doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Godwit gun

I a while back I posted a note about making a nice custom gun out of an SKB 100 20 gauge. Well, I bought one. I already had a 20 gauge I/M with 24" barrels, but what I wanted and bought was a 20 gauge M/F with 28" barrels. Both are in like new condition.

The first one I cannot hit anything with. I mean nothing. I simple going away trap shot perfectly covered - clean miss 8 out of 10 times. I'm not a great shot but I'm not THAT bad.

So this new gun arrived and the first chance to shoot it is at the 19th annual Bunny Hunt and Poker Match. Not many bunnies die (no shotguns allowed), but we shoot a lot of other guns and have a good time then eat too much, drink too much and play nickle poker. I digress. In the shooting other guns department however, we line up with shotguns and we all shoot at each thrown bird. So the shooting is fast and one never knows if he was the one that really broke a particular target for sure. But with this gun I got the feeling I was hitting more than my fair share. Far more.

So tonight I shot a couple rounds of regulation trap. And I hit very well with it. The shots I missed, I knew were misses before the shot cleared the muzzle, but the others broke exactly as expected. Though I have not shot regulation trap in 2 yrs, I shot my average easily. (~20/25). This gun seems to shoot very, very well.

But here is the thing, after the bunny hunt, I was cleaning it and I noticed that the barrels seemed bent. They seemed to sweep upwards like a Godwit's bill. And it was pretty extreme. A steel rule laid on the rib gives better than a 1/8" gap between the rule and the rib in the middle of the barrel. On the 24" gun, the rule is dead nuts flat on the rib for the whole length of the barrels. Clearly, this gun has been bent - a lot.

So, bending it upwards would make the gun shoot high, no? But if I can guess my biggest failures at shooting shotguns it is that I cheek the gun too low, and I tend to look down on the barrels because the buttstock is too low, relative to where it should be. Thus, I often assume that my misses are high. But this gun should make high shots even worse. Yet, it wasn't worse, it was much, much better.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Had I noticed the curve when I took delivery of the gun, I might have sent it back. But now that I've shot it this well, I am looking at my Evans, Merkel, Cashmore, and a few others and thinking maybe they need to be made into Godwit guns too. Especially that Evans.

Two words, Brent.

Pattern plate

Much mystery will be dispelled.

SRH

Perhaps. but that's not what I'm asking. Are bent barrels common? I've heard of it, but never seen it and I expected it to be more subtle than this. And wouldn't this exacerbate my problem.

Here it is not just pattern, but point of aim with a hastily mounted gun. Apparently rather than making the stock dimensions work to get a "natural point of aim" where the barrels would hit, here the barrels have been bent to make them hit where the factory stock wants to point them. This seems much simpler, but I don't know much about it. Are there some articles one could point to on the net that explain this well?

I did not mean to shoot a pattern plate to evaluate the pattern itself, but to discern where the gun is shooting in relation to the point of aim. That is really the only reason I shoot at my grease plate anyway.

SRH

Brent, set a target paper at about 16 yds. . Start at a low ready position raise the gun to your face and fire when the mount is complete as in hunting. fire 8-10 shots at a single aiming point with the right barrel. Change targets and do the same with the left. With a consistent mount you will be able to see the center of the several patterns. This will show you where it shoots for you. Then repeat with one of the other guns you shoot well. Then do it with the SKB you don't shoot well. What matters, is where the patterns hit not how much the barrel is bent. Bending barrels can be a viable method of fitting a gun, if the adjustments to the stock are too extreme to be viable. Shotgun tubes bend fairly easily, intentionally or not. Also regulation of the barrels are not guaranteed. If it shoots where you look don't try to make adjustments to gun AQ based on information from gun B

Only curious about this point. Would the comb of the stock be too high? The other thought I had was can you do the sight inside the tube exercise with the line on the wall to get a feel for actual bend in the barrels. Is it possible that your straight edge is evaluating how the rib was set and not a bend? Just thoughts since your shooting isn't matching up with your predictions.

I've heard of bending the barrels of single barrel muzzleloading fowlers to change the POI, in fact, I have done it myself once learning about it. Don't know about a SxS.

Might just be the rib is a bit sway-backed and the barrels are straight?

The recommendations above are all valid, but they are time consuming. Also, because you are now worried about the barrels, you will start to compensate with your head placement. The easiest thing to do now is get a friend who is a good shot and take the gun to a pond or field of plowed ground. Let him shoot a few snap shots a sticks. While such casual testing is not necessarily effective for small problems, if your barrels are bent as much as suspected the other shooter will see it in a few shots.

I'm not worried about the barrels. I'm rather liking them. But they seem to be shooting in a direction (down) that is the opposite of what I anticipated. Yes, I need to pattern them. I don't keep a grease plate in my backyard for this purpose like all of you, but I'll set up some butcher paper on a frame and see what happens.

BTW, for sure the barrels bend. It is not just the rib, which was my first thought. It is quite visible when looking in the bores.

I don't think the comb is too high. If it was, the recoil would crack me on the zygomatic arch and that doesn't happen, though it is a problem with some rifles in certain situations.

Anyway, it is interesting that it shoots as well as it does when I think it should be much worse. I'm happy that it does, and I'll shoot it a few more times before I make any final decisions on its fate, but right now, it seems more than worthy of restocking, and maybe even engraving a Godwit or two on the action. It definitely has potential for pheasants and quail.