Dave McCracken
Moderator In Memoriam
Some lucky folks can pick up a factory stock shotgun and shoot well with it right from the start..
Not me. I'm bigger, thicker and less flexible than most people. I find a 36" shirt sleeve about right on a size 50 Long coat and have more neck than a young ostrich.
I've shot standard stocks since boyhood.While I can shoot them fairtomiddlin', I got there the same way I got to semi pro status as a guitar player, with perspiration and repetition, not pure talent.
Reading Brister, Batha, Hill, etc, didn't help either. Their emphasis on proper fit left me uneasy since I was reasonably sure the stocks I had available to me didn't line up like they should.
So, I've added spacers, moleskin, neoprene, etc and tried to get things right.
Best would have been a fitting by an expert and a custom built stock, but such was out of reach as long as Son is getting educated at MD's finest and most costly college.
About 5 years ago when I started shooting the clay games, The Hull Elf gifted me with a Morgan adjustable pad. This device dates back to the 50s, and sired a variety of butt gadgets that can add drop, cast, toe-out, and so on.
The Morgan helped, but lacked enough drop to suit me. It also required a fair amount of torque to keep it screwed down, otherwise it had a tendency to adjust itself in the middle of a round.
The pad itself is one the small and hard side. I find I like big pillow pads on shotguns these days, especially those I fire a few K rounds through each year.
So for Father's Day, my family gave me ( after being told what I wanted) a Jones adjustable plate and a KickEez pad. I chose the Magnum pad because its thickness and that of the Jones added 1 1/2" to the LOP on my TB. The model I got is the Through The Pad adjustable plate because it has 1.5" total amount of possible drop. A simpler and cheaper model with 1" of drop is also offered.
I could have used the belt sander here to fit the plate, but taking both the extremely pretty wood on the TB and my usual clumsiness into consideration, I had a traveling gunsmith fit the base plate. The pad itself was left untrimmed and serves very well at cushioning due to its large size and composition.
A bit of patterning and some mounts showed the proper amount of drop and enough toe-out to work with my chest and shoulder. The stock comes up nicely from Low Gun and settles consistently where it should be.
So now I've one less excuse for missing. Not to worry, I've plenty left.
A couple things...
The Jones weighs 3-4 oz more than the pad it replaces. No matter for me, I had a 3 oz weight in the stock hole which was removed when I swapped hardware. Balance remains the same.
The trick with this stuff is to get things right, lock the screws down and forget about them. I keep seeing folks messing with the adjustments, trying to fix with hardware a prob more due to focus, form or lack of committment.
Prices on this stuff start at around $30 for the Morgan and go up to $1100 or so for the Precision Fit stock, which is adjustable in all dimensions and provides some recoil attenuation also.
Out the door, my Jones plate and KickEez was $114 with shipping and the smith charged me $65 for perfect shaping and mounting.
Adjustable gadgets are not panaceas. but can help with fitting problems for some of us...
Not me. I'm bigger, thicker and less flexible than most people. I find a 36" shirt sleeve about right on a size 50 Long coat and have more neck than a young ostrich.
I've shot standard stocks since boyhood.While I can shoot them fairtomiddlin', I got there the same way I got to semi pro status as a guitar player, with perspiration and repetition, not pure talent.
Reading Brister, Batha, Hill, etc, didn't help either. Their emphasis on proper fit left me uneasy since I was reasonably sure the stocks I had available to me didn't line up like they should.
So, I've added spacers, moleskin, neoprene, etc and tried to get things right.
Best would have been a fitting by an expert and a custom built stock, but such was out of reach as long as Son is getting educated at MD's finest and most costly college.
About 5 years ago when I started shooting the clay games, The Hull Elf gifted me with a Morgan adjustable pad. This device dates back to the 50s, and sired a variety of butt gadgets that can add drop, cast, toe-out, and so on.
The Morgan helped, but lacked enough drop to suit me. It also required a fair amount of torque to keep it screwed down, otherwise it had a tendency to adjust itself in the middle of a round.
The pad itself is one the small and hard side. I find I like big pillow pads on shotguns these days, especially those I fire a few K rounds through each year.
So for Father's Day, my family gave me ( after being told what I wanted) a Jones adjustable plate and a KickEez pad. I chose the Magnum pad because its thickness and that of the Jones added 1 1/2" to the LOP on my TB. The model I got is the Through The Pad adjustable plate because it has 1.5" total amount of possible drop. A simpler and cheaper model with 1" of drop is also offered.
I could have used the belt sander here to fit the plate, but taking both the extremely pretty wood on the TB and my usual clumsiness into consideration, I had a traveling gunsmith fit the base plate. The pad itself was left untrimmed and serves very well at cushioning due to its large size and composition.
A bit of patterning and some mounts showed the proper amount of drop and enough toe-out to work with my chest and shoulder. The stock comes up nicely from Low Gun and settles consistently where it should be.
So now I've one less excuse for missing. Not to worry, I've plenty left.
A couple things...
The Jones weighs 3-4 oz more than the pad it replaces. No matter for me, I had a 3 oz weight in the stock hole which was removed when I swapped hardware. Balance remains the same.
The trick with this stuff is to get things right, lock the screws down and forget about them. I keep seeing folks messing with the adjustments, trying to fix with hardware a prob more due to focus, form or lack of committment.
Prices on this stuff start at around $30 for the Morgan and go up to $1100 or so for the Precision Fit stock, which is adjustable in all dimensions and provides some recoil attenuation also.
Out the door, my Jones plate and KickEez was $114 with shipping and the smith charged me $65 for perfect shaping and mounting.
Adjustable gadgets are not panaceas. but can help with fitting problems for some of us...
