doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gripping your gun

Just to be clear, I'm not recoil sensitive. I have put over 5000 rounds through a 6 1/2 lb. gun in four days with no recoil problem. But, as I said earlier, it is the disconcerting movement that I get with my straight grip guns and heavy loads that doesn't lend itself to my best shooting.

It seems I am the "oddball" with this, but I still want to stress that I am talking about heavy loads only. I shoot my Dickinson straight grip .410 pretty decent.

SRH

Straight grip stocks are an anatomical disaster and simply do not work for me. And for other than posers I can't imagine anyone actually handicapping themselves by wanting one on a gun that is to be used.
AFA gripping goes, in my experience a gun shooting pigeon loads that is lightly gripped by either hand will be worthless for the second barrel. For me in practice that extends to any load and any two shot game. If controlling the gun constitutes man-handling and I don't know how it could not, then not man-handling the gun constitutes an uncontrolled gun. Proper (the operative term) shooting techniques may vary but controlling the gun is at the core of every one of them. That is not to say that some techniques are not crap.
JMO of course shoot however and whatever you like

Stan, do you think it is a matter of fit?

I shot a splinter/straight grip, plastic buttplate, 12 yesterday and noticed no movement of the gun in my hands at firing. I don't shoot more than 1 1/8.
They were 1200+fps though.

I didn't notice any muzzle flip either. Managing to stay on line with some true pairs pretty well.

I control the line of the barrels with my left hand, my right just brings the stock up to my face, and back into my shoulder pocket. I don't like feeling the buttstock squirming back into my shoulder pocket, it ends up in barrel checking. Messes up my timing.

Stan it may just be that you notice things that others don�t. If you are an average shooter you are kind of happy with average results. Those are the shooters who shoot anything from 60-80 at Sporting Clays and seem happy. After you reach the point where 80 is a bad day you start to notice things more. You�ve shot so well for so long you are just aware what does not work well for you. Straight grip with heavy shells are not your thing. It might be the shape of the grip or just the way your wrist is bent when shooting a straight grip gun. A small palm swell could have made you gun much more under control with heavy loads. A oval or diamond shaped straight grip gives you a lot of the same effects of a palm swell.

Like me, you try to analyze why things happen. I call it reading the birds. I spend a lot of time trying different adjustments to see what outcomes they bring. On Sporting Clays I don�t need to smoke every bird but if I just chop a bird in half it makes me wonder why I was so close to a miss. Was it just a poor mount, a poor swing(effort), did I miss read the bird or lazy attempt. The problem I have with Sporting Clays is that repeating birds gets boring for me and some courses are all easy targets for newer shooters. Hard to get better when you are shooting station 7 birds all the time. So I shoot a lot of .410 at Sporting Clays if they are gimme courses. Also it pisses off the kids when that little .410 makes them work for a win.

Years ago I was shooting a .410 on high five. Wayne Mayse was talking me through several different adjustments to try. By changing my hold point I got different breaks with the same lead, different leads, different foot positions all were tried. Shot a full box, all hits, with vastly different breaks. By the last four shells I had tried so many different things I could walk the bird into different parts of the pattern such that I cut the first third off with the first shell, centered with the second, was on the back half with the third and just cut the tail off with the last shell. It was dialed in as we use to say. Never missed a high five for months after that. Just to humble me Wayne proceeded to shoot a box on high five and he started cutting just the very nose off the bird. Shell after shell he took more off until he started hitting the back half of the bird. Last shell he just knocked off the tail. That man was an artist with a .410 as his record of 100 .410 100 straights in competition showed.

Very interesting post and comments. I am tall and skinny and have never been able to shoot well with a straight grip; I just don't feel like I'm in control of the gun. My fingers are long and I have no problem with switching triggers on a DT gun with a pistol grip, so that is the setup I prefer. That makes it hard for me to find a modern sxs gun that I really like.

I was taught to shoot with normal grip pressure and have always avoided trying to hold on tightly to the gun. In fact, I don't think a really tight grip works well for any sort of athletic endeavor, whether it's golf, baseball, basketball, or shooting. I hold the forend when shooting a turkey, but I keep my left arm straight and grip the barrels when using a sxs in wing shooting.

But take my ideas with a grain of salt; Ky Jon is talking about a level of shooting with which I am not familiar.

Wayne was one amazing fellow to watch. Just like Dig is now. What they could/can do with a shotgun just about is beyond anyone�s ability. We are talking above top few shooters in the World in their games. And I don�t think anyone at that level could not transition to other shooting sports at a very high level.

Had a friend, All American Skeet shooter, who moved where there were just no skeet fields nearby. So he switched to Trap and was AA at 27 yard line in handicap in five months and on the top of the leader board every weekend. Won money every weekend and won several larger events. Point is that talent and ability transfer easily. The rest of us must work much harder just to be decent and then age will get you in the end. So enjoy the good times while they last.

Mistah Nash had no problem with heavy guns with straight grips --

No, CZ, it's not a matter of fit, as far as the usual measurements go...............DAC, LOP, stuff like that. I will admit that I don't care for the angle my wrist has to be bent at to "properly" grip a straight gip stock. Pistol grips were designed for a reason. They allow your wrist to remain straight when you are gripping the gun and your finger is on the trigger. So, if there's anything that doesn't fit, it's that my body just doesn't fit, or doesn't like, a straight grip. Now, with a tiny lightweight gun like the .410, I'm fine. But, at the same time I'd rather it be a pistol or semi-pistol grip. But, in all honesty CZ, there's a lot of difference in the recoil of 1 1/8 load at 1200, and a 1 5/8 load at 1250.

I'd never try to convince a shooter he shouldn't shoot what he likes, but the next time you grip a straight grip gun in your house, look in a mirror at the way your wrist is bent in a sharp angle to hold it. That just is not conducive to the best control of heavy recoiling loads. Nash was a much bigger and stronger man than I, and to read his books he could shoot mighty good, but that doesn't mean it's right for me. It isn't. Glad others like them so much.

What it boils down to for me is this. I like to kill doubles on doves and ducks...........and true pairs. I accomplish that much "handier" when I can get on the second bird very quickly after the first shot. A pistol grip allows me to do that faster, especially with heavy duck loads.

My MX8 weighs over 9 lbs. and has a GraCoil on the butt. It was on it when I bought it, so I gave it a fling, and loved it. Why? Because it tames what little recoil there is from a 1 1/8 oz. load at 1150, and gets me on the second bird of my true pair faster. And, most of all, the lack of gun movement in recoil doesn't take my mind off what it is supposed to be on..............where that second bird is. I averaged 93/100 on all the sporting clays targets I shot last year, registered tournaments,and unregistered,..............with O/Us and with S x Ss. Yes, Jon, I try to get one more target per hundred any honest way I can.

I'm enjoying the comments and banter. Many good thoughts.........SRH

Since falling off of my roof onto the driveway in 2011, my wrists (and other body parts) are a mess. While shooting, I need to keep them in the "anatomic position"; mostly straight with slight ulnar (toward the little finger) deviation. That means an open POW grip.

And even before I failed at flying I had to tell myself on calling for a target (I only shoot low gun because of my hopeless flinch) "Squeeze the grip...swing the gun". Anything but a tight right grip gives me no control. Forward/left hand of course has a loose grip.

But I'm off topic because I only shoot 3/4 oz. 16g and 7/8 oz. 12g loads...did I mention the hopeless flinch

I think the thumbhole and it�s ideal measurement is very important for a straight grip. Important for POW too, but even more so with English stock. When the thumbhole is right things are anatomically correct for the hand that holds the wrist of the shotgun. My opinion though.