doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RBL 20 Barrels Shoot Low

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.