Dearest Technoid,

After several years of shooting O/U’s, I recently decided to give autoloaders a try for Sporting Clays. So I bought a Browning Gold Sporting which has worked very well so far.

One problem is that the distance from the pistol grip to the trigger is a bit long for my short fingers. I have large hands, but little short fingers. I must either stretch my trigger finger out straight to reach the trigger or move my hand up very high on the grip area. I don’t care much for either method.

On my 425 I place the trigger shoe in the rear position and it fits my hand nicely. The Gold, unfortunately, does not have an adjustable trigger shoe.

Short of getting my trigger finger surgically lengthened, is there any way to move the pistol grip closer to the trigger? Can the front end of the stock where is mates to the receiver be cut down a little to move the grip forward?

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thank you. And, as always, keep up the good work!

Neal
Richmond, VA

Dear Neal,

Short of hanging by your fingers while you sleep, you are going to have to do something to the stock. Yes, you can shorten up the pistol grip to trigger length by cutting back the “head” of the stock and reinletting it. This is more complicated than it looks as you may also be raising the height of the stock at the same time as it slides forward and UP the angled mainspring tube. If you don’t mind a slightly higher stock, or one with more downslope at comb if you pitch it down at the same time, then it might work well. This is probably stockmaker stuff and not something that you want to do at home.

Many shooters build up the front of their pistol grips with some kind of epoxy putty or bondo car body putty. This looks awful, but works great. You could test out the idea by starting with duct tape and see how that works.

The pistol grip of a stock is one of its most determining gunfit features. Unfortunately, the gunmaking industry hasn’t figured out any way to measure or standardize it. Consider yourself lucky though. The grips on the Beretta autos are even larger. The one on the old Browning B-80 gas gun was too big for anyone living on the outside of a cage. The Browning (both Belgian and Japanese) O/Us and all the Remington and Winchester products seem to fit almost everyone. It is a shame that the Beretta and Browning gas guns are so different.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Report’s Technoid
(Often in error, never in doubt.)