GALLERY RIFLE & PISTOL NEWS
Gallery Rifle News
To stand any chance of being able to perform at your best in Gallery Rifle competitions, it’s vital that your rifle stock or pistol/revolver grips fit you properly and that they’re suitable for the type of competitions that you are going to compete in. I often talk to shooters who are struggling to work their way up through the classifications because they haven’t
addressed this important issue to start with, so here are a few pointers to help them on their way.
by Gwyn Roberts
Probably the first thing you will need to check is that the length of pull (LOP) of your stock is correct. This is the distance between the butt- pad and the trigger-blade and most manufacturers set this distance around 13½ -13¾ inches, which is fine for around 80% of shooters out there but it is either too short or too long for the rest of us.
If the LOP is too short, the controlling arm will over- bend and this usually causes the shooter to increase the pressure of their grip, which in turn will cause poor manipulation of the trigger. Stability will also suffer and sometimes it can result in placing your head too close to the scope which can result in injury if shooting a heavier recoiling rifle. Similar problems will also occur if the LOP is too long and will often cause a shooter to short rack their underlevers causing jams or misfeed issues.
A simple way to check the LOP is to (with an unloaded firearm of course) extend your strong arm and rest the pad of your trigger finger squarely onto the trigger- blade, then bend your arm to 90 degrees at the elbow. If the butt pad nestles in the bend of your arm then everything is fine but, if you find that there is a gap of more than an inch or so, then the rear of the stock is too short and a spacer plate or thicker butt pad will need to be added. If the LOP is too long you simply won’t be able to bend your elbow down to 90 degres and you will need to shorten the rear end to suit.
The next area to look at is the grip and this is usually either the slightly curved design of a ‘sporter’ stock which are nearly ambidextrous, or a pistol-grip type used on most of the ‘thumbhole’ stocks, which can be either offhand only or ambidextrous by design depending on the make and model. The choice, as always, is personal preference and if you are going to
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