Crest butt plate fear

[p00rfarm]

The poor positioning of a curved butt plate is painful. The memory of the bruise from bench resting a T/C Hawkins years ago has not faded. Now I need to sight in a new used 54 cal. Lyman Great Plains Rifle.
New plan is average a 10 shot free hand group at 50 yds.
Here are the first results. This plan will work for me.

 

[Zonie]

It sounds like you learned from your previous experience and now you are locating the curved butt plate more "out on the arm" rather than against your shoulder?

 

[Griz44Mag]

Beat me to it Zonie.
I learned that lesson the hard way too!
And with the GPR on an upper arm hold it's also a lot easier to get a comfortable head and check hold too!

 

[p00rfarm]

I will look into the "arm hold'. The problem I have is unless I'm standing the point of the crest drills into my muscle. Maybe, if the bench was taller?

 

[Omahkapi'si]

I hold a crescent buttplate out where the bicep meets the shoulder, it fits in there nice and is easy to shoot. Switched to that awhile ago after shouldering in tight. Feels better and I think more accurate for off hand as well as from one knee position. My two cents.

 

[Zonie]

I will look into the "arm hold'. The problem I have is unless I'm standing the point of the crest drills into my muscle. Maybe, if the bench was taller?

Basically, the point should end up in your armpit, not against the muscles on your chest.
This is quite different than the hold we use with modern rifles and it feels strange at first. Especially if you are sitting at a shooting bench.

 

[Heelerau]

That is why I love the earlier style long rifles with the flatter but plate.

 

[Neel]

I have a Lyman GPR percussion which has edges on the buttstock which are sharper than some of the knives in my kitchen.
A long time ago I bought a recoil pad from Buffalo Arms Pad. which has proved it's worth over the years.
Call me a wimp, but at least I don't have bruises on my shoulder.

 

[Muddly]

Its true. A rifle buttplate can bite if not properly positioned.
My biggest issue with them is when shooting off the bench. Recoil rotates the top point of the plate right into the upper arm. My Browning Mountain Rifle bit me good as did a Lyman Great Plains.
My TC Hawken is much better due to its lesser drop.
The best thing to do when shooting off the bench is to have a more upright body position and keep the upper arm close to the body instead of sticking out. Even heavy conicals in my TC Hawken are much friendlier when I'm sitting up straight(er). She doesn't give me recoil hickies any more!

 

[mushka]

The butt of a rifle can always be altered to fit better. A saw, or rasp, metal file, and a hammer is all it takes. A little time perhaps.

 

[longcruise]

I went through the same butt plate bruising and found a solution. First off, you need to build a high front rest. It needs to be high enough that when you sit athe bench you are in an upright position. It's easier to do if you have an adjustable stool at the bench. Then you build a rest for your upper arm so that when you position yourself you are essentially in an offhand position but with the rifle rested.

 

[bradly_tx]

This might help

 

[Omahkapi'si]

This might help

Yup. That's how I shoot. Very comfortable.

 

[fire bear]

Being a big guy I learned quite early in life (the 60's) that the only way for me to shoot a crescent but plate was to hold it a bit out on the arm. Being the only one in my group that had regularly handled a gun of that type I got stares and comments about the way I held that rifle. I felt a lot better many years later when I learned from a number of other shooters of that type of rifle that my hold was not only acceptable but preferred.

 

[renegadehunter]

When I was around 14 my parents bought me a 12 ga. unmentionable for Christmas. It was much too long for me and I unconsciously started shouldering it further and further out on my shoulder until it was actually out on my arm. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I shot a couple rounds of trap one warm day in a tank top and my dad saw the lines from the recoil pad out on my arm and asked me why the heck I was holding it out there. I used the 12 ga. so much that I started shooting all guns this way. I had no issues with being comfortable shooting from a bench. Years later I very consciously had to work to break that habit. It is still very comfortable for me to shoulder a rifle out on my arm so I don't think I'd have any issue using a crescent free hand or resting on sand bags. We'll find out, I have my FIL's old school CVA Mountain Rifle with a crescent to work up a load for.

 

[longcruise]

another great vid by Bob. He is making a great contribution to muzzle loading.

 

[jambuster]

Regarding the group you shot my first groups from my new barrel for my 54 cal GPR looked about like that . At 50 yards I was expecting about a 2" group. I am at about 50 rounds now and the 10 shot groups tightened up to about 2" with 1 or 2 flyers . The flyers may be me cause I haven't been out on a good shootin day yet. My last group has several shots touching each other . I am shooting a .535 speer ball with Thompson pre-lubed patches and 110grs of Graff FFFG. I am also using some old CVA #11 caps that I think were made by CCI. They were stored in my hunting closet for at least 10 years and work fine.

 

[rich pierce]

I’ve found no good solution for the beating I take from a narrow crescent buttplate with heavy recoil in certain positions- prone and off the bench. And I’m no newbie and have tried everything everyone suggests. Try shooting a .54 Hawken stoutly loaded prone uphill. I don’t care where you hold it so long as it’s against skin. It’s going to bite like a horse. Because it is impossible to get the crescent seated anywhere.

 

[JamesT]

Some stock and butt profiles are just painful to shoot from the bench. I think they had offhand hunting in the woods in mind when the old timers made these rifles. A deep crescent butt plate really aids in the support of a long heavy barreled Tennessee rifle.

 

[bigted]

There are a couple other things that make for uncomfortable shooting as well.

First off is the length of pull from the trigger to the butt seat. If this is too short ... like all rifles for me at 6 foot 5 1/2 inch tall ... the short 13 1/2 inch length of pull is about 2 inch short for me. More rifles have this 13 to 14 inch LOP then don't. Some even shorter ... snow goot!!!

The other thing that is uncomfortable to me is the drop of the cheek weld area. TC has a very slight drop here and along with the short LOP ... is a very uncomfortable shooter with anything resembling a hunting load.

But wait ... there are cures for these too.

All my rifles wear a leather strap on butt pad for that extra 1 inch of pull they offer. I take a piece of dense foam and carve a crescent filling piece and shove it in the cuff of the leather butt pad ... lacing it tight this helps greatly with LOP.

Also as to the high comb area ... my TC's and my expensive smoothy as well as the Enfield from Pedrosoli have all been surgically altered to provide a lower cheek weld ( comb height ) so I catch the sights without having to shove my cheek hard against the comb.

This in no way offers advise on the deep crescent's ... but ... everything together provides either a love or hate relationship with your treasure.

I have stopped trading around and what lives in my closet is made to fit me so my treasures are now comfortable shooters for me and I have reverence for all of them as they are now shooters AND all the sharp corners that gouge are removed. I refuse to have a toy that hurts me.

As to those deep crescents ... I learned on a high wall chambered in 45- 120 about how to position them correctly ... loooooong ago. Try 135 grains under a 550 slug with that crescent in the wrong spot ... yaouch ... and ... for weeks after I might add.