Gunstock pitch

[greybeard]

I am wondering if any of the current builders of longrifles take into consideration measuring for a proper pitch when designing a gunstock. I persinally prefer a positive pitch of 3 to 4 inches measured  30 inches up the barrel.  Reason I'm  asking is that many moons ago  I bought 2 Sharon Hawken kits from a shop that was going out of business. A .54 abd a .50.
I did the .54 first with the but plate as found. When finished up the pitch was -12". The only gun I have ever shot that left a purple & yellow bruise on the top of my shoulder. When I put the .50 together I bent the $#@* out of the butplate so that when finished up it had a positive pitch of + 4" . I could shoot that gun all day with 81 grains and never feel uncomfortable.
 I know that if the pitch on your favorite 12 bore birding gun is not right it can really punnish $#*! out of the shooter.
 So do todays builders take pitch into consideration when designing a stock??   Bob

[James Rogers]

yes, I consider pitch.

[Telgan]

I would like to see a good dicussion of pitch here. Particularly as it relates to fit, But also in terms of period and school. I've noticed  some builders of early guns ( christian Springs, Earlt VA and perhaps Woodburry style) use a pitch that seems incorect to my eye.

[Hank*in*WV]

This might sound like a stupid question but could someone define pitch?

[greybeard]

Google  "Gunstock Pitch"  It will explain it to you better than I can.. I know it in my head but for me it's hard to explain in words.   Bob.   Thanks for responding

[Dphariss]

I am wondering if any of the current builders of longrifles take into consideration measuring for a proper pitch when designing a gunstock. I persinally prefer a positive pitch of 3 to 4 inches measured  30 inches up the barrel.  Reason I'm  asking is that many moons ago  I bought 2 Sharon Hawken kits from a shop that was going out of business. A .54 abd a .50.
I did the .54 first with the but plate as found. When finished up the pitch was -12". The only gun I have ever shot that left a purple & yellow bruise on the top of my shoulder. When I put the .50 together I bent the $#@* out of the butplate so that when finished up it had a positive pitch of + 4" . I could shoot that gun all day with 81 grains and never feel uncomfortable.
 I know that if the pitch on your favorite 12 bore birding gun is not right it can really punnish $#*! out of the shooter.
 So do todays builders take pitch into consideration when designing a stock??   Bob

I do.
But I have a rifle with too much pitch. A result of a buttplate that cannot be bent
What I get for not building to an original stock design. But then the original rifle I was using as a base has too much down pitch too.
In making BPCR Silhouette rifles I used zero pitch and would prefer it in ML rifles as well but its less important in rifles with deep crescent buttplates since neither point is supposed to contact the body in this case and the buttplates are intended to be shot off the arm rather than the shoulder.

Dan

[Paddlefoot]

@!*%, I thought I was the only one who had trouble with those Sharon Hawkins. I have one in .58 and I would rather visit the dentist than shoot that sucker off the bench. The buttplate was a challenge for me at my level of experience when I built that rifle and I would say the pitch is not what was intended. The extension angles a slight bit down and makes the combline just a tiny bit swaybacked. It still bites you hard though.

[northmn]

I use more than one perameter when building stocks on guns that kick.  One is not to use those narrow deeply curved late buttplates so popular on plains rifles.  I am finishing an English styled rifle that uses a straight 2" wide buttplate.  A straighter buttplate makes it easier to line it up for pitch.  Even with correct pitch and drop at the comb the only thing that makes some of the rifles shootable is that they weigh in at about 10 pounds.  Have you ever seen a fowler built with a pointed narrow curved buttplate   We could add toe in or toe out but that would look a bit unusual.

DP

[Dphariss]

@!*%, I thought I was the only one who had trouble with those Sharon Hawkins. I have one in .58 and I would rather visit the dentist than shoot that sucker off the bench. The buttplate was a challenge for me at my level of experience when I built that rifle and I would say the pitch is not what was intended. The extension angles a slight bit down and makes the combline just a tiny bit swaybacked. It still bites you hard though.

Only the best Hawken stocks will tolerate bores this large.
They were meant for 50-54 caliber.
Bores over 54 need a different buttstock design in many cases.
If it bites your cheek I would raise the sights about .062 to .100" to move your face up. This can work wonders.
Hawken buttplates are not meant to be shot off the shoulder.

Dan

[Paddlefoot]

No trouble with the cheekpiece. I do shoot it from the arm, which is much blacker and bluer after a few rounds. Thing weighs 12 lbs if I remember correctly. It's quite a lot to hump around in mountains of Idaho.

[eagle24]

I persinally prefer a positive pitch of 3 to 4 inches measured  30 inches up the barrel. 

OK, I'm lost.  I googled "gunstock pitch" and interpret the definition to be the angle the butt of the stock is cut, from toe to heel.  I would have guessed this is relative to the horizontal plane of the bore?  So how is "measured 30 inches up the barrel" relevant?  I must not understand this at all.

[bgf]

I persinally prefer a positive pitch of 3 to 4 inches measured  30 inches up the barrel. 

OK, I'm lost.  I googled "gunstock pitch" and interpret the definition to be the angle the butt of the stock is cut, from toe to heel.  I would have guessed this is relative to the horizontal plane of the bore?  So how is "measured 30 inches up the barrel" relevant?  I must not understand this at all.

You weren't the only one .  Pitch is really a measurement of an angle expressed in a different way.  Compare the use of "rise and run" to express roof pitch in building a house.   Does that help?

[eagle24]

You weren't the only one .  Pitch is really a measurement of an angle expressed in a different way.  Compare the use of "rise and run" to express roof pitch in building a house.   Does that help?

So when calculating pitch, drop is also a factor?  and not just the angle of the butt relative to the horizontal plane of the barrel?

[westerner]

This might sound like a stupid question but could someone define pitch?

Without pitch all you would have is a pile of wood dust.  Pitch is good, you must have pitch.  Wood with excessive pitch is called trading wood.  It came in handy in the old days.

                     Joe.

[bgf]

You weren't the only one .  Pitch is really a measurement of an angle expressed in a different way.  Compare the use of "rise and run" to express roof pitch in building a house.   Does that help?

So when calculating pitch, drop is also a factor?  and not just the angle of the butt relative to the horizontal plane of the barrel?

No, to my understanding, drop is not part of the calculation, although I think you'd have a hard time separating its effects in practice.  Here's the most useful reference I could find: http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/fit.html.  Pitch is about halfway down.  I hope I'm not confusing the issue for you -- this took a while to sink in for me.

[northmn]

Pitch is actually the angle of the buttplate to the bore. A pitch might be perpendicular or 90 degrees from the bore.   I have seen Fusil de Chasse built with a horrible pitch such that on recoil it looks like the gun could not be mounted to the shoulder properly.  Some of the real curvy Lehigh rifles can easily be made that way.  On a trap gun a poor pitch will also result in the gun shooting high or low.  The best way to look at it is how the butt plate fits your shoulder when you look at the sights or down the barrel.  when the gun is held naturally does the butt plate fit well against the shoulder.  As to plains rifles to be shot off the arm, that seems to have been a passing idea as one does not see that in modern stuff.  I built a 12 bore fowler that was made to fit after shooting a Brown Bess that put acorns on my cheek from recoil.  I accidently doulbe charged the 12 with powder.  While I knew it was overloaded when I shot at the clay pidgeon, it did not bruise me as it fit and had a wide butt plate.  The trend for narrow curvy butt plates even went into the early cartridge guns.  The 1895 Winchester in 405 was a legend for its miserable recoil with its curvy butt plate.  Hawkens, as I understand, were available with a "shotgun" butt plate.

DP

[eagle24]

You weren't the only one .  Pitch is really a measurement of an angle expressed in a different way.  Compare the use of "rise and run" to express roof pitch in building a house.   Does that help?

So when calculating pitch, drop is also a factor?  and not just the angle of the butt relative to the horizontal plane of the barrel?

OK, that article/diagram makes sense.  Thanks.

No, to my understanding, drop is not part of the calculation, although I think you'd have a hard time separating its effects in practice.  Here's the most useful reference I could find: http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/fit.html.  Pitch is about halfway down.  I hope I'm not confusing the issue for you -- this took a while to sink in for me.

[greybeard]

So a pic is worth a thousand word.

[David R. Pennington]

This is great info. I have always tried to desighn my stocks to fit and even made me a rough try stock to try and get the drop and trigger pull right but I'll have to admit I've never considered "pitch". My first build is a fifty cal. late style flint with a pretty curvy butplate. I guess the old adage about even the blind hog finds an acorn once in a while applies here because even with a heavy charge it is comfortable to shoot, but I guess a .50 ain't that big...,but I have a 20 gauge barrel I want to put in a Bucks county style and a .62 early So. Mtn. style started but its not too far along to change pitch on the butt.

Thanks guys. I sure wouldn't want to put all that work into a gun I wouldn't want to shoot!

[Don Getz]

I think most of you do not consider pitch when you build a gun.   If you are building from a kit, or a preshaped stock, you
are probably lining up the top extension of the buttplate you are using with the comb line, and letting "pitch" fall where
it may.   Even if you are buildiing from scratch, won't the buttplate you are using determine pitch?   On most of the barn
guns I have built over the past several years, the angle of the butt in relation to the comb line has been slightly less than
90 degrees, with very little curvature to the butt.   I do this because they feel so good..........Don

[greybeard]

0 to +4  should feel pretty good me thinks !!!

[northmn]

I have 20 bore with a negative pitch but it does not hurt.  But it has a wide butt plate and its pretty straight. 

DP

[Paddlefoot]

I would think that shooting styles had a lot of impact on the buttplate pitch as well as the drop of the stock. Just my theory but how else do you explain the radical differences in drop of say a Bedford vs. a Lancaster or a fowler. You see old engravings of shooters really leaning into the gun and others standing bolt upright. Then there were the reclined prone positions and so on.

[Blacksmoke]

For those considering the "authentic" recreation of American longrifles - I think applying the realm of "pitch" to the design of a rifle stock is "modern thinking".  I do not believe the old master's such as Rupp, Beck, Sells, Armstrong, Fordney and all of the others applied  such features to 'fit" a gun to a client.  Trigger pull - yes and sometimes, butt drop, but I doubt "pitch".   Also longrifles were often passed on to the next generation and what ever type of rifle "pa "used that's what "pa's" son used even if it did not fit him - he just put up with it!      Just my thoughts on the matter,        Hugh Toenjes

[greybeard]

I  made an inside square and took a rough measurments on a few pics in the liberary.
Brooka  +3//  Fordney +10//  Gonter ++15//    Pannebecker +12///    Haga +15//   JPB +10///    Armstrong +14///   Hawken+15//    Marker+10//S.Allen+8//   S. Lauk+15.
Kind of tells me that + pitch was the norm.  Must have been a lot if old shooters with red cheeks.