Trap and Sporting guns

[Gordon R]

Ramped ribs and very high combs (making the gun shoot artificially high) are okay for a trap discipline, but as much use as a chocolate fireguard at Sporting. :no:

[Hamster]

Too true, don't fancy shooting droppers with that kind of set up.

[utectok]

Surely the comb hight is like a back sight on a rifle ie poi is adjusted by hight of comb. If you raise your head and line the shotgun up to a target on say a wall then drop your head to the stock you can see your aim is high. Hence the keep your head down instructions I often hear??

 

It solved my hushpower shooting low anyway! ;)9

[Gordon R]

Okay for rising targets, but what about crossers or droppers? So many other factors are brought in to play.

 

You don't see George Digweed using one. He is a great believer in keeping it simple.

[EdSolomons]

That's about what I see with my 682/PFS but it still shoots flat :lol: , personally I remain unconvinced that you can rise POI drastically with comb height alone. To me it seems an odd assumption, you look along a low/regular set up and the gun shoots 60/40; now raise your head/eye artificially 20mm whilst holding the gun on the same line as before, why the hell should POI suddenly jump up from before? :unsure:

 

Exactly. Poi and sight picture are two separate things and not necesarily related.

 

And on the high stock and tamped rib for sporting- I've struggled along over the past 7/8 years!

 

I think to make a gun shoot higher you need to move metal, either in the form of the rib or barrel hangers, better still the manufacturer builds it that way from the ground up so to speak.

 

I think it was a Kevin Gill article I read years ago who reckoned the POI was set in the main by how the makers build the action and barrel in the first place.

 

Okay for rising targets, but what about crossers or droppers? So many other factors are brought in to play.

 

You don't see George Digweed using one. He is a great believer in keeping it simple.

 

 

See how muc rib George see then see what you think!

[Gordon R]

Only George will genuinely know how much rib he sees.

[EdSolomons]

I'm taking a rather educated guess... It isn't flat!

[Gordon R]

Ed - we might have to disagree about this, but if the gun doesn't shoot where you point it - it shoots above - then you are adding more difficulty into something which should be simple.

 

How do you shoot droppers with a very high shooting gun?

 

You will have to vary how much you shoot under any crosser.

 

Out of all the World Sporting champions in history, how many shot with a ramped rib? John Bidwell, Duncan Lawton, AJ Smith, Paddy Howe, Barry Simpson? Ramped and adjustable ribs have been around a very long time, so why have the top Sporting shooters not taken advantage of them.

 

I suspect they saw the flaws.

[utectok]

I saw am American shotgun fitter said he sets up stocks so the shooter sights down the rib like a rifle not over it at all I was told you should see a bit of rib but maybe not???

Will

[EdSolomons]

The Ramped ribs I agree in that they are new and relatively "unproven" (although all Krieghoffs have a raised rib to some extent).

What I would however disagree with is the "high shooting" bit- you will only shoot high wig a higher stocked gun if you try and deliberately aim it. Providing you come through the bottom of the clay as you would normally do the difference is minimal, and you soon learn where it shoots without having to think. Again, the results will speak for themselves and if you look at anyone at or near the top in sporting, the % seeing a flat rib will be almost insignificant.

[Gordon R]

Ed - I am not convinced in any way shape or form. There is nothing scientific to prove your theory - merely opinion.

 

I withdraw from the debate, as we will not agree.

[EdSolomons]

Fair enough!?

[Emmsy]

i think hamsters pretty right about the stock not altering POI that much, my perazzi shot like a 40/60 and i struggled with anything steady as i would have to blot it out. the only way i managed to get it to shoot anything near right i could see nearly an inch+ of rib, that would be a stack about 6+ pound coins on the back end and it just looked and felt ridiculous and thats without a bead. thats partly why i changed guns. if you look at the krieghoff ribs they taper from high to nothing as does the good old remington 1100 which has always shot well for me. the thing with a high shooting gun you focus above the gun anyway so you rarely miss over the top, but you get a much better view of the target.

[EdSolomons]

Come on stu That's hardly scientific! ;-)

[Robin128]

I'm new to this ... both my guns are sporters by Beretta but it raises some very interesting points from you guys, some of whom I recognise from other fora...and have the greatest respect for.

 

But I am becoming more convinced that I need to buy a trap gun...namely the Browning Ultra XTR.

 

I get the sight picture thing about the way we see the rail to allow for speed, distance, lead hight above etc etc. But it's almost a sub concious thing...we see the 'bird' and like magic we know how to mount and shoot to hit it...almost instinctively.

 

I'm sold...gonna get one.

 

 

But another 'stupid question'...will I have to shoot my sporters differently to a trap gun when shooting English Sporting??? :unsure:

[Gordon R]

Robin - leaving the rib aside, the Browning XT series are excellent.

 

I bought one in 2003 and regretted getting rid. It was choked 3/4 and full - I thought multi-choke was the way to go. Nicely balanced and a pleasure to shoot.

[Mr Potter]

I think I've seen a book title advertised somewhere called "The ART of Shotgun Shooting" and that, in my humble opinion, is what sporting and game (incl. pigeon) shotgun shooting is, an art not a science. I suspect the same is true of the skeet disciplines and is close to the case with the trap game.

 

I am not on first name terms with many previous or past domestic, European or World champions but I doubt if any of them are obsessed with the technical details of either their gun or their cartridges. I would hazard a guess that they could pick up any gun of vaguely the right stock length and work out within a relatively short space of time where it is shooting.

I am not saying they would be comfortable shooting a strange gun but innate ability rather than science and logic will allow the top shot with a strange gun to post a higher score than us mere mortals even with our measured, adjustable, scientific guns.

 

Finally, if we even vaguely agree the sporting shotgun shooting is an art and not a science then there is not a "right" answer. Shooter A prefers a flat shooting gun, Shooter B a high PoA, neither is right irrespective of who wins. I say that I like a gun that on a flat crossing target the clay just sits on the bead, trouble is I focus that much on the target no matter how I try I can't see the bead. (I clumsily knocked the bead off a previous gun and never bothered replacing it, I wasn't even sure how long it had been off before I noticed).

 

Mr Potter

[Gordon R]

Very diplomatic Mr Potter and about as good an answer as there is. :good:

[The Sipe-ist]

I am sure I am going to be shot down in flames,but I think that Ed and Gordon could be arguing different issues,

A raised rib does not necessarily mean the gun will shoot high, The rib can be parallel to the barrels therefore raising the line of sight above the back of the breech, thus improving peripheral vision without raising the POI.

It is true though that many great shots ( of which Ed is obviously one ) do like their guns to shoot high; but not all of them.

[Gordon R]

On the money.

[Hamster]

Only George will genuinely know how much rib he sees.

 

Back when George was using a 34" Perazzi I had a go with his gun at Willow farm and it was defo not flat. I have also asked and been allowed to handle a 32" Perazzi of his more recently (though still a while back) and it too was defo not flat. I like to see a bit of rib, his was not as high as mine but I would be happy shooting his set up as long as it shot 40/60.

 

Agree the amount of rib you see has no exact correlation between how high a gun shoots. The highest shooting sombitch I ever shot was a 30" Remmington 1100 Trap which literally had to be shot under to get smokes but looked fairly normal in the shoulder.

[beretta]

do you have the same shape of face as george then . you can not pick someone elses gun up and say it shoots flat or high,it might to you but not to them :o two people will see two different things.

[Robin128]

Thanks for the knowledge and experience.

 

[Hamster]

do you have the same shape of face as george then . you can not pick someone elses gun up and say it shoots flat or high,it might to you but not to them :o two people will see two different things.

 

 

I'm almost an exact replica of him, not. I hear what you're saying but we'll have to agree to disagree. Over the years being the tecchy type interested in the nerdy side of things, I've found that most people can pick up a gun and tell whether it has a low or high rib set up. Not saying that we can interchange and shoot each others guns, far from it, but whenever I hand my gun to someone I know exactly what they are going to say: this is bloody high isn't it, and that's because it is.

 

A few months ago I shouldered Ed's K80 and it was immediately obvious how different it was to anything else I'd seen, proper high rib set up and interestingly soooo long in length and it sat low in my shoulder too, I told him I knew I could simply not shoot his to save my life. I broke everything I shot at with GD's gun though not very well .

[beretta]

well i dont agree only the person who's gun it is can tell if its high or flat to them. if you picked my gun up and said it was high i would disagree because it is flat to me, so you saying it was high would be totally wrong. . so we do not agree.