Stocks - Learned Something New

My expertise lies in modern sporting arms and military surplus. I have an interest in firearms that are appropriate for 3-gun or surviving SHTF.  I am no expert on long range shooting.  When I say that, I mean anything past 600 meters.

I was invited out by a friend who wanted to show me his newest load for his Remington 700…. Or maybe it was a 783… I can’t remember.  He was really proud of his rifle and happily gushed over his carbon fiber stock, his Leopould scope, his custom muzzle break and most of all, his newest reloading formula.

He invited me to shoot.  I did.  With his help on how many ‘clicks’ to set his scope for various distances, I was pleased to see that I could hit what I shot at.  Previous to this, the farthest I had (successfully) shot was at the 500 meter mark with the C7 running PWT2 in the military (And yes, I know PWT2 is not shot at 500 meters; we were fucking around to see who could do it).

I have an eye for detail and as I stood up I noticed something off about his rifle.  He was so proud of it, I was really afraid to tell him… his buttstock was bent.  Not a large amount, it was barely visible, perhaps offset about 3/16” to 1/4" to the side.

“I think your stock is defective” I mentioned and showed him that it bent slightly to the side.  I expected anger.  What I got instead was a lesson on how the slight bend allowed it to fit better in the shoulder.  I accepted his answer but I did not really believe it.*
I looked into what he had to say and found that people wiser than me agreed – The offset buttstock (known as cast off) was a help in rapidly shouldering the rifle.

I wanted to include this link because it is a good reference article about the fit of guns.  It is more imformative on the subject then I could ever be:

http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/fit.html




*Hey… you know who you are… sorry for doubting you; it just sounded really odd.