Straight Stock and Pitch

[Pa SxS]

Robin,

In my opinion it depends on how you perceive recoil. If you don't notice recoil to your face on all your guns then pitch is not a problem for you. If you notice recoil to your face but all you do is shoot your gun during hunting season, you may decide to live with it the way it is. I was told that most hunting guns have about neutral pitch so that when mounting quickly, the heel slides easily up to the shoulder. Don't know if that's true or not.

If however you shoot alot of skeet, trap, or sporting clays where you may shoot several hundred shots per day, recoil to the face is not something you may be able to tolerate for a long period of time. I've shot trap all my life and just about every gun I've tried recoils into my face. I could have bought a nice Parker for all the money I've sent on recoil devices. I bought a K-80 some years ago and it also recoiled to my face. I had Paul Hillmer make me a custom stock and I told him about the recoil to my face. He said he could fix that and he did. Examining the new stock, the only real difference is he increaed the amount of pitch to the butt. It's now has about 8 degrees from neutral. What a pleasure to shoot now.

Others may disagree but that's my opinion.

Great thread. I'm from the school of "If it isn't broken- etc" on pitch, and am lucky in that any field grade M12 Winchester with factory stock made from 1936 through 1960 will fit me "near perfect" for field and casual clays shooting. Trap, Skeet, SC and perhaps Live birds, another scenario for gun fit perhaps. So the answers of- No recoil, if you can hit birds cosistently, etc- ring true. And i am also about 90% a serious waterfowler for all seasons- the early warm Sept. nuisance geese, through flight birds into oct-Nov, ending early Dec. and then the late Jan-Feb season for Geese. That might mean the LOP that worked for Sept. shirtsleeves early Goose hunting on a golf course "poop prize patrol" squad, well you get the drift.

Having done beaucoup steel fabrication work, as well as being a proficient rough-in and finish carpenter, I can say that even with new "production" homes, roughed in in a Midwest late Spring- many builders are loath to hang in the pre-fit exterior doors until later on. Why? because wood shrinks and expands with internal moisture (even treated wood) and the heat of summer and conversely, with the cold of winter. Another example is in finish work, with crown moulding- not all intersecting walls are a true 45% to make a perfect 90%, and you often have to make a "jig tracing" to get a tight, gap free mitered joint--Point is, the door jamb test is a 'field fix" by either the protractor method tends to be more consistent in accuracy.

refering to Jack O'Connor's "The Shotgun Book" Knopf 1965--page 159-he has the outline of a sidelocked DT side-by and dimensions detailed alphabetically- as he shows: "If measurements G (LOP from front trigger to heel of stock) and H (LOP from front trigger to toe of stock) are given, the pitch will be right" I assume he may have mean those measurements as given by the purchaser or the purchaser and a gun fitter with a try gun- just my guess.

Jack also details pitch further on pages 160 and 161. Just for fun, I took my Smith 12 3E with 28" barrels and my Smith Grade 2 with 30" barrels (both have identical stock dims, both made aprox 1908) and after verifying with a framing square and 6 ft. level I had a plumbed to a 90% intersecting door jamb to insure "accuracy" and there is about 3/4" pitch at muzzles difference between those two on the 2" OAL barrel length- Truth be told, there could be any amount of difference between the two and it wouldn't matter at all, as I kill pheasants cleanly over dogs with either one of those 12 bores.

Sometimes, and this is just one old guy's opinion here, perhaps we "over-think" the details, but then, I am apparently an easy person to fit in a shotgun, I can't say. Feathers in the air and a heft to the game strap (within the limit of course) are, to me, the ultimate criteria. I also only shoot 12 bores, so I may have more possible pattern 'forgiveness"!!

[Austin W Hogan]

A dry wall square is not as elegant as a combo gauge, but it will give you all the numbers.

Best, Austin

PS As I remember from analyzing that machine inletted but unfinished DHE stock for DGJ. pitch is established for a Parker stock when the blank is headed up, and the butt plate inletted.

[Bill Murphy]

Robin, if you are confused by the different barrel lengths, just measure the pitch from the same point on each gun. It was asked (by Robin) how we are to use this information. Well, I think we will use the information derived from a gun that feels good and that we shoot well to determine the pitch we would prefer on the next gun we choose to modify. However, that isn't neccesarily true because I own very comfortable guns that have zero pitch and I own very comfortable guns that have three inches of pitch. The only modification I have ever made to the butt of any gun to make it shoot better is to put some sticky stuff on it to keep it from slipping on the second shot. Any deficiency of length or pitch I have taken care of by adjusting my shooting style. Unlike Chuck, I have never had a competition gun that needed an adjustment in pitch to compensate for excessive recoil or cheek slap. Either I am lucky or all of my guns have similar pitch. Actually, I'm just fooling with you because all of my comp guns seem to have about 1 to 2 inches of pitch and all feel the same.

[Ron Scott]

Although almost 10 years old this thread about "pitch" is very interesting and informative. I've never given pitch much thought and now knowing what I know I wonder how much pitch matters.

There is a photo of a highly modified and personalized stock used on a "live bird gun" in Parker Pages 2007 Vol 14 Issue 2 in an article titled: "The Influence of Stock Dimensions, Stock Finish, Butt Plates, and Pads on Parker Desirability"

Obviously whoever modified the stock thought pitch was important. Anything for an extra bird ...

I thought the pitch on my H&R A grade made in the 1880's (photos elsewhere) was excessive when I measured it at 4" but then I checked my modern day Beretta 686 that I use for skeet and shoot fairly well, found it too has 4" of pitch. The stock is straighter but the pitch is the same.

Some say pitch is used to control the way the gun recoils or kicks, others claim that the proper amount of pitch is determined based on the shape of shooter's shoulder pocket. Maybe both claims are right -- maybe it's a combination of the two?

I'm not going to get too hung up on it but I do find it interesting. I also find it interesting how much we have changed the way we mount and shoot a shotgun. Straighter stocks being the norm now. Why did it change? Maybe it has to do with the fact that the old timers did more live bird shooting and we do more clay shooting. An overhead live bird takes a much different gun mount than a straight away trap presentation. You can lean forward when shooting trap -- you can't when taking an overhead incomer.

The H&R that I mentioned has 3 1/2" of drop at heel -- it feels weird to mount in the normal way but when mounted and pointed straight up everything lines up. The right barrel is choked tighter than the left -- a live bird gun... as in driven birds. Birds that are taken almost straight about the shooter. There are so many nice vintage guns with lots or drop at heel -- it would be great to learn how to shoot them well.

Just some food for thought...