You all know more about this than I but the discussion was fascinating. I picked up my 16 gauge muzzle loader 1847 Reilly 5512 (1847) today and stopped by the shooting center...hit 12 out of 20 sporting clays tried, 6 from each barrel and the gun felt great (Fg powder, 70 grains, 1 oz 7.5 lead shot using the "Skychief" load). (Not great shooting...just satisfying for a new gun and the first muzzle loader I've shot in 40 years).
I was wondering why it felt better than the first and (only time so far) I've shot the new side lever 16 gauge Reilly 27853 (1887). I started wondering if I like more drop (or was I just having fun with a newly fixed hammer on the muzzle loader?)
Here are the two guns. 5512 has a much thicker comb. They look very different in profile. Surprisingly both have a comb drop of 1 5/8". Strange.
Don't discount the dynamic balance of the gun. For example. I find I need to shoot with the same barrel length all season or my shooting falls off a cliff. Furthermore, even given the same barrel length and very similar stock dimensions, some guns just don't mix.
On closer examination I have found that the simplistic balance point of the hinge pin is misleading. A gun can balance on the same central point but due to the distribution in each half of the gun, the gun has a very different dynamic. Depending on one's shooting style, this can make a big difference: if one shoots a steady swing, a distribution of weight to the extreme points of the gun can help maintain your swing. In contrast, a habit of fast application of forward allowance may be aided by centralised mass assists in fast acceleration of the barrels.
Also, I referred in my previous post to the difference that a sunken 'shield' can make to the effective POI of a gun that one might assume to have similar stock dimensions. For example, I have a Blanch hammergun with a sunken rib AND a very sunken 'shield' which gives the impression when mounted of a very high shooting gun but when one packs up the 'shield' to a normal height (in relation to the bore axis) one finds that the gun should shoot as one which measures up as much lower shooting
Quite why this was done is unknown but I guess it was the a preference of the customer to have a gun that shows a lot of rib whilst still shooting quite flat.
