doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com General Question: What do you do about low drop on older guns?

I have to agree with Jay. On my old Remington 1894 guns I just mount the gun between my jaw and chin. I think your brain will start to guide your face to different drop guns(your eyes get used to seeing the rib at a certain angle) after you shoot a few different guns. I think you can also get a feel for shooting different drops and mounting you face the same way but if you are shooting a lot of drop and have your face mounted low you wont be seeing your target as well. Get a gun and spent some time shooting it. Pay attention to how the rib looks on the guns that fit you(Im not saying that you should be looking at the rib/sight when you are shooting, just notice what it looks like for comparsion sake) Dont be afraid to move your head up. Good luck,
Ross

Seymore,
This is one option.

Of course, you could always go this route too.

You might adjust to any gun but you'll never shoot as good as you can with one that doesn't fit.
I'm going to have one bent currently it's 1 & 7/8" and 3".
My friend says he can get an inch with a straight stock and less with a pistol grip.

I'll let you know how much he bends it. I'm hoping for 1 & 5/8" and 2". The gun has a sleak flowing pistol grip. Hopefully I'll have the results by next week.
L.F.

That's funny, Chuck!!! ROTFLMAO !!!

Seymour,

"As long as I practice a lot, and mount the gun exactly the same way, I can do reasonably well. For me, consistency is an absolute must ."

You've got your head screwed on straight.

The key to consistency is a gun that fits. It's challenge enough to learn a proper, consistent gun mount without trying to use a gun that permits radical differnces in sight picture. I make my own stocks and I use 3 different sight pictures; one each for trap, sporting clays and grouse. I'd never carry a target gun grouse hunting, not even my target SxS. The mount I make on a grouse that flushes while I'm answering nature's call is no where near as reproducible as that I make on a FITASC target. I compensate for that less efficient mount by stocking my bird guns a bit lower. I like shooting sporting clays tournamnets with a SxS but I see no reason to shoot my grouse gun and keep my face off the stock.

No matter how well you shoot now, whether clays or birds, you'll do better with a gun that fits you for the task.

Pretty girl, Chuck!

SS , look on Ebay and buy two or three old walnut stocks and you will have your wood to use or buy a dry blank listed under gunstock walnut. Bobby

Coming in late on this, but if you'll look at it historically, you will find that for the most part high or straight stocks were predominately used for flyers or what became trap shooting, i.e. target games that allowed a pre-mounted gun. Skeet as a target game came along much later & was not a pre-mounted gun game at all, that came later when folks wished to play it as a game in and of itself and not use it as originally intended, as a method for improving one's field skills.

Jay's comments are particularly poigent, in that the lower stocks [more drop] are much easier to shoot for targets that are shot after they have come into view [the field] and particularly so when they are approaching. I would go so far as to say that the reason that most classic English game guns had the drop they did was because it is much easier to shoot a driven or overhead target [think vertical or very nearly so, please] with some drop in the stock than not. High overhead targets are quite challenging and they are for the most part absent from today's Sporting Clays events, even with the use of a tower .. and too, today's 'shooters' will whine about some kinds of presentations and much prefer to pre-mount thier guns, even if the rules say 'any mount' [wink, wink]. To answer your question, SS, I'd say go buy your older classic American gun of choice and don't worry about the drop at all. Should you end up selecting one that does have some drop, then when next in the dove field simply move out into the field a short and polite distance and face the trees the birds will be flying in over. Wait until they are just over the field's edge and THEN raise that impossibly bent gun to your shoulder and put the bird in your bag. I expect that you will find that you can do exactly that .. and also that you cannot with a straight & high stocked gun, or aleast not near as easily. What I am trying to convey is that the older classic amounts of drop were not arrived at by accident. Rather, they were quite purpose built, for taking driven/overhead targets, primarily. Passenger pigeons were the target of choice for many here when we had them and before the mast was all felled that they needed for nesting. Having one's face tight to the comb and parallel combs is a more modern form .. and one primarily for target shooting.

FWIW, some of the best shots in the field and on the ranges, people like Albert Topham on a skeet field or behind a dog or Cyril Adams in the ring NEVER premount when calling for the target. Both use some drop and both are wonderful accomplished shots of record.

We also have a very gifted and generous member on this board, Mike Orlen, who does stock bending among many other skills. I suggest you contact him once you've found and acquired your American classic should you decide that it must higher &/or straighter.

Such topics are always interesting and they make for lively discussion, but for the most part our forebearers had it figured out quite correctly for their intended use .. a well fit gun takes the bbls to where the eye is focused, and for very fast directly overhead targets that is easier with some drop.

I, too, am a shooter, not a collector. It's been my experience that there are many early (pre WWII) American doubles, especially Ithacas, that are stocked with "modern" dimensions. The last one I purchased was a Flues field grade, with drop of 1 3/8 X 2 (original). I also have a Smith Specialty with damascus barrels, original stock, 1917 mfr that measures 1 3/8 X 2 1/4. This gun may have been special ordered, but I'm sure the Ithaca wasn't. I believe what you want is out there, you just have to be willing to look and wait for it to come along.

If they're a real steal I buy them to resell. Otherwise I leave them on the rack. There are good old guns out there with "modern dimensions", if the LOP is short I'll add a pad. I found a Prussian 16, a Kettner that's within a 1/16" of my drop, just needs a pad.

One thing I have never understood is high end makers like H&H having new guns "ready for delivery". OK on a RBL, no big deal but who in their right mind would pay $75K + for a stock that wasn't made for them?