doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Drop at comb ......DAC

Karl now you can join the Stan's Lost Wanderers Club...

Quite the hobby hanging out on several internet boards all day just sitting around wondering what wonder to share todAy.

Makes me wonder what wondering Stan will share with us next.

While we are on the topic. I don't know who first named the "parallel comb", but an (almost) straight stock was promoted on the Winchester 1897 "Tournament" grade, from Sporting Life June 26 1909
DAC 1 3/4�, DAH 1 13/16�



and Model 12 Tournament Gun; March 28, 1914 Sporting Life

Much rather read and consider Stan's wonderings than your petty sniping from the sidelines.

I was under the impression that the drop at the point of the comb was the "Standard". Every old catalog which I have seen when guns could be had to order gave a diagram for listings measurements showed this as the place for drop at comb. On the vast majority of guns the line from comb to heel was a straight line. A few exceptions were, of course, the Monte Carlo, a German "Swineback which W WGreener called his "Rationale" Stock.

...

...

I have always measured DAC as 7" from the butt, which is where my cheek hits the wood. It is a backhanded way of assimilating the vagaries of the neck and face, but it puts things where they belong.

What I don't understand is defining DAC as a distance from the trigger. To me, that is very independent of line-of-sight, and seems geared more toward keeping the thumb out of the face than dialing in a line of sight. Did I miss something?

In cataloguing my stock guns I quote drop at heel, face and comb.
The definitions for the UK trade heel and comb are straight forward:
Heel, the drop from the line drawn from the muzzle end of the top rib and the 'shield' between the fences, measured at the very extreme end of the stock before it falls away to form the butt.
Comb, the drop as above to the point at very front of the stock comb before it drops away to the thumb.

It is important to realise that many guns have a 'shield' that is sunk between the fences so the common method of measuring drop by placing the gun upside down on a flat surface only gives an approximate value. To get the drop measurement that the eye sees one needs a drop gauge that is no wider than the 'shield' and is cut away to sit on the rib just behind the bead, not on top of the bead.

Face is much more variable. I define it as the drop as above, 8" LOP from the front trigger on a double trigger gun. This is just where I set it, others will have different definitions.

Another little understood measurement is LOP to 'bump'. This may be the same as LOP to 'heel' but not if the stock has a butt that has a bump just below the heel. The LOP to heel is the measurement to where the angle in formed between the comb and butt. The LOP to 'Bump' is the LOP to the longest part of the stock at the bump. In most classically shaped gun butts, the LOP to heel will be around an 1/8" shorter that LOP to bump.

Thanks (almost) all, for the contributions.

It seems there is a specific place to measure DAC, but not DAF. The only way to get a meaningful number for DAF would be to know how many inches it is away from either the front trigger or the butt for you, as Ithace5E said, then ask the seller to provide that measurement.



How many boards you been kicked off of, or suspended from, F rank C ox, or how many times total? Me ....... zero.

SRH

Stan,
In my previous post I mentioned that Brian Bilinski at Field Sport explained to me that the DAF he measures is midway between the nose of the comb and the heel. The shotguns there that measured 2" DAF fit me well, therefore my "magic" number providing the length of pull and cast off are correct.
Karl