I have always puzzled over the fixation with the hinge pin since the only thing unique about it is its easy visibility. There are long actions and short actions, and the hinge pin doesn't do a thing to define where you put either of your hands. Neither does the front of the trigger guard, for that matter. The trigger itself, yes, but that's just half the equation. Then you to just figure that the shooter places his other hand a comfortable distance out under the barrels, hinge pin be damned.
Well said, Ithaca5E. When people don't have an answer for a seemingly logical/simple question they tend to make one up. The hinge pin is kinda/sorta/about/maybe half way between the hands. The idea of center of weight (CG) being "between the hands" is hard to argue with. Somehow, that, over the years, got translated into the hinge pin. And now for the truth! We can reference the CG/balance point/teeter-totter point to any other point on guns. However, the most practical point is, indeed, the (front) trigger. If we do so, then we can easily determine how far it is from CG to center of the rear hand (most people have about 3 - 3 1/2" from the trigger to the center of hand). That is, on a typical game gun with 4 1/2" CG to trigger the CG to center of rear hand will be 7 1/2 - 8". One then measures from the CG to the center of the forward hand, for this example we can say 6". These numbers show that the weight will be proportioned into the hands as 6"/(6" + 8") = 6"/14" = 0.43 = 43% into the front hand and 57% into the rear hand. If we reference to any other point, we still have to get to the hand to CG lengths by extra measurements. The trigger is the only sure point where the gun must be touched to fire. If we stick with the trigger as reference, we are constant from gun to gun and balance can be compared. The preferred % weight in each hand is an individual shooter characteristic.
Questions.
DDA
