muzzle weight

[Michigan Flinter]

  If you used ,where your outstreched hand holds the rifle ,when shooting offhand and use that as the piviot point and put a set of scales at the muzzle to weight muzzle weight what would be a good reading for a 42 inch barrel? I know the lenght of barrel makes a difference . Hope you can understand my question. Eric D. Lau Riverdale Mi.

[t.caster]

Two feathers, that's going to vary for everyone, won't it. If you hold at it's "balance point" a feather would tip the scale. Even on your chunkgun.
Maybe you are wondering what the weight or force is needed to hold up a given barrel that is anchored at the shoulder. But it is not actually afixed at the shoulder.
What is a comfortable (good reading) offhand weight is going to be "to each his own".
Maybe I don't understand your question.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have two .40 cal flint rifles...one has a 42" A weight Getz, and the other a 44" B weight Rice.  I cannot hold the A weight .40 cal still, but the B weight barrel is no problem.  It has more muzzle weight, overall weight, and weight forward than the A weight barreled rifle.  But another person may find the A weight to be better to hold.  When I ordered my barrel for my Chambers Virginia rifle, I had Barbie send me a .50 cal barrel rather than the .58 or .62, so that it would be heavier, and thus a better offhand target rifle.  I was right.  It weighs 9 pounds 14.4 oz...perfect for a youth or my age.

[Acer Saccharum]

If you are in good shape, a heavy rifle will be to your advantage. If you can bvarely hold the thing up and start trembling quickly, the weight is doing you no good. So either get yourself into shape or use a lighter rifle.

Roger Fisher prefers a front heavy gun( and he's no spring chicken  ). He's in darn good shape, and a darn good shot.

Tom

[Pete Allan]

Make sure you get to try different weights of rifles. The reason I say this is because I am just the opposite of most people as I prefer the weight to be in the rear of the rifle. Back when I shot service rifle in competition when we switched from M1s to M14s my scores offhand went way up. When I switched to shooting muzzleloaders when I was done with service rifle I built a reasonably light flint rifle for offhand and I was able to win way more than my share of matches.  Now 40 years later the flint rifle is still easy to hold up offhand but I sure miss the M14. "Uncle" made us turn them in but then after 2 years of matches the barrel was shot out on mine

[The other DWS]

another factor is the buttplate design--curve and thickness,  where you place the butt relative to your arm/shoulder, and the relative thickness of your arm.  I'm coming here from a schuetzen rifle background.  even a modest swiss style semi-hook or even a deep crescent style will do wonders for offhand shooting with muzzle heavy rifles.  a muzzle heavy rifle with a flat buttplate, or one that is too wide for your shoulder can be a misery of it is too much weight-forward.

[Roger Fisher]

Yes, muzzle weight offhand is good but only to a point....

After they cut me in 99 my favorite offhand girl was just tooo heavy up front and the lads watched me tremble,  so I added lead at the proper place and moved the balance point back abt 1 1/2 inches which helped..... .45 15/16th straight 39 1/2 in

Yrs ago I watched Hoppy Hopkins repeatedly shoot the center out of a 5 star target with a little light weight half stock.   I decided I'm building one which I did and I wasted an entire summer trying to shot that thing.  She waved and wiggled dipped and flipped, never could handle her.  Just too light up front (for me)

[Pete Allan]

Under the heading of don't try this with a muzzleloader I was just thinking of how the bolt rifle shooters compensated for to much weight out front in offhand. They would sit the butt of the rifle on top of their sholder with the pistol grip right back against their sholder. I also remember that they put their thumb against the back of the trigger guard and with their first finger just pinched to fire the rifle. Of course a heavy bolt rifle in 308 or similar hardly recoiled so that was no problem

[Don Getz]

Many years ago I had Dave Dodds build me a Berks county rifle, kind of Haga type, with a 39" barrel in 54 cal.   I wanted
a rather heavy gun so I made the barrel by running a shortened Golden Age "D" weight barrel.   It still balances nice just
like you get with a swamped barrel, but this gun has some overall weight which helps for off-hand shooting, and since
this is basically a hunting rifle, I like the added weight.............Don

[octagon]

Many years ago I had Dave Dodds build me a Berks county rifle, kind of Haga type, with a 39" barrel in 54 cal.   I wanted
a rather heavy gun so I made the barrel by running a shortened Golden Age "D" weight barrel.   It still balances nice just
like you get with a swamped barrel, but this gun has some overall weight which helps for off-hand shooting, and since
this is basically a hunting rifle, I like the added weight.............Don

Don, was the "D" weigth barrel 15/16 or 1 " ATF.

Jack

[Don Getz]

Octagon.....not sure about your question.    What I am referring to is a swamped barrel.   We did what we called the "Golden Age Series" of barrels.    They were done in four weights, and labeled as "A"..the lightest, B, C, and D, (the
heaviest).....they all had the same profile.   The "A" went from .950 at the breech, down to .700 at the small part, and
.760 at the muzzle.  The B weight was 1" at the breech, the C was 1 1/6" at the breech, and the D was 1 1/8" at the
breech.  As they go up in size, all of the other measurements also go up by the same amount, with the D weight going
from a breech of 1.125 down to .875, up to .915 at the muzzle.   Hope this answers your question.........Don

[Daryl]

Eric - I hold my left hand at the entry pipe location, finger down the rod or on the pipe itself if it has one. The little .32, with a 38" 13/16" straight octagonal barrel, at 7 3/4 pounds is just too light in the front for me to hold well offhand shooting the trail. so - I use a 5/16" steel rod for trail walks.  This brings the gun weight up to 8 1/2 pounds, which is perfect for this rifle. The shot has to break inside about 12 seconds, but that is plenty long enough for an accurate shot.  The addition of 3/4 pound, most of it on the muzzle changed the 'hold' immensly.