. The amount of pitch needed can vary with shooting high or low birds, with a heavy or slender chest, or with an upright or leaning shooting stance.

Some say that too much pitch makes you shoot low, but I think it only makes you mount a bit low. There’s a difference. Too little pitch can hang your gun as you try to mount it and can let it slide down off your shoulder under recoil.

I like a little extra pitch in my guns because I think it helps the gun stay up on my shoulder for the second shot. But if I add too much, I pick up extra face slap as the stock comes back and up under recoil.

It’s easy to temporarily tinker with pitch. If you have a buttplate or recoil pad, just loosen the screws and insert a cardboard spacer at the top to increase pitch or at the bottom to decrease it. Try it out and see if you can notice the change.

And that’s the end of this pitch. Boots off. Beer open.