what determines height of cheek rest?

[Dave Poss]

How is the height of a cheek rest determined? Is this one of the last things done before final sanding? seems the barrel with sights and trigger would have to be already installed....or am I overthinking that part and it's really not all that critical. thanks

 

[rich pierce]

Short answer: yes. I always fit sights before finishing shaping of the buttstock.

I think you are asking about how to shape the stock so that sight alignment it almost instinctive. Good thing to consider and the cheekpiece definitely can affect this. However the answer can be different depending on the architecture of the gun. For example shotguns, where instinctive shooting and sight alignment is most important, do not have cheekrests or cheekpieces, etc. So this tells us that the comb line, drop at heel and comb, and width of the stock at the comb and mid-stock, determines most of the "automatic alignment".

On early guns, pre-percussion, the cheekpiece provides support for the jaw, not so much the cheek. It swells out the most at the part that your lower face rests on. On late percussion guns like Hawkens, the round cheekpiece supports more of the upper face as well.

But the amount of cast-off, height and width of the comb, etc are primary determinants of fit in my mind, and the cheekpiece is next.

Long winded, ain't I?

One way to assess fit is to smoothly mount the gun with eyes closed, then look at the sights. Hopefully if you do need to make adjustment, the rear sight will be to the right of the front so taking off wood will help line things up. Your face will leave oil residue on the stock and can give you an idea where to rasp a little. But in the end, on a rifle, there's usually some time for sight adjustment. Try to make any adjustments flow with the architecture.

 

[aviator_2]

This question seems to tie in closely with another post that caught my attention, the one regarding "fixed sights". The height of the cheek piece or the drop of the comb, will determine how the eye will naturally fall in line with the sights once the gun is mounted to the shoulder and the cheek is rested on the comb. Each person is a little different in the distance from the cheek to the eye, although I wouldn't think too much but as long as you are building a gun just for you, why not have it your way? The question I have is this: Is the stock usually built exactly in line with the barrel and forearm or is it possibly canted slightly ( would assume to the right) to facilitate alignment of the eye to the sights? If that were the case, I would expect the gun to swing slightly to the left during recoil and you don't really see that. My guess is that the stock is straight with the barrel and only the drop of the comb and heel are usally taken into consideration. Possibly some narrowing of the cheek piece or comb would be in order. Hank

 

[rich pierce]

"cast-off" is a term indicating the buttstock is offset relative to the barrel to allow faster/better alignment with the sights. This is commonly about 3/8" to 1/2" on original longrifles. The comb narrows toward the wrist. Therefore even if on recoil the gun comes slightly to the left, it still need not slam the cheek.