TargetTalk

Had someone advise me recently at the range that I should try have the buttplate seated further into my shoulder, more towards the neck, and offset the hook accordingly. I thought maybe I should get some more feedback as well as to whether the buttplate seems too far out on the shoulder.





He simultaneously had me offset the buttplate pretty substantially. Initial impressions are that the placement further into the shoulder seems to make sense as it allows the arm to move to load and grip and trigger a lot more autonomously, but the offset gives me a very sideways recoil and with the gun further in, I'm not sure the offset is needed. Just thought I'd try get some opinions, since thinking about it only gets me so far, and with college finals upon me I'm not going to be flush with time to go and field test!

Photos or indications of good placement in the shoulder would be very welcome, as well as thoughts on whether I'm initially putting it too far out into towards the shoulder. Comments on offsetting the buttplate are also welcome, as I'm just looking for ideas to make the whole thing more comfortable and repeatable.

You might get lots of try this and that, but this is not a simple solution unless we know a little more.... And the solution is going to be how it feels to you, and the consistency of it getting back into the same natural spot every time. Where your cheek likes to be in relation to getting the eyes straight through the sights. Do you cant or not. There are some steps to take that are straight forward, but will take some trial and error. Get all these right and most likely the recoil will be vertical and consistent.

First what led you to follow the suggestion of changing the cant angle of the butt in the first place? I guess something was just not going right?

How long have you been shooting prone?

What distance are you shooting?

What discipline?

What kind of scores are you currently shooting before the change?

I see your a left hand shooter... A pic of the back end of the buttplate with the rifle level on the ground would see how you have it better. Also one of you from the front straight down the barrel where the butt inters the shoulder.

These questions just help me find out how long you have had to tinker with it all..... Hair pulling trial and error comes your way...

Assuming you have a comfortable LOP that allows you to reach the chamber and without you bending the wrist too much to get on the pistol grip we can start the process....

Do you like the rifle level or does a cant come naturally?

1. start with everything straight... buttplate straight up and down and aligned horizontally with the barrel. Many just assume the offset to the outside (cast off) is correct, but it is not for everyone.
2. gradually cant the buttplate a degree at a time counter clockwise until it likes to stay put and the rifle is were it wants to stay without you muscling anything.

Been feeling like I'm struggling a lot to get things consistent and it's taking a good while each shot for it to feel right. Scores have been around 580 in 50m ISSF prone. Been shooting about four and a half years. Hoping to get proper regular coaching over the summer and thereafter but just looking to get advice as I can get very stuck into tweaking things and find it hard to evaluate results against my own performance.

Hi Dave,

Tenring make a number of good points about starting neutral and working slowly out. A few more pictures not just from above might be helpful as well.

Something to realize is that most modern target shooting accessories will adjust far beyond the range that is useful for good position development.

First, the good news, your jacket fits nicely through your shoulder, you may even have the takeup strap on the back of the jacket a little too tight. How tight is the jacket across the back. With the jacket on and your normal shooting underclothing you should not be able to raise your arms and touch your elbows in front of your chest.

Just from these pictures I get the feeling that either your length of pull is too long or your handstop is too far forward or both. The left shoulder (for you) looks like it is pushed back bending the top of the spine to the left.

Next thing, it is common to try and get the butt plate to wedge into the shoulder with the curve from the top and the hook forming a vee that traps the shoulder. Not enough wiggle room. Eric U talks about using the hook to set the rifle into his shoulder then pressing down with his cheek to release the hook and have the curve of the butt anchor the rifle on the upper part of the shoulder. (Forgive me Eric if I have paraphrased too much.)

I am going to echo some of what tenring has already said, start with things neutral. I might even go so far as to take the hook off!!! Work with the position until you feel the sling and handstop are correct, get into position with your eyes closed and see how things line up. This might suggest a whether you need to cant or rotate the buttplate to get a better fit to your shoulder. When that is all done, put the hook back on and add that to the mix realizing for prone it is more a guide pin than a anchor device.

Getting the butt dialed in for comfortable repeatable shooting is a long painstaking process and in the end except for the vertical adjustment you will find that it is not going to be very far from the neutral point.

Good Luck
'Dude

Dave,
looking at the pictures your LOP seems a bit to long just like Justadude stated. The contactpoint of your shoulder should be almost square tot the centerline of the rifle.
Placing the buttplate more ofsett towards the neck is not always the best option. Too far to the neck and you start using muscles to keep everything in place and the position becomes uncomfortable. The best way is to place the buttplate in the most comfortable place in your shoulder then move the stock sideways in or out until you can place your aiming eye in the center of the rearsight keeping your head straight (not canted to either side) and only lowering your head to the cheeckpiece with a "yes" knodding motion.
Also, you stated that you put the rifle closer to your neck. I assume you did not compensate your cheeckpiece for this sideway displacement. Result will be that your head is not resting on the cheeckpiece with a force straight down but down and to the side. This can result in a sideways motion of the rifle during recoil - assuming that your buttplate is resting evenly across the shoulder over the entire width of the buttplate. Is the b.plate resting in your shoulder with the rightside only, you will have a recoil to the left and v.v.
Make sure the hook of the buttplate does not rest against either your side or the innerside of your arm this can result in sideways motion as well.

Albert B (The Netherlands)

I cant tell much about the LOP from the pics. Except that it looks like it pushes the left shoulder back some. Looks like you might have it as short as it goes??? If that is the case you can shorten the handstop a little and get a little more behind it. As Albert said. These changes made all have great affect on the cheek position. Which was true in my case. When I got it all pretty close my cheek position became more consistent and my groups got smaller.... Neck quit giving me so many probs too. One other thing that surprised me too was adjusting the pistol grip (angle and twist) to give me the most relaxed and straight movement of the trigger pull. When I got it perfect I found it affected how the rifle set in the shoulder I suppose from the hand on the grip. I had to make a small adjustment to the butt angle to get consistent shoulder pressure and cant angle again.

Again more pics of position, rifle setup from all angles would help. Also how tall are you? and what is your LOP (end of trigger finger to the bend inside the elbow with it bent at 90 degree angle)?

tenring

With the rifle as is, I do have to lean left to place my head on the cheekpiece, which I've found quite disorienting at times. Getting it closer in lets me place my head much more naturally. I did fix both the cheekpiece and the hook to allow this placement in the shoulder. It's also got the gun much more vertical for me, which is nice. In terms of LOP, I've wondered whether it might be too short rather than too long. My head sits way out on the very far end of the cheekpiece, almost touching the bolt shroud, and my wrist is slightly kinked to operate the trigger. Have thought about a comprehensive rebuild from the back forward after the exams to try get a better head position on the cheekpiece and a more natural relationship between shoulder, elbow and pistol grip. Any thoughts?

tenring wrote:I cant tell much about the LOP from the pics. Except that it looks like it pushes the left shoulder back some. Looks like you might have it as short as it goes??? If that is the case you can shorten the handstop a little and get a little more behind it. As Albert said. These changes made all have great affect on the cheek position. Which was true in my case. When I got it all pretty close my cheek position became more consistent and my groups got smaller.... Neck quit giving me so many probs too. One other thing that surprised me too was adjusting the pistol grip (angle and twist) to give me the most relaxed and straight movement of the trigger pull. When I got it perfect I found it affected how the rifle set in the shoulder I suppose from the hand on the grip. I had to make a small adjustment to the butt angle to get consistent shoulder pressure and cant angle again.

Again more pics of position, rifle setup from all angles would help. Also how tall are you? and what is your LOP (end of trigger finger to the bend inside the elbow with it bent at 90 degree angle)?

tenring

I'm 6'. Hoping to get some coaching pointers over the summer. I've shot some okay scores so far but I'm just trying to figure out how to make it all more comfortable and intuitively repeatable at the moment.

Dave, just curious, have you moved the top half of that buttplate in yet? (i.e., slid it back along those two rails.) I never used to be able to get a decent shoulder position with that style buttplate until I actually removed the pivoting portion (with the pad on it) and flipped those two little J-shaped rails around, which acted as sort of a hook on the top side. The resulting profile ends up being much more like the later style Anschutz hooks.

Yeah, it's set up to contour nicely where it is. I'm just not happy that where it currently is is optimal. Should get a chance to shoot this week however so I've got my few notes to try things anyway. First is going to be with no offset, hook turned out to fit, and if necessary, whatever degree of rotation is necessary to have it fit the shoulder uniformly.

Like the other guys have been saying, looks like your LOP is too long - setting your left shoulder back slightly. Looks a tiny bit uncomfortable from the angle shown.

This has the effect of pushing the butt out on your shoulder, giving difficulty with sighting, head position and recoil most likely.

Leaving the buttplate (LOP) where it is, think about doing these steps:

1. move the rear sight back towards you
2. move the handstop back towards you the same amount as 1.

You will find that your position should straighten up slightly in relation to the target.

Your shoulders MUST be square in relation to your spine, neck straight, head turned to one side.

I've not gotten to experiment much at all with final exams here. I turned the hook out a little more so I can tuck the buttplate in closer. This gave me much more autonomy in my loading and triggering arm and hand and better control over the zero position. I will have to shorten up the buttplate slightly to match though. Finished tomorrow so going to have a look at it in the next few days.

I tried moving the handstop back as well. This just increased the pain in my front hand. With a heavy barrel and a tube, there's a lot of pressure on it as is, so I'm keen to keep as much weight behind the handstop as possible. Will try leave the handstop, shorten the LOP slightly and keep the buttplate tucked in a little closer to my head. Should solve some of the issues I had with leaning over to the left to reach the cheekpiece too.