Milanuk's Reply to Shawn's Rifle Fitting Article

[royinidaho]

Didn't want to hijack that thread thus this one.

Milanuk sais some good things. Thanks for the post.'

And you're not anymore an odd ball than most of the rest of us.

Many of the reasons you state is why I build/shape my own stocks.

However, I'm afraid, from reading the article that I may actually be forming the stock to compensate for personal short comings in shooting technique. That is surly a bad thing.

The point that tweaked my thinking the most was the one about the flat comb. Gonna have to take a look at that.

Shooting will start in a week or so. High elevation NM springs are the pits. Two days of 50/60 degree weather. Now two days of snow/mist/snow/more mist.

I've been told that summer is the real pits due to something called monsoon season. Rain every afternoon.

[milanuk]

Roy,

I made the mistake of trying to start shooting NRA High Power Rifle with a Frankenstein Rem700VS in .308 Win. Had a gunsmith fit a graco adjustable butt plate and a fore end rail, mill for a stripper clip, and fit with iron sights. It worked... but it was *dang* uncomfortable.

Eventually came across a deal on a take-off 6.5-08 barrel, got it mounted up and fitted with a Sitman National Match stock... way better, but too many things and adjustments to keep track of. For NRA HP, you have one set of settings for Standing/Offhand, a completely different set for Sitting/Rapidfire (usually the opposite cant), and yet another for Prone/Rapidfire - luckily the last is pretty close to the same as what works for Prone/Slowfire (the 600yd stage). But for a new shooter... I never really did get the stock to fit me well in all positions. At some point... I went back to a plain old Service Rifle for a year or two, just for the simplicity until I got a few other things (eyes) sorted out. Then I started finding that damn, I could actually shoot thes things okay, and the adjustable stock on my Prone rifle made things really sing!

Last season I picked up a spacegun for XTC... I've got it all dialed in for Prone/Slowfire (and by extension, Prone/Rapids). Standing and Sitting are going to be... interesting to sort out. I know what I want (kind of), but this stock is even *more* adjustable than the last one (almost as bad as a smallbore 'Free' rifle)

Fitting my hunting/tactical rifles seems a whole lot easier by comparison, mainly because there generally are a whole lot less options for adjustment commonly used. Then again, 'field' rifles get used from some really odd positions as well ;)

When I mentioned be a bit outside the standard norm for size... generally, once I have a rifle really set up for *me*, most other people have a hard time using it. A lot of people can't hardly reach the trigger or see through the scope