Dear Technoid,

I want to ask you if the stock of a Browning 425 20 ga. can be bended, in order to lower the point off impact.Will the bending be permanent? Also, i would like to ask you if the weather conditions affect the performance off shells(e.g. when the weather is wet or hot with a high percentage off moisture).

Your site is great, Thanks a lot ,

Mak

Dear Mak,

Yes, the stock of the Browning 425 can be bent down to lower the point of impact, but only up to a certain point.

Here’s what I mean. If the gun shoots high for you right now, try this: Mount the gun with your eyes closed. Keeping your eyes closed, move your shoulder and face until the stock feels quite comfortable. Now open your eyes. If you are looking flat down the rib, and the gun shoots high for you when you look right down the rib, then bending the stock will NOT lower your effective point of impact. Lowering the stock further will only put your eye below the rib. This is bad and will cause you to lift your head.

If, on opening your eyes, you are seeing a bit of rib, with perhaps the front and middle bead stacked in a “figure 8”, then lowering the stock by bending will lower your eye so that you will look flat down the rib. This should also lower your point of impact. This may or may not be a good solution for you. Personally, I like to see a little bit of rib when I shoot a gun. I don’t like to look flat down the rib because if I use a little extra pressure, the way one does on droppers, then my eye gets lost below the rib. For some reason my guns, whether autos, O/Us or SxS, don’t shoot high when I see a bit of rib. They shoot dead on.

The ideal situation for lowering point of impact by lowering the stock is when you are seeing a great deal of rib when the gun is mounted. Then bending the stock down will not only lower your point of impact, but also still allow you to see a bit of rib.

When lowering the stock of an O/U like your 425, you can either do it by bending or sanding. Bending is usually permanent, but not always. To some extent it depends on the wood and the method used to bend. Some wood just doesn’t stay bent very well. Most gunstock woods do bend well. Bending is convenient because the stock usually doesn’t have to be refinished. It’s also handy because you can add/subtract cast at the same time. Bending is the simplest and easiest way to move a stock.

You can also lower the stock by sanding. If the stock is sanded down, then it must be refinished. The plus side is that a sanded stock can’t spring back. A possible downside is that it changes the basic configuration of the stock.

In addition to sanding and bending, many O/U boxlock owners who want to move their stocks have them reinletted. This requires a highly skilled stockmaker who can refit the head of the stock to the rear of the receiver at a different angle. If you have someone who can do this, I believe it to be the best way.

All three methods work where moving the stock will correct the problem.

Moisture and high humidity will affect some shells and not others. It all depends on how the shell is made, the components used and the gun barrel the shell is used in. In very cold conditions, some plastic wads harden and don’t seal properly in the barrel. In wet conditions, some paper hulls can expand and jam in the gun. Shells with fiber wads often don’t work well in overbored gun because the fiber can’t expand enough to seal the powder gases. As I said, it depends on the shell, the weather and the gun.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
The Technoid writing for Shotgun Report, LLC
(Often in error. Never in doubt.)
http://www.ShotgunReport.com