Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. RIFLEMAN • DAVE ANDERSON • ARRESTING RECOIL Don’t break the stock. f rumors are to be believed (and in this high-speed I communication era rumors spread with breathtaking speed), it appears wooden stocks are no longer strong enough to handle the cartridge on the order of the .308 Win it would likely crack on the first shot, but even the miniscule recoil of a .22 LR would eventually crack a wooden stock. recoil of even moderately powerful cartridges. If a new, powerful Any rifle has to be able to move cartridge appears, stories about cracked or broken wooden stocks during recoil, but the effect is more are not far behind. clearly evident with powerful cartridges. If the rifle can’t move something is going The most recent example was the specifically, the way we shoot hard- to break. If a shooter were so foolish as .375 Ruger cartridge in the wood- kicking rifles. Currently it seems a to fire a really powerful rifle from the stocked African version of the Ruger 77 popular practice to shoot big-bore (even prone position, or with the shoulder rifle. Rumors began circulating about not-so-big bore) rifles from the bench, braced against a tree, what will break how the stocks would crack in the tang with the buttstock braced against the first is the shooter’s shoulder. In the field, hunting rifles (especially area after just a few shots. weight of 40 or 50 pounds of lead. Learned exposés began appearing Such practice makes stock damage big bores) are most often fired from positions which let the body move — about how the Ruger African stock inevitable. needed a second reinforcing cross bolt, When a rifle is fired it moves, in the offhand, standing with a forearm rest, glass bedding of the recoil lug recess and opposite direction of the bullet. This is perhaps kneeling or sitting. The body tang area, maybe even a second recoil basic physics. The forces moving the can rock back during recoil, preventing lug attached to the barrel. Or maybe just rifle back are very powerful indeed. The damage to both shooter and the rifle abandon the idea of antiquated wooden effects aren’t as dramatic as the effect stock. Damage most often occurs at the stocks entirely and get the synthetic- the bullet has when it strikes a water jug stocked Alaskan version. a 100 yards away. But the momentum bench, while sighting in or developing is the same. If the rifle can’t move, handloads. One solution is the standing Glass Is Good benchrest. I’ve seen one or two public something is going to give. ranges with such rests Now to be clear I’m but they are not common. very much in favor of glass Another is the improvised bedding, regardless of recoil standing rests, such as the factors, for its accuracy and hood of a pickup or top of stability enhancement. I a car. I’ve read of shooters don’t have anything against caving in windshields or synthetic stocks. What I peeling off strips of vinyl want to address is the notion car tops with muzzle blast. wooden stocks can’t handle When shooting big the recoil of powerful bores from the bench, cartridges. They have, after make sure the rests are all, been doing so for over a high enough so you can century. sit up fairly straight. This Powerful cartridges such allows the body to flex, as the .416 Rigby and .505 TheHySkoreDangerousGamemachinerestusesalowerassemblywhichis Gibbs were developed long attachedtothebench.Heretheassemblyisattachedtoawoodenbasesecured protecting both shooter and before synthetic stocks tothebenchwithC-clamps.Theuppercarriagecanmovebackandforthunder rifle. Sandwiching a 5- or 10-pound bag of lead shot and glass bedding existed. recoil.TherifleisaWeatherbyMarkV.340WbyMagwith2-7XPentaxscope. between the gun butt and The rifles to handle them the shoulder effectively were stocked with wood, adds weight to the gun and reduces yet somehow they managed to work. Wrong Test recoil, while still allowing the body to It’s true some of these old classics If you were to take even a light-kicking flex and take up rifle motion. eventually developed cracks in the Naturally some shooters felt if 10 stock, but usually only after decades of rifle (do not do this — it is potentially service. They didn’t crack while firing dangerous and would certainly damage pounds was good, 50 or a 100 pounds or wreck the stock), and fire it with the would be better. They’ll place two or the first box of ammunition. So what has changed? Recoil hasn’t butt of the stock against an immovable three 25-pound shot bags on the bench changed, and wood is still wood. What object such as a concrete wall, the stock and brace the buttstock against them. has changed is the shooter, or more will crack or break very quickly. With a With the friction of the bags against the 20 WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM • DECEMBER 2009