[Rollin Oswald]

Yours is a very difficult, if not impossible question to answer. You say that the LOP is correct for you but as you may not realize, LOP is affected by how you stand when you shoot (your stance) and also, the height that you mount your gun on your shoulder.

Actually, LOP is not one of the first things to consider when setting up a gun. The shooting form used when you shoot (gun mount, stance, head,neck and body posture) is very important. Some forms have proven to be more successful than others.

Some unaware or closed-minded shooters want to set up a new gun the same way that their previous gun was set up to allow them to shoot using the less-than-ideal shooting form they used in the past and are comfortable with. This can of course, be done but it is not the best way to do things.

I suggest taht you learn about shooting form and stock fitting. It would be even better if you would visit a good prifessional stock fitter who would teach you good shooting form and then set your gun up. That would include correcting any poorly fitting stock dimensions that prevent a good form being used.

My book, "Stock Fitter's Bible" (Website URL above) would teach you about shooting form and how to figure out what stock dimensions need to be changed to enable you to use it but it would be easier if you visited a good stock fitter to have your gun set up and at the same time, learn about good shooting form.

Rollin

 

[Uncle Screech]

I see too many folks making adjustments "willy-nilly" without understanding what it is they are adjusting and more importantly, why they are adjusting it. The trick is to understand what each of the adjustable things are and why you want to change it and what to roughly expect from each change. The trigger length you can do at home, get that set to what you think is comfortable. From that point forward you have to be in front of the patterning board and ideally someone else to "see" from the outside. Start with the butt plate. If you have to conciously "straighten" the gun when you mount it you need to adjust it until you can mount it vertically without thinking about it. Have someone confirm it is vertical. Next I would find out where the gun is shooting in the horizontal plane (left or right of the aim point). 5 shells at paper and average the pattern (eyeball is good enough at this point). Adjust the comb left or right to center the pattern. 5 more shells to confirm you have it centered and you can move on to height. Start with the rib. Raise or lower the rib until it is roughly the height you want. To fine tune it you can then go back to the comb and add spacers (on my Guerini I used the set screws to get this where I wanted but put spacers there once I was happy. Dennis Devault has spacers that will fit your comb hardware). Now that you have it roughed in it's time to go shoot at some birds and "fine tune" until you are smoking them. Keep in mind that this fine-tuning is an ongoing process, clothes, weight loss or gain, mood, etc. can all effect how accurate you are.

This may not be the best way to go about it but it will get you in the neighborhood.

 

[slayer]

Pay to have the gun fitted before you even get started and then shoot, shoot, shoot. A good fitting session on an adjustable gun is only about $25 and then you can move on. The only thing that you need to adjust after that is your rib [P.o.i]. Pattern at 35 yards and adjust your rib to your preference. I like it about 6 inches high at this distance. That is about where a new bt-99 is set. Choke IMHO is of least importance. Full is great IM is where I'm at for singles. A new gun is great fun to learn if you don't make a chore out of it. Bill

 

[zzt]

Pre-64, you don't have to buy a book to set your gun up correctly for you. It is quite straight forward, but tedious.

The first thing to do is find out if your gun shoots straight and the barrels are converged. For that you need a bench and targets, preferably a grease plate. I'm fortunate to have access to a grease plate, so I set up on a bench @ 20 yards. If you have to use paper, you may want to consider closer.

Pick a barrel and put your tightest choke in it. From a bench rest or sand bags, sight straight down the rib, line up the ribs and treat it like a rifle. Fire at the target and measure where the center of the pattern was vis-a-vis your point of aim. You will have to do this several times to be sure you have an accurate measurement. Now, using the same barrel, do it again for each of your chokes. If you are lucky, all, or most of them will shoot to the same POI. Mark the ones that don't. Maybe you can get Guerini to replace them for you.

Now move to the second barrel. Take your tightest, know good choke and screw it in. Fire just like before, several times and see where the shot lands. If it hit the same spot as the first barrel, you are good to go. Your barrels are properly converged and you have at least some chokes that shoot to the same POI. If the second barrel doesn't shoot to the same place, you'll have to decide what to do about it. If you have a combo, you have to repeat the process on the single barrel.

Now that you know your gun shoots straight, it's time to see where you shoot it. Adjust the gun so it fits you. I start by setting the rib in the middle position and raising or lowering the comb so that I see the sight alignment I want. I stand in front of a mirror and mount the gun. I adjust the butt plat so I am mounting with the proper form and not canting. Most likely you will be tweaking these settings later.

Now go to the pattern board and draw three vertical lines on the paper, left, center, right. Standing 13 to 15 yrds away, mount the gun just like you would on the line and trace one of the lines with your bead. Fire whenever. We really don't care when. Do it a couple more times. Where does the shot hit- centered on the line or left or right. If it isn't centered, move your adjustable comb in the direction you want your shot to move. Try again on another vertical line. At the end of the process, you should be able to mount the gun, paying attention only to the front sight tracing the line, and having the shots center the line. Now you are set up right to left.

Setting vertical POI is a little more difficult. Put some paper on the pattern board and draw horizontal lines across it. You are going to trace the horizontal line with your bead and fire. For reasons I won't go into here, I think shooting at 15 or 16 yards is better for this process. Adjust your comb so that the shot from the bottom barrel is centered on the line. The top barrel will shoot a little higher.

This comb setting is your base pack. Record it. I use spacers so that I can always get the comb at the same height. Your comb will never be set lower than this. You will have a flat shooting gun, all the way out to 40 yards. Each 1/8" spacer you add under the comb will raise your POI by 4" @ 40 yards. A 1/16" spacer, half of that. So add one 1/8" spacer to your base pack and go shoot some straight aways. If you are smoking them, you are done. If not, add spacers as necessary to get the breaks you want.

 

[Pre-64]

All - Thank you very much.. I appreciate it..
J.C.

 

[slayer]

zzt very good info! thanks. Bill

 

[Steve Bills]

zzt: great answering info. Your thread has help me very much> Thank you, steve

 

[joe90t]

zzt,THANK YOU !!!! That is the BEST,Concise and informative post i have EVER Seen on Ts.com. This is the way i TRY to get shooters (NEW & OLD) to set up their guns. The responce is most times "I tried that" and it did not work. I SAY Horse Hockey !!!!!The reason "some" people are Non-belivers is because they are reading it on a computer screen and do NOT know the person TRYING to Help them. Now, that said it is SO hard to get shooters to TAKE the time to do what zzt recommends that they just BLOW it Off. PLEASE pay attention to this info ----IT WORKS ---------------- JMO Joe joe90t