You can lump me with Stan and eightbore on this.....as I do like some drop as found in the older guns, especially if descending birds are in the mix.
A short story of one of the better clays shooters at our local club who always shoots high-combed guns. We had a vintage event coming up that he wanted to enter inspite of not owning a SxS. I offered him the trial loan of a Fox Sterlingworth with 3-1/4" drop at heel......which is a lot by most standards. I asked him to simply mount it up from a low-gun position and tell me what he saw. He did, and related that he could only see the thumb portion of the toplever and no portion of the barrels whatsoever. I then asked him to take five minutes out back of the grounds mounting that gun on tree tops, power line transformers, flag pole tops, etc. and giving complete concentration to what he was looking at on these objects.
Having done this, he said he could make that work, but only by keeping his cheekbone was well above the comb line. Told him not to fuss about that detail, but to place hard focus on the clay regardless of cheek position. With that he went forth to try a practice round of five-stand with a strange-to-him gun and broke a very respectable 21. He was probably the most incredulous one there that day, and couldn't understand himself having done it without having a hard cheek plant. Shows that we can be somewhat adaptable to what we have to shoot with at times. True story........
I had a parallel experience only in reverse. I always have shot best with a flat sight picture and detest high-combed guns. Picked up a SxS a couple years ago with a very high comb with the thought of rasping it down to fit. As I worked through it I began to realize that I could hit quite well when I just looked at the clay and shot without any regard to the sight picture (which was clearly out of my comfort zone). The gun must fit, but it doesn't fit like the other SxS's I have that "fit."
