Where do you set your butt?

[Snakebite]

Ditto Roundball. Both my Hawken and Souther Mountain rifles have cresent buttplates, they fit on my shoulder and line up perfectly with my eye. I don't understand putting it out on your arm, you have to cock your head over to look down the sights. :shake:

Not if the stock is made with proper cast-off. Production guns, made with the idea of getting the highest number of stocks out of the least amount of wood don't bother with such niceties. And most shooters, used to modern cartridge guns that don't have cast-off for the same reason, don't know the difference. But there surely is a big one and that's one more reason to get a custom gun.

My custom flintlock has cast-off, fits real good right off my shoulder on my arm and I don't have to cock my head to look down the sights.

sixbull

Same here. When I mount my rifles I'm automatically looking at my sights without moving my head, real nice to be able to do that.

Both the guns I'm talking about are custom and fitted to me. I can close my eyes, bring the gun up to my shoulder and look right down the sights. I can stick them out on my arm and scrunch up and they come in to alignment, but that's not nearly as normal feeling TO ME as putting it on my shoulder, but to each his own and what ever works for you. I shoot a shotgun quite a bit and I know that fit is one of the most important things in shooting. I've just never had a problem shooting a gun with a crescent butt from the shoulder and for me, that is the most comfortable place to mount it.

 

[roundball]

Plus a lot of this whole mounting/fitting/recoil discussion probably has individual / personal variables in it too...for example when I was a small skinny boney kid recoil was probably a bigger issue than it is for me today 50 years later at 6'4"/225lbs.

 

[bdhutier]

Pocket all the way, baby!!

 

[robertdale]

here's some thing to add to the mix. a lot of cast butt plates are made from orginals. the average person of thw 18 th centruey was much smaller in sature. the crecentt butt was shot off the gap between the bicep and shoulder. this is my opinon only as no one from 1798 is around to tell us.except some ware marks on shirts

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Some of my rifles can't be mounted as you would mount a modern firearm. The curvature of the buttpiece is so great that if I try to shoulder the piece, it ends up canted with the toe under my armpit and the heel tilted inside the deltoid. A proper sight picture is out of the question.

The same gun mounted out on the upper arm between deltoid and bicep mounts perfectly with the sights lined up precisely. No head tilting or grotesque postures are required--the rifle is built as the original was and everything was taken into account. I've heard it said that one advantage to this mount is that it allows shooting from cover without exposing as much of one's self. Might even be true.

 

[Dphar]

Rifle butt that is.
I have always placed the butt of the rifle on my shoulder (except those times when a fast shot with the shotgun ended up with the butt between my shoulder and bicep!)
I've noticed that alot of muzzle loaders seem to like the upper arm for resting the rifle butt instead of the shoulder.
Was the upper arm rest the preferred way to shoot in the 1700-1800 period?
Or was it just (to each his own) way to shoot?

Its buttplate specific. The deep crescents that became popular in the early 19th century and these can't be shot well off the shoulder, they fit the arm.
The early guns and guns with a shotgun butt fit the shoulder OK

Dan

 

[musketman]

I always plant the buttstock of any longarm in the pocket of the shoulder. Quick shots with a shotgun make no difference to me, the stock is always in the shoulder.

Me too, grew up shooting a 20 gauge Savage double barrel shot gun and that carried was of shouldering the gun over into adult hood, must be why I love muskets so much.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

My muskets, fowlers and early rifles shoulder just fine in the modern way. But my later, deep crescent style rifles simply cannot be shouldered in this way. They were never meant to be.