Gun fit question: when touching cheek to stock, how much, if any, rib should you see, or should the bead be resting on top of the receiver?

I see the rib- but I'm looking right down it. If there was a middle bead it would be in the bottom of the front one. Paul

Thanks Paul, but I'm not sure what that means. Do you mean you see a fraction of rib, i.e, 1/16" or so?

My old guns when I put them up to shoot, I really don't see anything except the target. I shoot with both eyes and to tell the truth I don't pay attention to the barrels.
Now on a few new (old guns) ones, I have not shot yet, I will take them and "aim" them looking down the barrels and just seeing the bead at the end and see how they shoot. Most have between 13 3/4"-14 1/4" LOP, drop between 2 3/4"-3" at the heel. As far as castoff I have no idea what that means.
In your question you had asked about how much rib you should see, I think that the more you see of the rib the higher you will shoot. They say that guns with two beads that you are supposed to "stack" them on top of one another for rising shots.
I used to do a reasonable amount of skeet shooting, was good for mid 40's out of 50, more fun than anything, just practice.
Taking a gun and putting it up to your shoulder in your house or at a gun shop, we do look down the barrels, but in hunting, I don't see the barrels at all, almost like the International way of shooting.

Is there is no pat answer. It depends on where you want the point of pattern impact relative to the point of aim and how the rib is set up. There is no law that ribs are parallel to the bore nor is there a standard as to how high above the bore axis the rib actually is. Further, nobody but you actually knows what you see when shooting.

Spend some time actually patterning for POA vs POI, take rib measurements, and then pay attention to what works for you when shooting targets.

Thanks JDW, that's been my experience too - see the bird, hit the bird. Just curious if there was a general rule about seeing a bit of rib or not.

On most of my guns, I see some rib between the middle and front bead. That's just me, not a "rule". Many trapshooters say they like to see the beads stacked, like an "8", middle bead touching the bottom of the front bead. On older guns with a lot of drop, I still like to see the rib but I must place my cheek a bit above the comb to do this. Rocketman's answer was excellent, IMO.

Dude, you shouldn't see any rib. If your rib's stickin out you should see a doctor.

Ribs are not parallel to the bore, just as rifle sights are not parallel to a rifle bore. All projectiles fall with gravity. There is 'rise' built in to even a field shotgun. Trap guns have much rise, since they are designed to shoot a rising target.

The advantage of a rib is primarily in repeatable gun mount. How much rib you see depends on how the gun is stocked, and to a certain extent how you mount it because we have the ability to adjust ourselves to the gun (some more than others).

Your shooting style will determine how much rib you need to see. Personally, I like a high shooting gun, so I never have to 'cover' the bird except on incomers. Not important how much rib you see, but that it's consistant shot to shot.

My notion is that every time I miss a duck I think I saw too much rib. Those times my head was down I hit the duck. Doesn't apply for grouse. Snap shots, there's probably a lot of rib which is good.

Great posts all, thank you very much.

Mark,

In the classic sense, you should see bead and no rib; essentially looking right down the barrels. However, I don’t know too many shooters who do their best shooting this way. Most tend to shoot best when they see a little rib and the most common “sight picture” (hate to use that analogy when talking shotguns), is the “figure 8.” The “figure 8” is when you shoulder the shotgun (assuming you have a mid bead), you see the front bead stacked right on top of the mid bead, making an “8.” This is probably as good a yardstick as any, but the real answer is: It varies from shooter to shooter, from gun to gun, and the type of shooting you do.

Now there’s a statement that doesn’t help you at all, but unfortunately that’s the way it is. Just start with something that gives you a consistent mount and see how you do at your favorite sport (hunting, trap, skeet, sporting etc.). When you see consistency forming, then you have something you can work with. If you’re consistently shooting low, then raise the comb and see more rib. If you’re shooting left (assuming you’re right handed), then add in a little cast to your stock. Eventually you’ll starting really hitting and that’s when you know you’re either there, or very close.

Just as a matter or information, the difference in plane of sights/ribs is to compensate for recoil, not the drop of the projectile.

Best, Dick

In the old classic British gun fitting check, I understand that a one pound coin was placed on the breech end of the rib on top of the barrels. Apparently everything is correct if you can just see the bead lying just on top of the coin with the gun properly mounted. So say the Anglophiles. Maybe some of our good British friends could comment on this method.

The more rib you see the better you will shoot.

Bob, yes that is a well known method of guaging the sight picture. It certainly has the desired effect, but I often wonder if people initially shoot better when they have been told that the gun fits them? They then go out and concentrate on the bird.Until the wheels fall off, then they look for another reason for bad form such as choke, too much? or too little? How many of you have had 'new gun syndrome' picked up a new gun or borrowed one, and have then shot like a god only to slump back into your old form a little while later?
Recently I had a sponsored Perazzi, custom fitted stock, factory deal, the full nine yards, laser fitting machine, trip to Italy etc., Long story, short version, 5 stocks later, I nearly got comfortable with a stock that they said didn't look right.By this time I'm thoroughly cheesed off and return to my old baby. ( Not a Perazzi)
You can't put a price on success, try the gun, shoot the gun, pattern the gun, but at the end of the day it's what works for you.
Some people like to see a lot of rib, some people like to see no rib, some people like to see a bit of rib.
Your not some people, your an individual.

Sorry. But I don't agree with any of you. How much rib you are going to see and what your sight picture looks like depends on what you are shooting at and the type of gun you have. If you are hunting your two beads should line up one behind the other and you shouldn't see any rib. If you are holding a hunting gun with your beads stacked, that means that you have probably slid the heal of the gun too far down on your shoulder to the point where the toe is no longer in the pocket of your shoulder. And if you have your beads stacked, as Joe says on a hunting gun, when you shoot at a falling bird, such as one going down over a hill, you will probably shoot over the bird. So for hunting, I would say that you want the beads to align one behind the other so that you can shoot at rising OR falling targets. And you should not see any rib.

Now with a trap gun, most guys liked to have their beads stacked because you are shooting at rising targets almost all of the time. So you will then see the entire rib, in most cases. (But the rib on a trap gun can still taper downward (as it gets toward the muzzle)on top of the barrel. You can still stack your beads because the buttstock is made so that you face is lifted up over the gun and you are looking down on the rib. This is why people have adjustable cheek pieces, so they can adjust them to fit their faces. Trap guns shoot 70/30, 65/35, etc. meaning that 70% of the shot will be above where they are aiming and 30% is below. I can't imagine hunting with a field gun with the rib in a position where you see the whole rib on a falling bird. But I think the answer to this question is: It depends on the target and what type of gun you are using and what type of sight picture you need to have.

What we are considering here in gun-fit terms is 'drop'.

Side by sides tend to shoot lower than o/u guns and the correct amount of 'drop' for a side-by-side will generally show the iris of the shooter's eye resting on the rib when you look down the barrel from the muzzles (of a proven empty gun).

The more rib the shooter sees, the higher the gun will shoot.

A trap set-up o/u will see the eye higer over the rib than a Skeet set-uo o/u, in which the pupil will be resting on the rib when viewed from the muzzle.

You can play with this to adjust a gun to shoot higher relative to the point of aim.

A common flaw is where too much 'drop' is provided and when the shooter's cheek is firmly in contact with the face of the comb, as it should be for consistent mounting, the eye is looking into the top-lever. this leads to head raising, which leads to inconsistent, poor shooting.

Shotgun bead....what is that ?

Shotgun bead=front sight. (Some have an extra one in the middle.)

I'm not conscious of how much rib I see when I shoot birds; try not to be when I shoot targets (mostly skeet). But when I'm evaluating a potential shotgun purchase for fit, if I mount the gun like I would when hunting (don't try to "sight" down the barrels) and can't see either rib or bead, I know the stock has too much drop.

I know what it is...I also know that guys that look at them don't hit very well.

I've never figured out why I would want the target to disappear from view at or near the moment of the shot. Difficult to 'keep your eye on target' if the gun demands the target be covered with the muzzle.

Incoming shots excepted, I like to see the target when I shoot - thus the preference for a high shooting gun.

I sold off two very nice 20ga SxS guns simply because they required a technique which I don't enjoy.

Wobble trap is a good trainer for shooting targets that are not rapidly rising, and the game can be played with a standard trap gun just fine if you simply keep the bird in view. Ditto falling targets on the SC course, or decoying ducks. Just remember that if you don't see the bird, you will likely overshoot.

No big mystery to this... except the continued assertion by some that they 'never see' the sights or gun barrel. Shooting any gun without reference to some kind of front sight is impossible.

Paying attention to the beads is essential when trap shooting, Joe. You have to mount the gun, lock it onto your face and stack the beads before you call for the target. If you keep the gun locked against your face as you follow the bird, you won't have to look at the beads but they should still be stacked. The gun will then continue to follow where you look without looking at the beads. You said earlier that "the more rib you see the better you will shoot." This makes no sense. If you tip the gun upward in order to see the entire rib with a field gun, you will shoot over everything you shoot at unless you hold two or three feet under the bird. With a field grade, you should only see the back of the rib, and even though you don't actually look at the beads when you are shooting at a target, the beads should be aligned if the gun fits you. You will know this, as Larry said, when you buy the gun and mount it to see if it fits you properly.

A quick look at a number of SXS's muzzles shows the top of the rib in relation to the top of the barrels varies greatly. A LC Smith that I own has its rib much higher than the top of the barrels and a French gun that I own has its's rib below the top of it's barrels. I don't think that you can judge where the pattern center will hit by looking at the gun. You must pattern it to see. It all basicly boils down to stock fit assuming that you always hold your cheak to the stock. Case in point. I purchased a 28Ga with it's stock a full inch longer than I normally shoot wich is 14 1/4". The gun with it's long stock showed some barrel when mounted and I was able to hit with it regardless of the overly long stock for me. I removed 1" to make it 14 1/4" and now it showed what seemed to me to be an excessive amount of barrel. I thought that wow this gun is going to shoot high and was going to start to rasp the stock comb down so that I would only see a "normal" amont of rib. I took it to the pattern sheet with a rasp ready to start grinding away and wouldn't you know that that gun centers it's pattern 50/50 to the bead! Thank God I patterned it before I started rasping away wood or I would have to restock. It shows alot of barrel when mounted but hits dead on. I was actually hopeing that I could make it shoot slightly high but it shoots well like it is. I think stacking beads and what is the proper amount of rib showing is a bunch of molarky. Where the gun shoots for you is what counts. A center pattern or one that's a little high is best. I even shot trap with a field dimension stock as I don't want to spoil myself using a trap stock. That's fine if that's all you shoot but when you do it all it pays to keep the pattern center near the bead and adjust your swing for the diffrent shots that occur.

Shotgunjones, you are the only one here who is talking about covering up the bird with the muzzle. If you are covering up the bird with the muzzle you are simply not moving the gun fast enough to lead the target. And, yes, you can shoot wobble trap with a standard trap gun because only a few of the birds go out straight and drop off. And when they do, you have to be way under the bird. Not many people want to hunt with a gun that shoots 80/20 or 70/30. Especially duck, geese, etc. because most of the time the birds are dropping. THEN, you would probably end up covering up the bird with the muzzle, like you say you don't want to. Field guns are flatter shooting than trap guns. If you take a field gun and try to pattern it with about the beads stacked or a gap between the beads, you would probably shoot over the top of the board.

The height of the rib above the bore does not correlate with point of impact. It's the angle between the rib and bore, coupled with comb height. High rib trap guns allow for a more erect head position, and are thus easier on the cheek. It's the comb height that results in a high shooting gun.

Jim, you would be correct if lead in the vertical plane was all we needed. Then, a fast swing through would solve the problem of a low shooting gun. Consider a crossing target. With a low shooter, one must swing through the bird, losing sight of it while passing... either that or use a sustained lead or perhaps start the swing from a point in front of the bird, all viable techniques. Shooters do all this, some better than others.

Being an old trap shooter (and getting older), my shooting is mostly swing-through. A high shooting gun within reason is preferred.

To add a bit of dialogue, I find that a bit more drop [think seeing a bit less rib] is desireable when snap shooting, as in field shooting compared to any of the target games where the gun is typically premounted. I have the thot it is because I tend to have my head more erect in the field, bringing the gun to face & into the target so to speak rather than going through the antics of a down the line[trap] or target shooter where the mount is some sort of drill, inclusive of at least a momentary glance at the beads to check for 'just right', no cant, 'hold point', etc. before calling for the target. I am of the opinion that target & field stocks and their respective 'sight pictures' are generally not the same animal, nor should they be. Trap guns are purposely made to shoot high where the target is as Jimmy says normally rising. Some are made to extremes. OTOH, shooting birds like chucker that are almost always falling targets, blasting off some cliff's edge or rise in a downward direction would tend to be shot best by a gun that if pre-mounted might have you looking at the back of the receiver.

For flairing incomers &/or direct overhead shots the bird, for me, is never seen at the moment of firing because I will have covered it entirely with the muzzles to have successfully made the shot. If I see the bird under those circumstances I will have not only missed, but also generally 'come out of the gun', meaning raised my head or 'peeked'. That is the one time, for me, where staying in the gun to the extent of consciously pressing my face into the gun is requisite. I shoot station 8 low gun skeet that way as well.

How much rib? Perhaps the better answer is to have someone knowledgeable help you evaluate where you are shooting the gun in question and adjust from there. Rocketman's and Salopian's remarks are both poignant.

This is a good topic becasue it all boils down to proper gun mounting.
When I was younger I was told by someone to close my eyes and throw the gun up and and open my eyes and see how much of the rib was showing if any. Most of my guns fit in this range of just seeing along the barels evenly.
Now I never did any trap shooting, just skeet and sporting clays, but I do know that trap guns are built for rising targets.
Since most of the shotguns I use for both hunting and target, and I know how they fit even with heavier clothing on. I don't like recoil pads especially with heavier clothing because they don't let you get that little extra "fit" when mounted.

Reading all these posts, and then experiencing it, are two different things. I just purchased a new gun, and see a bit of rib, which I'm not used to, hence the question. However, a day at the range and the patterning board shows it shoots dead on. So, I really did answer my own question, and the posts here have served to drive the point home that the only thing that matters is how the gun shoots for you as an individual.

Trap shooting....with a mounted gun is a sport for Zombies.

Yup.

Marklart, are you saying that when you align the center bead BEHIND the front bead and aim them at a mark on the patterning board, that the pattern perfectly surrounds the mark that you were aiming at? Or are you stacking the front bead on top of the middle bead. Where do you see "a bit of rib"? Do you mean between the beads?

Just go buy a British one pound coin.........that is, if any one who gets paid in dollars could afford one. works great!

That "fitting check" is much more recent than you think....In the days of classic British guns there was no such thing as the pound coin. There were sovereigns, coins worth 21 shillings, and these were much thinner. The pound coin is a recent invention, imposed on my neighbours in 1983. At that time there was a move to name it a “Maggie,” after Mrs. Thatcher, as it was "hard, thick, had rough edges and thought it was a sovereign."
I'm old enough to remember when 6d was a week's pocketmoney, a night out as a student could be had for 10/6 and a pound was a fortune!!
K.

This site, and this thread in particular, has been very helpful. I wasn't aware of the British gun fitting check, but now that I have a gun that fits that paramater, I feel much better about it.

If it shoots where you want, and your pupil is just on top of the rib, or even higher, that should be OK. If your eye is low enough so that someone looking back from the muzzle could only see part of your pupil, then you would be giving up some target visibility. You would see some rib if your pupil is completely on top of it, even if the bottom of your pupil is just even with the top of the rib.

A SxS with big fences tends to block the view when mounted. Seeing a little more rib might help seeing the target. A technique that involves firing just as the mount completes could help, too.

Ribs, beads, barrels are all just in the sight picture to give the eye a reference point to use in the quest to get the shot where you are looking. It is not like using iron sight on a rifle where it is important to line them up and have them in perfect target, front sight and rear sight picture to get the bullet on target. Some of us see all the rib and other see almost none of the rib.

I place far more value on point of impact than anything else. If the gun hits where I am looking then the beads and ribs are not that big of a deal. If it does not hit where I am looking then no sighting down the rib will make it right.

I like to see a full rack of ribs on my plate.

You are absolutely right, J. Hall. When you have someone mount their gun and point it right toward your eye, if it is a hunting gun, then the beads will be lined up, one behind the other and they should not see the top of the rib. Their eye will be on the same plane as the rib. So how do these guys think you will be looking down on the rib. If someone mounts a trap gun, stacks the beads on top of each other and points it at your eye, then they will be looking DOWN on the rib and see down the whole length of the rib. It's as simple as that. If one gets the process backwards, and mounts a field gun like a trap gun, then you will have to compute two angles when following a bird- how low to hold the gun under the bird AND how far to lead it. Not too many people do that. If they do, that's OK but that's not the proper way to do it and I would certainly never teach a beginner to use a field gun like that.

Note that most of the time, your ducks are dropping while most of the time, the grouse are rising. I think that explains most of it. You are having verticle lead issues.

Brent

Jimmy, do most hunting guns have two beads? Mine don't.

Approx. 3/8".

Not all guns have two beads, Bob. If they do, they should be placed one behind the other. Then you shouldn't see any rib. If they don't have two beads, you should still be looking straight down the rib so that your eye is in plane behind the rib and the bead should be on (or leading) the target. If you look down on the rib and can see the whole rib, then the gun is going to shoot higher than it is supposed to and the shooter is going to have to caculate the distance of the bird/target, how low to hold/shoot under the bird to calculate for this plus how much of a lead to have on the target. Much easier to just look down the rib, and calculate the lead than doing both. Or look at it this way, when you shoot a handgun, are the top of both sights (front and rear) level? Or do you raise the front sight so that it is higher than the back one? What's going to happen? It is going to shoot high. Unless you are shooting long range and walking the bullets out to the target, you aren't going to shoot that way are you?