Rifles with a lot of drop

[Craig Wilcox]

Dave, I always wondered if it was the angle of the butt plate that caused your nasty recoil on that rifle.  The comb really slopes down, and the butt plate is at 90* to the comb.  Now, if the BP was at 90* to the barrel, would the perceived recoil be less?

[smart dog]

Hi Craig,
The recoil was never the issue on that English rifle.  It was that I always felt my cheek was sort of hanging in the air rather than pressed hard on the stock.  My cheek touched but I could not hunker down on the stock like I prefer to do.  However, the new stock is about as perfect as I can make for me.  It just effortlessly locks into place on my shoulder with my cheek hard on the stock always in the same position. I can tell already that the restocked rifle is going to be a great shooter and I know by experience that the lock is exceptional.  One problem with these early to mid-18th century British rifles is there are so few examples that still exist.  Unlike later British flintlock rifles, I've only found a few examples, the Turvey rifle in RCA #1 being one.  There are some breech loading "deer park" rifles I've seen from the period but very few muzzle loading examples.

dave   

[AZshot]

I look at drop this way: how many inches are from the center of your shoulder to the center of your cheek, when your rear gripping arm is held up like holding the wrist of a rifle?  That is the amount of "drop" of your body.  Many people also lift up that shoulder, and/or tilt their head down to meet the cheek piece.  But you don't have to that much, if the drop is more.  It varied over the generations depending on recoil of the caliber, if shooting was more offhand or from behind cover (like a trench/foxhole), etc.