I have one of the RBL Launch 20 bores with tubes. I have used it on skeet (with the skeet and IC tubes) with no major issues. I tried it on sporting clays and a round of "skrap" (with the Full and IM tubes) and found that I was missing birds that I knew damned well should have broken. These were mostly 35-40 yard birds. 2 of us got together for a pattern plate party at our range and low and behold the RBL is shooting its pattern centers about 12-18" low at 25 yards, regardless of choke tube used or the shooter doing the testing. Any thoughts on options other than selling the bloody thing or going through another dance with the people at CSMC? I do not love it enough to spend much money trying to put it right, but I also don't feel right about selling someone this contraption.

Randy,
There are at least a couple ways to change the POI.

The quickest is to actually bend the barrels believe it or not. Bending the stock is another.

Thanks, Chuck. We were discussing bending the barrels. I live about 5 miles from Griffin & Howe. Do you think that they would/could do it properly? If not do you have any recommendations for a smith in the East?

One of my shooting pals bought the same exact gun brand new about 5 years ago and had the same piss-poor patterning problems- he sent it back for a refund or exchange, but Galazan "reworked" it somehow and *&^%$# it up ever more- so now he calls his the "Lunch edition" instead of the "Launch" edition= as he gets violently ill and loses his lunch whenever he sees it in his gun safe--

First of all I would try this to confirm your ideas

http://www.cabelas.com/stocks-grips-accessories-cabelas-leather-cheek-pad.shtml

Good luck
Mike

Sometimes simply putting a tiny front bead into place works for a gun shooting low.
The shooter has a tendency to bring the muzzle up a bit higher. Same as if a rifle front sight was too short, it shoots too high. Something you need in this case.
Doesn't always work. Depends on the shooter, his/her style, sight picture (or not!) ect.
Worth a try. Maybe try it on clay birds w/o a bead at all and see if you naturally point it a bit higher.
Just a thought before the bending process begins.

Thanks for the thoughts. First, RWTF and I have kindred views of the vendor's shop. I will try some layers of moleskin to see if that helps a la the Cabela's pad suggested by skeetx. My buddy and I were discussing the bead and I agree with Kutter that I need to try for an easy fix prior to surgery. I will advise when and if we fix it. Meanwhile, a happy 4th to all!

B&T,
My opinion: you should just get ahold of CSM and tell them the problem. If they fix it, it's warranteed. If anyone else does it and the ribs get loose, you have to cover it. The risk of loosening the ribs is low, but why not give CSM a chance to cover it on their nickel?

Its a game gun not a target gun. Just point the barrels at the bird.

how about changing butt stock pitch?

A shotgun that shoots 12 inches low would be a piece of junk for me. Either remedy it or get rid of it. To change POI that much you will probably have to bend the barrels. To really tell you need to shoot a 5 shot group at a pattern plate. A single shot tells one nothing.

Are you certain that the barrels shoot low, or does the gun shoot low? This is two different things. If the gun shoots low stock change can correct by raising the comb. Decrease in pitch would help some but not 12 inches. Are you patterning with a bench support? (I doubt if you used two shooters). Bob

You guys are nuts to even consider bending the barrels. For under $250 any competent stock bender can bend the stock up to correct the low shooting. Before you send it to a bender, use a consistent aim and shoot at a single point for many shots until a definite hole develops where the pattern centers. You can then determine how much the stock needs to be bent. If you shoot at 20 yards the pattern will develop quicker and will be more visible. Then use the ratios of the shooting distance (720 inches for 20 yards) and the adjustment needed, say 6 inches, to the disance from the front sight to your eye, about 36 inches for me, and solve for the adjustment of the stock at the point directly below your eye. For a gun that shoots 6 inches low at 20 yards, the correction would require you to raise the stock (6X36)/720 = .3 inches directly below your eye. That's probably easily achievable with an RBL. Remember that the adjustment is made at the point below the eye rather than the heel of the stock.

Hi;

You may be wise to contact Mile Orlen about bending the stock if it needs to be bent.

He charged me $100.00 to bend a stock on a SxS.

Good luck,

Franchi

Just my 2 cents, but a gun shooting 12-18" low at 25 yrds isn't going to be corrected by a shorter bead or a pitch change.

Bending barrels is a subtle thing with a big POI change. Examine them closely to see if they are straight (in the horizontal plane) or if they curve down slightly.

Most all the SxS's I've shot looking flat down the rib will shoot low.

People unfamiliar with shooting SxS's bear down too much on the gun and their sight picture is looking too flat down the rib and they shoot low.

We used 3 shooters with mutiple (at least 3 shots each. We weren't using a bench but were each using a rifle style hold, not mounting and shooting. All shots were with the same Winchester factory loads (that I always use) of the same lot.
We all shot low. Since I am 6'5" and have a 37" sleeve so I tried it with and without a slip on pad. Result was the same as I would expect.

Also not that this was all undertaken to understand why I was missing long shots very consistently. Those shots were taken low gun, mount and fire.

Well, since it seems that you, like another gentleman mentioned, have a "LUNCH" Edition, I will take the aggravator off your hands for, oh I don't know, maybe 500 bucks.


Seriously, I would ask the manufacturer to make it right.

Yes, it's at least well worth asking if CSMC will help you out before doing anything else.

Sorry, help me understand. You said skeet was not a problem. Do you shoot skeet with a premounted gun? Yet at 25 yards the pattern was a foot or more low. Have you shot some more skeet with good breaks? Has the gun been dropped? Thanks Bob

"Not a problem" is relative. I shoot everything low gun since my club is friendly about such things. The larger patterns of the Skeet and IC chokes put enough pattern out to be forgiving so my results at skeet were acceptable if not stellar. It was only when I endeavored to use the gun at "skrap" and sporting clays that I noticed misses that were not operator error and went to the pattern board. The gun has not been dropped but may soon be in the state of CT...

All you have to do is to look down the clean bores from the breech end.
If the "rings" the shadow from the chokes are not concentric are not concentric the barrels are not straight.
Now, I actually heard this at a Provincial Trapshoot re bending a barrel:
"Place a bag of shot on a picnic table. # 7 1/2 works best. Remove the barrel from the gun. Take the barrel in the hand and raise up high, and bring down smartly on the bag of shot, bearing in mind the new direction you want the shot pattern to go"
In this case I think the comb needs raising, unless you or someone else, drove a vehicle over it, don't laugh, ask me how I know!

An RBL Launch has a through bolt and you are going to be limited as to how much you can bend that stock. If you are certain you checked for POI correctly send it back and ask for a new set of barrels. Why would you want to pay anything to correct a problem like that?

I agree with Chicago. If this gun indeed shoots 12-18 inches low, you should send it back to the maker for remedy. If you purchased the gun 'used' you might have a problem returning it, although there is another thread right now as to how CSMC bends over backwards to satisfy their customers. I guess you will find out. In terms of determining POI, you need to shoot at least a 5 shot group, more would be better, even 10 shots, because you might 'flinch' on one or two of the shots. See where the pattern is most dense and that is POI. That's how people who alter barrels do it. Changing a sight will only change POI by about an inch. A stock alteration, only a couple more, maybe a little more. If you put an adjustable comb somewhat higher, but I doubt you want to go that route on a bird gun. Changing choke angle in the barrel itself, only 1 to maybe 1.5 inches at most. For me, I like a gun to shoot 3-4 inches high. The only way to raise POI to suit my taste in a gun that shoots that low would be to bend the barrels up, if indeed the gun shoots that low after thorough testing. It really isn't that big of a deal to bend these barrels. Before the advent of the adjustable rib, trap shooters did this with their guns as pretty much common place. The famous gunsmith and barrel man, Herb Orre had an apparatus for bending barrels and did this procedure to many a shotgun, and very effectively. This is just my humble opinion, but I don't see any other way to raise POI 14-20 inches which is what it would take to suit me. Oh, I forgot, pitch. Changing pitch to negative can raise POI, but again, only a minor, minor amount.

Who looks at the bead when there shooting flying targets???

Good point Ken. I recall a particular gun I shot a lot of skeet with that would toss the front bead off about twice a year. I would shoot for quite a while before I would notice it was gone. It never seemed to change the way I shot or the score.

I would definitely be talking to Galazan at some point prior to going off on your own with barrel bending or stock alterations. If your patterns are acceptable with the open chokes and shooting low with your tight choke tubes there is an outside chance that you have some bad choke tubes.

Try patterning both to see if you have the same problem so you will have a pretty good idea of what is going on when you talk to Galazan.

Before you do that I would also recommend that you pattern like you shoot. That is raise the gun acquire the center of the pattern board and fire. See if that affects your patterns placement. Looking down the rib as in sighting a rifle will often give you an incorrect pattern placement because you are, for lack of better words, squeezing your cheek into the butt stock and lowering your eye position.

May not work for you but it is worth a try.

The OP says the gun shoots 12-18 inches low at 25 yds. You would only need one reasonably well-done shot on patterning board to see there is something terribly wrong with the gun if it is indeed that far off. In that case, a return to CSMC is the remedy.

However, the "12-18 inches low" statement makes it sound to me like the patterning board work was not all that carefully done, since a good session at the patterning board can determine average point of impact to within less than an inch (i.e., consistent mounting, careful shooting, averaging a sufficient number of shots, even checking the standard deviation, etc.). Consequently, I don't think we really know how far off the gun is shooting. Until we know the actual amount of POI error, we don't know the best fix.

If it were me, I would redo the patterning session being very careful to get good reliable results before deciding what to do. If you are going to send the gun back to CSMC claiming a large POI error, you would want good solid data to back up your claim, anyway.

JMHO

--shinbone

Shin,
He stated earlier that 3 shooters tried this gun and all three got the same results. He tried it with and without a slipon pad for his long LOP. He tried different choke tubes.

I think he's down to: "...there is something terribly wrong..."

CSM would no doubt pattern the gun themselves when returned and give their assessment. They may elect to replace the barrels or even the whole gun if they agree.

Chuck - you are correct. I am just thinking the info provided suggests that we are not sure just how far off the gun really is. Off by 2" can be fixed by bending the stock; off by 12" inches and it is back to CSMC. I am just suggesting doing some careful measuring before doing the equivalent of wacking the barrels against a bag of 7-1/2 shot.

The OP could send the gun back to CSMC and let them determine the extent of the problem, but I would want to know that info for myself rather than rely on the manufacturer who may possibly be motivated to err on the side of "it is within spec" to avoid having to do unpaid warranty work. Not that CSMC would ever cut corners.

FWIW

It will be interesting to hear the report on the moleskin or raising the comb of the buttstock.

Randall any idea on when you will do the test?

Mike

Same here Chuck. I had a sporting clay gun that I knocked the bead off of, everyone except me noticed it was gone

Gents, I won't get to try the stock adjustment and a longer string of shots to set POI until this weekend at the earliest. I will give it a fair shake and report on the result. At that point I will be down to deciding what to do.

Thanks for all the thoughtful advice.

What's unclear to me in combing this thread is whether the shooter is looking down the rib when the gun is fired. If the shooter has a "flat" picture in relation to the barrels, then the barrels should impact centered on point of aim. With this sort of "aim" of the barrels, if they then hit significantly off, the barrels themselves are at fault.

So, is it gun fit or barrel malfunction? If the latter, send the gun back to CSMC rather than bending in the full of the moon, etc.

No one is looking for a simple solution...

This is a good suggestion, very overlooked. I was shooting low on crossers with my Rizzini clays gun when an adept instructor ( Anthony Matarese) adjusted my pitch using a folded up piece of shell box wedged in between my butt pad and stock.....problem solved. After the lesson had my smith make the change permanent and I moved on happy.

Well, here we are 2 months later. My gunsmith looked at the possibilities and after he tested the gun the result was the same, POI 9" low and 3" left. Because his firm is old and respected he decided to let CSMC have a go at fixing their defective product. He returned it and CSMC put new barrels with new screw in chokes, "regulated POI" and returned it as "repaired". Upon test here POI was still 9" low and 3" left, and the barrels were really new, believe me. So to make this insane saga end the smith applied a little pressure to the barrels (bent them!) and POI is where it should be. So much for my RBL adventures. No more CSMC products at my house, ever.

Randall: Glad you got the gun's POI regulated. I have never owned an RBL, but I have handled one, and I have to admit, they feel pretty darn good for a relatively low priced SxS box lock shotgun. I really wouldn't mind having one, but I swore off anything CSMC sells due to a previous poor business deal with them (it would take too long to tell that tale). Now, if I was looking for a new S x S in that price range I think I would go with Merkel, Beretta or Fausti and forget about American made (reluctantly). Anyway, I am glad you got the problem solved.

Thanks for the report
Mike

My experience with CSM has been very positive. I bot a full featured 20 on secondary market that I can shoot clays with better than any of several other SxS's I own. CSM exchanged some chokes for me that were super tite for some of the best IC,LM and M chokes I have ever used...free of charge. They kindley sent me set of unchoked replacement barrels for my 16ga (bot from them) for some work I wanted done by Briley...no charge. I have been a good customer and they have treated me well.

I enjoyed my RBL but the stock drop was too low and the through bolt precluded bending the stock enough to make it fit.

It seems more than a little odd that two sets of barrels would be identically off in POI - though I suppose in a production gun like this a batch of barrels could have come through the line with the same defect.

If the through bolt were accidentally bent out of line before the stock was installed, is it possible that when the stock was intalled and through bolt was tightened, it pulled the stock out of alignment with the action and the barrels? My son'e Benelli Montefeltro has shims that are used on the through bolt to change stock drop and cast.