doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cheek Slap and Slack Jaw

A while ago I started a thread on cheek slap. Thanks for all of those who responded. One thing that was never mentioned is how you hold your jaw when shooting. I've noticed when I shoot trap or skeet I mount the gun with a slack jaw and I'm wondering if in the recoil my jaw moves contributing to cheek slap?

I am a stress clencher and when hunting I mount the gun with clenched jaw and never get cheek slap.

I have yet to shoot a round of trap and keep my jaws tight together to see if that makes a difference.

Try a big plug of Redman and see if that helps.

You're serious ? I can't see where it makes ant difference how you hold your jaw. Just shoot and have fun.

How do you say "PULL" with a clinched jaw?
I suppose YOUR quail do not flush when you say PULL ?

Mount your gun and try with a slack jaw and a clenched jaw. Your mounting position and cheek weld will change. Perhaps clenched wasn't the right word. In a relaxed state my teeth are slightly apart and my jaw muscles are relaxed. In a 'clenched' or closed position my teeth are closed and my jaw muscles may not be firing but are holding my jaw closed.

And yes jOe, welding the comb to a plug of Redman might make a difference.

skeettx with my two flushing labs you'd better be on your toes because there is no option to say 'pull' or 'flush' or whatever you use on your pointing dogs.

Tamid, Someone was joshing you. You don�t shoot a gun with a clenched jaw. First of all, a clenched jaw tightens up the masseter muscle (the chewing muscle) and is going to move your face out. You won�t be lined up down the rib anymore clenching your jaw. Holding a gun too tight makes them kick more and upsets fluid motion. Just relax and shoot your gun. If you are getting cheek slap, the gun doesn�t fit you.

Buzz,

You are correct that a clenched jaw tightens the massetter muscle and moves the jaw outward. I should have use a closed or open jaw in my first post. A closed jaw does not necessarily tighten the massetter muscle but with my gun does change my mounting position.

When I throw a gun up, swing and shoot I never get face slap. With the same gun a premount will give me a welt. I am looking at all aspects of my premount position.

The first time I shot an 8 bore double rifle, it was suggested I keep my teeth together to cut down on the chance of getting my bell wrung. It works.

I had to mount a gun to get to the answer but, for me, I shoot with a slack jaw, meaning that my jaws are not closed completely and the teeth do not touch, bottom jaw to top jaw.

I try to shoot as totally relaxed as possible and, I believe for me, closing my jaw and making the teeth contact between bottom and top jaws would be an indication, or maybe more accurately a result of, tension. And that is not at all what I want to feel as I trigger the gun.

Never had but one gun slap my cheek, and it was stocked waaaay too high.

SRH

Or biting your tongue off...

This happened to me shooting an O/U. I had to find a really good gun fitter to look at how I mount the gun, all the dimensions, and such. We ended up spending 5 hours adjusting it to my body, face, cheek, and shoulder. In between adjustments, we went to the pattern board to make sure the shotgun was shooting where I was looking. You would be surprised how often this is not the case. You should be able to close your eyes, mount the gun into the zygomatic arch, and that's your perfect mount. Open your eyes. Are they straight down the rib? Doubt it. That's what a gun fitter does. You can mount the gun with your eyes closed, and he will make it line up to you each time. Then you can easily shoot low gun.

Long story short, if the gun doesn't fit you, it will beat you up. You're probably just tilting your head too much to the right, so your right eye can see down the barrel.

Dale Tate in Camanche Hills does a great job.

http://daletategunmaker.com

You should be able to close your eyes, mount the gun into the zygomatic arch, and that's your perfect mount. Open your eyes. Are they straight down the rib?

I have come to believe this is not entirely true. I can take a gun that fits my hunting style dimensions 1 3/8 to 1 1/2 at the comb and 2 5/8 to 2 3/4 at the heel (or within these relative dimensions) close my eyes mount it a few times and after that it perfectly aligns. I have a Charles Hellis made for a lefty and can do the same. Let me shoot it for a round to warm up and off I go. That is my hunting scenario for I rarely shoot the same gun twice in a season except my Citori that I use for migratory. Something else is going on and I can't figure it out.

Tamid, If I were you, I�d take the man�s (dhanks) advice and get a gun fitting where the gun fitter can assess your mount as well as perform the gun fitting. The photo above shows a pretty much ideal gun mount.

+1

Not only can a good gun fitter help eliminate the cheek slap but your shooting will improve as well. I understand that you can swap guns and shoot well. I can to some degree, too. But, there is an ideal gun measurement for everyone, and you will perform best with that. We make the decision to enjoy various shotguns, and there's nothing wrong with that, but personally, I try to fit each one of them to me so that they all shoot the same. I recently restocked a Verona to get it to shoot lower. I'll never regret that.

SRH

Stan, I tried to send you a PM to chat Perazzi high tech, but you are �over the limit� on PM�s, so no dice.

Sorry. I will delete some of them tonight.

I'm sending you my number by p.m.

SRH

The first thing a gun fitter will do is to teach you how to properly mount a gun. Then you will need to be able to do it every single time. Requires a lot of practice. Then he can start making adjustments to the stock, pattern it, adjustments, pattern it, adjustments, etc.

I have so many shotguns, I don't bother getting them all fitted. My SXSs I certainly will not have fitted, because I do not want any modifications done to the stocks. Sidelocks shotgun stocks require hot oil and bending, which is the correct way to do it, but a pain in the ass, because you have to bend the tang and trigger guard along with it. The only shotgun I have fitted to me is my Kreighoff K80, because it's built like a tank and it's easy to fit. I'm currently on the lookup for a nice side lock hunting shotgun, which I will have fitted as well. That way I can have a competition sporting clays gun fitted and a hunting shotgun fitted. Until then I will use my K80 for everything. For example, in the CA state shoot last week, I shot my SXS and scored about 35/100. I shot my K80 (which was fitted) and scored 60/100. I know that K80 fits me like a glove and always points to where I look. That's myself in the picture above. I am working with Dale Tate and he does a great job fitting a shotgun.

Tamid, I find this ongoing quest rather puzzling. Have you actually already exhausted the suggestions offered in the other thread? Have you established a stable and consistent mount? Made all the measurements on the guns? Discovered the ones that give the best results? Altered the gun(s) that were not acceptable? Shot the pattern board for POI? Shot targets to verify?
Some substantial efforts needs to be expended before it's time to worry about a slack jaw.
JMO of course but you can talk about minutia forever and if you don't actually act on anything the questions will remain unresolved.

Wonko,
I have been working on this for 25 years with the same gun, a Beretta 680 with an un-single and o/u barrel. Along the way I have had many, many amateurs make suggestions. I have read many books and articles about gun fit.

A stable mount was the first bit of advice and I use the same mount always, rightly or wrongly. The gun feels well seated and I find it the most comfortable mounted gun I have. It has an adjustable Morgan pad on it. My line of site is straight down the rib taking into account a mid-bead and end bead. Sounds a bit of a stretch but I have had a new stock made with a high rollover comb similar to what I use on my rifles. Over time I have slowly altered the stock, removing the roll over comb, changing the pitch, height of comb and heel, LOP, ratio of height of comb to heel, and cast off. Something about it has to be partly right because I usually shoot a 23-25 for the first two rounds then the bruised cheek takes over. Agreed, a proper fitting would have expedited the process but as I have mentioned previously there is no one in Western Canada who is really knowledgeable and can alter a stock to fit. I know my best option is to pick someone in the US and hop on a plane but money, time and competing interests have prevented it. So I slowly continue to pick away at it. Right now I am re-examining my mount.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Trump just �slapped� a 25% tariff on gun fittings.


________________________
Have you considered taking up golf?

Tamid,

Why don't you call and talk to Dale Tate? I'm sure he travels often or could recommend a trained gun fitter in your area. No offense, but I think the more you play with your stock, the more problems you're going to have. A properly trained gun fitter can get you going in a few hours. Teach you to mount and modify the gun to point to where you look.

Tamid -

Unless you are malformed there are only a few components to stock fit.
LOP
DAC
DAH
Cast
Pitch
(I am of course ignoring a couple that only the totally committed concern themselves with and have no effect on Tamid's quandary.)
For me personally, none of those are interrelated. With an adjusto stock of some sort, PFS is probably the least expensive and pre-owned ones show on ebay and trap sites, each can be set independent of the others. AFA I'm concerned I can set everything in about 5min except for perfect comb height (the only value that actually needs to be fairly precise) and I can get that within +/-1/8" easily - - later set on the plate. That's what try-stocks were devised to do. Just carving away on a hunk of wood will likely not ever make you happy.
FWIW I've never heard of anyone suffering with any of the 680 series trap configurations.
besta luck

wonko, tell us more about pitch and what hit does...

a bitta DYI for you

https://www.google.com/search?q=shotgun+...me&ie=UTF-8

wonko, more than what i ever wanted to know...

but, most of my favorite skeet guns are old pre ww1 hunting guns that have three inch drop at heel and no pitch...as such, i can barely see the rib...by inserting one or two nickels, as spacers under the butt plate at the toe, i am increasing the forward pitch, which results in my seeing a lot more rib...which may improve my score...


cant wait to try this out on the range next week...hell, i might even break 20 out of 25...

thanks for links...