The Fit of Shotgun Stocks.....1909

[Ed Blake]

I'd like to hear more about open and closed-faced shooting styles. In my attempts to shoot Parkers with 3" of DAH I assume I have adopted an "open" faced shooting style in order to see over the back of the receiver by keeping my head up. This results in a tendency to pick my head up off the stock. I would think an open-faced style of shooting with a gun of modern dimensions would be difficult. Apologies for hi-jacking this thread.

[Drew Hause]

"Modern Shotgun Shooting" by Lawrence B. Smith, 1935



A.B. Frost "Prairie Chicken Shooting" 1895 Head down American wingshooting



Capt. Bogardus 'crawling the stock' breaking 1000/1037 glass balls June 1878



Crawling the stock 2008 Olympics

[Bill Murphy]

Many of Drews examples were certainly not heads up shooters, even in the early days. In addition to the high stock dimensions mentioned in Drew's study of recorded stock dimensions, Annie Oakley used very high dimension stocks both in her Lancaster and her Parker guns, suggesting that she shot with her cheek firmly buried on the comb. IN MY OPINION, open faced shooting style is best used with fairly open bored guns and when hitting all the marks shot at is not imperative for success. Examples would be when the targets are quite numerous and the easy ones can be shot at and the difficult ones passed up. Another example is shooting for no money. Again, in my opinion, closed face or cheek to stock style became popular when people started shooting for money and had to hit all the targets shot at and when wild game birds and fowl became less numerous. Drew mentions the case of Baron Wallingham (or whomever) who shot thousands of driven grouse with cylinder bored guns.

[Researcher]

It appears to me from the pictures in the article that the Mr. Sereck R. Fox had his 4- and 4 1/4 -inch drop guns built by the A.H. Fox Gun Co.

Lon B. Smith, of a later time, shot NID model Ithacas of rather extreme stock style --

[Drew Hause]

Turn-of-the-century British gunners shot 'heads up'; American wingshooters and trap shooters mostly 'head down.' Interesting that the American team with their Parkers and Smiths kicked British behind big time in the 1901 Anglo-American match. The London pundits blamed this on the fact that the Yanks were only 'trick shots' and the disadvantage of the Brits having to use BOTH barrels

The Country Life (London)
When it goes forth to the world that the Americans have beaten the Englishmen, in a team match of ten shooters each, in three test matches, and the Americans did this with one barrel, whereas the Englishmen used two, the prestige of this country will not be improved as a shooting nation. In one sense it will suffer rightly enough; in another, it will be a quite unfair inference. In watching the performance of the Americans, good shots that they are, the writer could only feel that if it were necessary to shoot in that style, it would be better to give up shooting altogether.
A good game shooter would not consider that his ability was tested in its most important points when the game always rose at one spot in front of him, in the way it did in this Anglo-American competition. Even when several rises are used, as they are occasionally under the system called ‘unknown traps and angles,’ the limitation of rise and of angle is too great to be considered first rate practice for game shooting.
At clay bird competitions, and for winning under present rules, the choke-bore and the pigeon guns and loads are the most effective by far. The Americans go to extremes because their object is to break clays. We bolt between two minds and get beaten by the Americans because we do not go to extremes; and we frighten away English sportsmen because we go toward trick shooting half-way, which is further than real game shots go.
It is impossible to agree that the (Americans) would necessarily be good game shots, or that they could even break clays if the rules of sport were present in the conditions.

W.R. Crosby with his Smith then defeated the Scottish champion shot, Faulds, at Glasgow, Scotland. Each shot at 100 pigeons from ground traps and 50 pigeons from tower traps. Crosby scored 139 to Faulds’ 134.
http://www.la84foundation.org/Sports.../SL3715020.pdf
http://www.la84foundation.org/Sports.../SL3715021.pdf

More about 1/2 way down here http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfg2hmx7_309ckt6hmd4