cheekpiece

[David R. Pennington]

How high should the cheekpiece be?  I can always take some away, but it is hard to put it back. Right now it is about 1/2" at rear and 3/8" at front.

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[Nate McKenzie]

It depends on era and area style. Yours looks pretty early and could do with what you have. It might be a little more comfortable to shoot if you took a little more off.

[Mike Brooks]

I have found that by examining antique guns some of them look really large but when you really look close and measure they aren't large at all. Mostly optical illusion. I used to make them stand way out but don't anymore. The gun I posted photos of yesterday only stands 1/4" at the rear. Looks much taller, but isn't. High standing cheek pieces are sort of a dead give away the gun is contemporary instead of antique. In my opinion of course. I may actually be full of crapola and not be aware of it.

[David R. Pennington]

Nate I am shooting for late 18th century southern, iron mounted. Mike, I havent had a lot of opportunity to handle originals, that is why I seek you guys advice. I did get a chance to see the famous brass barrel gun once when Walley Gusler had it over at a show at Fredricksburg, and was amazed how thick it looked in the butt with a pretty high cheek. That being said, this is not the same style as that one, so I probably will take it down a lttle more. I have a little cast off built in so it shoulders well right now with a high cheek. I was loosely designing it on a rifle pictured in Whisker's book on WV gunsiths. I think page 147.

[Mike Brooks]

Well, wait a bit and see what others have to say about it before you take more off.

[bama]

Hi David

It was great meeting you at the TN show.

I have to agree with Mike. Many of the earlier rifles had really small and low cheek rest. Some of the later southern guns had rather large and proud cheek rest so it really depends on what you are building. I am working on a John Sheetz styled rifle at the moment which is for a smaller woman with a 12 1/2" LOP. The original rifle had a cheek rest about 2 1/2" long and about 3/8" proud best I can scale. I kept these dimensions on my rifle and they look OK but I probably should have taken them down a bit.

Good luck with your build.

[Tim Crosby]

I have found that by examining antique guns some of them look really large but when you really look close and measure they aren't large at all. Mostly optical illusion. I used to make them stand way out but don't anymore. The gun I posted photos of yesterday only stands 1/4" at the rear. Looks much taller, but isn't. High standing cheek pieces are sort of a dead give away the gun is contemporary instead of antique. In my opinion of course. I may actually be full of crapola and not be aware of it.

 Here's the link to it, it is a Beauty by the way.TC

  http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=40597.msg394123#msg394123

[Long John]

David,

Here is my take on your question.  You might want to consider my opinion.  On the other hand, you might elect to ignore it.  Your choice; you will have a lot of company if you choose the latter!

First ask yourself why there is a cheek piece.  It is there to facilitate aligning your eye with the sights.  On a well-fitted rifle-gun you can close your eyes, throw the rifle up and when you open your eyes the sights are aligned.  Why make a rifle that doesn't fit the shooter, presumably you, just because you want it to look like a rifle that didn't fit some other shooter 150 years ago? 

When I build a rifle I leave the cheek piece quite proud of the stock until the sights are installed.  Then I go through the process of closing eyes, throwing up the rifle and then opening my eyes and noting where the rear sight is relative to the front BEFORE I make the ingrained mistake of moving my head around to achieve alignment.  I then adjust the shape and size of the cheek piece to bring my eye into alignment.  The amount of adjustment is also controlled by the length of pull, drop at comb, drop at heel and cast-off of the stock.  Since all of these factor into achieving optimum sight alignment, a fixed measurement of height above stock surface is of limited value without measurements for all the other parameters too.  Also keep in mind that most of us have been raised on factory built guns and have become habituated to adjusting our cheek-weld on the stock to align the sights.  It is always a compromise.  Build the rifle for the shooter, to facilitate hitting.  That is the essence of the difference between a factory-built and a hand-made gun.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Best Regards,

John Cholin

[David Rase]

Since everybody is giving out opinions, here is mine.     I think a lot of contemporary builders feel they need to put 1/4" of cast off into all the guns they build.  The more castoff you add, the more your cheek needs to stand out.  There can be a direct relation to the amount of castoff vs. how proud your cheek piece stands.    In my opinion, castoff makes shaping the wrist and butt area harder so I strive for the least amount of castoff and still be able to shoulder and sight the gun.
I have found truth, at least in my experience, with what Mike stated about pictures giving the optical illusion of a larger than actual cheek piece.
David 

[Acer Saccharum]

High standing cheek pieces are sort of a dead give away the gun is contemporary instead of antique.

Good perspective. Antique Germanic can be quite high, American, not so much.

But we are not building antiques.......

[Mike Brooks]

Well, how about this..... I have never found a cheek piece to be relevant to the way a gun fits me. In other words, a fowling gun fits me just as well as a rifle, cheek piece never makes any difference. I could close my eyes and shoulder guns and not be able to tell you whether a gun has a cheek rest or not.  More important  for my own personal gun is drop of the stock for me. IMO, most people order guns with way too much drop, (to fit ME anyway). Of course many of the old schools had a whole lot of drop so if you are copying one of those they don't look right with out a droopy stock.
 I re popped my old Deep River gun last spring and it has just the barest sliver of a cheek rest...absolutely useless with something like 3 1/2" drop. Just aesthetics at that point.

[P.W.Berkuta]

I'll throw my hat into the ring on this; to me it is a bit too proud - I'd reduce it's height and reduce the width "flat" of the cheek-piece --- my two cents

[Acer Saccharum]

...and then you see strange cheekpieces.

"They always made them like that."


And then you run across weird things.


Like this gun.



This is only to say that there are many opinions about how we should do things. Please refer to antiques, specific ones, if you are seriously trying to emulate a school of long dead gun makers. If you just want something that looks nice and shoots, don't sweat the research.

[Joe S.]

And then you have the left-handed shooters and all these cheek pieces being on the wrong side of the rifle to begin with.

[flehto]

Seeing I build spec Lancaster and Bucks County LRs, there's zero customer input into these builds. So a decision had to be made as to the dims of mainly the buttstock.

The drops were achieved through a trial and error process,,.....starting w/ the fact that LRs that fit me, also fit many people. From this a template was made, LRs were built and everyone who visited the shop had to mount my builds w/ their eyes shut. All the "guinea pigs" remarked that the sights aligned well....had to make a slight adjustment to the template for the drops.

The castoff that is used is 1/8"-3/16" and this worked out well along w/ a LOP of 13-3/4".

The cheekpiece dims that are used are 3/8" at the rear and 3/16-1/4" at the front. Started off w/ too long and too deep a cheekpiece, so these dims were made smaller and the results are shown below. Never had a complaint from a buyer concerning  whether the LR fit.....Fred

[Mike Brooks]

Ok Acer, you made  you're point....freak boy.

[David R. Pennington]

Appreciate all the input. Acer, what about that rifle you pictured, where was it made, and when? I would like to see the whole thing.
I like a right smart drop for offhand shooting, not so much for bench shooting. This one shoulders good as it is. Don't have sights made yet. I will work on something else awhile and come back and look at it again and see better what to do sometimes.  I allow it looks a little proud yet. I will most likely take it down a bit more.
Thanks again guys.

[Acer Saccharum]

Acer, what about that rifle you pictured, where was it made, and when? I would like to see the whole thing.

No one living knows who made that rifle, or where it was made. The lock is German, the hardware somewhat Germanic. The lines of the stock are WHAT? Dutch/French/German?

On my blog site is a copy of the original: https://flintrifles.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/american-longrifle-my-copy-of-an-original/

Lock from original gun:

[David R. Pennington]

I was wondering about the nails in the lower edge. Now I see the nailed on repair. Handsome lock.

[Mike Brooks]

I'd guess the lock to be French, second guess German. Do I get more guesses?

[rich pierce]

The apparent height of the cheekpiece particularly viewed from below is also influenced by the shape or taper of the buttplate from midpoint to the toe. A narrower toe will make the cheekpiece look more prominent. Look at the width of the toe on the Marshall rifle. Compare to some of the early Reading rifles (RCA 21 etc).

[David R. Pennington]

Good point Rich

[Gaeckle]

I'd guess the lock to be French, second guess German. Do I get more guesses?

How about: it's Acers. How about the many guns made in the percussion era with a cheeckpiece on the both sides  of the gun?

[oldtravler61]

Wonder if the cheek pieces were built for the person acquiring or making the gun. An that's the way they wanted it? Personally when I build a gun. I want it to fit. When I bring it to my shoulder I want to be looking right down the sights. So to me the cheek piece is an intragel part of that rifle. In hunting hot footed wabbits you want it to fit yeah. An know I don't hunt them with a shotgun. But to each his own. It's your gun.

[Ed Wenger]

Like everything else associated with Kentucky rifles, cheek pieces were all over the place.  I think someone mentioned taking a look at originals from whatever school your building, that is very helpful.  A lot of earlier guns had cheek pieces that were rounded on the underside, giving them the appearance of not being so proud of the stock.  A lot of later guns had squared off undersides, giveing them the appearance of greater height.  Again, this is "in general"....   Having said all that, I agree with Mike, in that we contemporary builders have a tendency to make cheek pieces too high.  

If this were me, I'd try to find as many references as I could of original pieces, especially views looking down on the comb, and see what the profiles look like, and go from there...


          Ed