Shortening Stocks - A Cautionary Tale

[ewokUk]

Hi guys & gals,

I've just found out just why I've had a realy bad start to the season & though you might like to share in the problem and the fix.

The year started with me shortening the stock of my Winchester 1300 by 3/4" & grinding down the but pad to fit. After this, the pull length was still slightly too long (maybe 1/8") but I didn't want to risk making it too short & some mounting & shoot 1 practice soon prooved that it was a whole lot better than before.

This was followed up with some load 1-shoot 1 practice to get used to the new loading gate position, and a whole bunch of choke/buckshot/slug testing, but no real speed shooting practice.

The first competition of the year saw me short stroking & wasting daylight on almost every stage - I put this down to lack of proper practice. No time for any practice & the second competition of the year saw more of the same & several jams as well.

The third competition was the pits! Short stroking, empty shells left in the chamber & eventually I DQ'ed myself.

The day before the British Open Shotgun Championship Steve Pike (Match Director, gunsmith & very good friend) found his stock of winchester parts & we changed the extractor & cured the extraction problem. Whilst testing it, Steve also short stroked the gun (un-heard of!), & asked me what I'd done to it to make it kick so much?

I hadn't noticed, but apparently reducing the plastic stock length & recoil pad size had reduced the ammount of recoil adsorbed by the stock & I was now 'over-gripping' the gun to control the recoil, which ment I was not relaxing enough to operate the pump properly.

Steve told me to put some lead in the stock before the competition the next day! I didn't know how much to use so I just filled a plastic bag full of all my old .45 LRN rejects, added some epoxy & wedged it into the stock.

The next day it ran like a dream. Full load slug, OO buck, 32g & 36g birshot all fed, cycled & ejected perfectly.

Who would have though that just fitting a stock to the shooter would cause a problem like this? - Of course I should have tested it fully after making the change.