doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com true purpose of the beavertail forearm>

i notice a lot of accessories companies that offer leather barrel slip on pads. i assume it is for shooters to protect their hands from burning them on the bbls.
so....was the beavertail f.a. originally designed for that reason?

Well... Yes. The BTFE would be to protect the hands from heat in high volume shooting, or maybe for the shooter that wants a more "full" feeling in their hand.

The leather hand guards you see are for in front of a traditional splinter forend for shooters that like to hold the gun more forward of the splinter on the barrels themselves.

That's what Rolla said; patent 1889



You will note that the style was to extend the left hand well out on the barrel; George Roll 1897



Charles Grimm



Fred Gilbert c. 1904 in an article in Field and Stream, March 1937. His Parker looks to have a hand guard



Woolfolk Henderson won the 1914 GAH with a 98x100 from 22 yards, the Amateur Championship of U.S. with a 99x100 from 16 yds, and the Amateur Doubles Championship of the U.S. with 90x100 from 16 yds. and is wearing a glove instead, and has a 'boot' on the stock

would that need for the guard be due to the length of the bbls back then being much longer? could we say the btfa came about as bbls became shorter and the hold was further back?

I don't think you can reason it out, bobski. It's just one of those personal preferences, like single, as opposed to double, triggers. I use both splinter and beavertail fore ends on my doubles. I like pistol grips and beavertail fore ends on guns with higher recoil, like waterfowling guns. It gives the hand a little more to "grab ahold to", in recoil. Based on experience water fowling and shooting flyers, I think a pistol grip is more important in handling high recoiling loads than is a beavertail fore end.

SRH

drew posted some great old pics of shooters with arms fully extended. it seems to be the norm back then. im just speculating that recoil and bbl rise must have been much more back then, therefore more control could be had way out there.

Not necessarily. Where the front hand is placed on the forend/barrels has more to do with what the MOI is of the gun, or, how easily, or how hard, the gun is to swing on a bird. A short barreled gun, or a gun with very light barrel(s), does not need the forward hand to be placed as far outward as does a gun with long, heavy barrels that require more effort to "get them moving". OTOH, a gun that requires more effort to "get moving", or to stop moving, would need the forward hand placed farther out, to increase the leverage. It's all about leverage, IMO.

This is a largely overlooked part of shotgunning, I think. Some people do it automatically, and can shoot a variety of guns, with different MOI, well. Others, who place the forward hand rigidly in the same place always, may notice the gun's liveliness, or sluggishness, more.

SRH

An extended arm as shown in the photo above is fine for controlled shooting i.e. skeet, trap..however, in the field I find it an impediment at a quick swing. Locking or semi locking your swing/pointing arm greatly slows you down. This I experienced in lay down goose blind where younger, more agile hunters were up and on the bird before me. I switched to a Citori with 26" barrels and began to even up the score.

Fashion - one very good shot can influence fashion with his choice of guns and shooting style. Fashion is likely a valid point.

Stan gets an A+ for considering MOI. I think all the parts are mentioned above, but I'll try to add a bit of additional discussion and in a differing format.

What happens to handling when the front hand is shifted forward? The front hand moves farther from the balance point (center of gravity - CG) and, so, carries less of the weight. The rear hand must pick up the weight the front hand is no longer carrying. The hands do have greater leverage to overcome inertia but must make greater movement to achieve any given change in the direction the gun points. Hand/arm movements (unmounted gun) can be made much quicker than can body trunk movement (mounted gun).

A light, low swing effort gun (game gun)can be somewhat tamed by a wide hand spread which tends to slow and stabilize swing movement. A heavy, high swing effort gun (target/fowler) can be compensated for with the wide hand spread causing more of the movement to come from the body trunk which has more muscle.

Thoughts?

DDA

Good stuff, Don. Reflects my experience as well.