How To Bag More Birds By Patterning Your Shotgun

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Considering the fact that shooters come in all shapes and sizes, manufacturers do a remarkable job of mass-producing shotguns that come close to fitting everyone. But as in the game of horseshoe pitching, just getting close may not always be enough. If we lived in a perfect world, all upland guns would place the centers of their patterns dead on the shooter’s hold point or, at the very worst, only a few inches high. The last time I looked, the world was a long way from being perfect, and the chance of a shotgun doing exactly that with all shooters is less than certain. Competitors who are seriously into clay target games, such as trap, skeet, and sporting clays, spend a lot of time pattern-testing their guns, but all too many hunters neglect to do so. Quite often, they blame their inability to connect consistently on flying targets on themselves when the gun may very well be at fault.

Before getting into ways of correcting a gun that does not shoot where its owner is looking, I will touch on pattern-placement testing. I use a steel patterning plate, but for those who do not have access to one, white wrapping paper measuring 30 inches or so square is a good substitute, and in a pinch, the morning newspaper will do. Using a staple gun, attach a sheet of cardboard to a home-built stand I am about to describe, and then attach the paper to it. Use a black Magic Marker to add a 4.0-inch hold point to the center of the target.

The base of the target holder shown in the photo on the next page consists of four pieces of 2x4 lumber and two short pieces of PVC pipe with an inside diameter of 1.25 inches. Everything is held together by long wood screws. The two wood furring slats extending up from the PVC holders are 1.5 inches wide, 0.75 inch thick, and 6.0 feet long. Leaving them unattached to their holders makes the stand quite portable. The rig also works great for target shooting with handguns and rifles. For those who would rather not make their own, the Tactical Target Stand Base from Brownells skins the same cat.

Begin the test by shooting four rounds on the same target from a rest at 16 yards. A sandbag placed on the paint bucket shelf of a 6-foot step ladder is perfect as it allows you to shoot while standing. If the gun has screw-in chokes, Full should be used. If not, the next tightest choke will suffice.

Now switch to a new target and give the gun one more four-round test. Carefully measure back 16 yards from the patterning board and place a rock, a piece of paper, or other marker on the ground. Back off another 10 yards, load a shell in the gun, and begin slowly walking toward the target. Just as you reach the marker on the ground, shoulder the gun and fire at the center of the target. Don’t rush the shot, but you don’t want to take careful aim either. Simply focus on the mark you made on the paper, bring the gun to your shoulder in one smooth motion, and pretend you are shooting at a quail.

After completing those tests, examine the two targets closely. If the 4.0-inch circle you marked on the paper is dead center of the patterns you shot, the gun is perfectly fitted for you, and you have what is described as a flat-shooting shotgun. If not, there are ways of correcting the gun, and one begins with its barrel.

Several years ago, I bought a 28-gauge Browning Model 12 with a fixed Improved Cylinder choke. I almost always check out a new shotgun at the pattern plate before using it on clay targets or in the field, but I got busy and kept putting off doing so. Back then I was shooting a lot of registered skeet, and just for fun, I decided to break a few clay targets with my shiny new gun. I am usually a fair shot and seldom break fewer than 23 out of 25 targets when shooting my bird guns from the low-gun start position. With the Model 12, I broke most of the targets from stations where they are launched at hard angles from right to left and left to right, but rather than smoking them as I usually do, most were chip shots. I always powder the easy going-away targets from stations one and seven and was puzzled when quite a few of those were only chipped as well.

Moving from skeet field to the 16-yard patterning plate revealed that the gun was placing the dense center of its pattern far enough to the left to put the thinner outer fringe of the pattern on my hold point. That explained the many chipped targets. The fix was as easy as sending the gun along with paper targets shot at 16 yards to Briley Manufacturing for the installation of a set of eccentrically bored screw-in choke tubes that would shift pattern center the required distance to the right. The eccentric choke tube can be machined out of alignment with the gun’s bore to change pattern point of impact in any direction. Pattern quality is unaffected by the installation, even when the pattern has to be shifted as much as was necessary for my gun. I now shoot the Model 12 as well as any of my other shotguns.

Making changes to the stock is a more common method and when making the decision to do so keep in mind that the shooter’s eye is to a shotgun what the rear sight is to a rifle. In other words, both are moved in the direction projectile point of impact needs to be shifted. If the comb is too low, as is sometimes seen on shotguns built during the early 20th century, increasing comb height is easily accomplished by building it up with one or more layers of adhesive-backed rubber called Cheek-EEZ sold by Brownells. The material is easily trimmed and shaped with scissors, and it is available in thicknesses ranging from 1/16 inch to 1⅛ inches.

To determine what to order, gradually build up the comb of the stock with layers of thin, flexible cardboard held to the stock by masking tape until the gun is shooting to your hold point. Then measure the combined thicknesses of the layers of cardboard. If a gun is shooting to the right, a right-handed shooter would add a narrow strip of Cheek-EEZ to the left side of its comb in order to shift the pattern to the left. Easily removed, the stuff won’t harm the finish of a stock, and it won’t be pretty, but the birds won’t notice, and the soft rubber also does a great job of padding the cheek from recoil.

If a gun is shooting to the left, wood will have to be removed from the left side of the comb of the stock or the stock will have to be bent. If it is shooting too high, lowering the comb will lower eye position, thereby making the gun shoot lower. But go easy with that wood rasp as removing only 1/16 inch will lower the pattern about an inch at 16 yards. When possible, leave the job to a professional.

Years ago I decided to get serious about the sport of skeet shooting and bought a 12-gauge Krieghoff K32 over-under with three pairs of Purbaugh insert tubes in .410, 20 gauge, and 28 gauge. It’s a very nice gun, but its comb was too high for me, so I had it lowered by a local stockmaker who specialized in doubles. I was there as he made trial-and-error modifications. He would remove a bit of wood, and I would shoot the gun on a pattern board behind his shop. After repeating about 20 times, the gun was shooting precisely where I wanted it to. He did an excellent job refinishing the entire stock to match the finish on the forearm.

Cast-off is often found on the stocks of high-quality English doubles, and it means the centerline of the buttstock is angled to the right of the centerline of the top rib for a right-handed shooter. Cast-on is just the opposite and usually means the gun was built for a left-handed shooter. Cast in a stock allows the shooter to align his eye with the rib of the barrels without crushing the cheek hard against the comb of the stock or rolling the cheek over it. My 20-gauge Westley Richards double has a bit of cast-off, and while I don’t shoot it any better than the doubles I have with straight stocks, it makes the gun feel more like it was made just for me. But too much of anything can be bad, and that includes cast. A friend bought a nice little 28-gauge double on an online auction without realizing its stock had been custom-built for someone who required an unusual amount of cast-off, so in order to hit anything with it, he had to have the stock bent to fit him.

I am not sure when or where the art of bending the stocks of double-barrel shotguns originated, but it was likely ages ago among stockmakers who worked for Holland & Holland, Purdey, Westley Richards, and other English firms. It eventually immigrated to America and is presently available at Griffin & Howe and Briley Manufacturing. When heated to a temperature of just over 300 degrees Fahrenheit, the fibers in a walnut stock become a bit flexible and are easily moved.

Some experts use heated linseed oil, while others use heat from various sources, including infrared lamps. Within reason, a stock can be bent to correct cast, comb height in relation to the top of the receiver, toe-out and toe-in. In other words, in any direction. Karl Heckman (karl@karlheckman.com), who I highly recommend for any and all work to the stock, action, and barrels of side-by-side doubles, uses a bending fixture of his own making along with an electric heating element controlled by a thermocouple to bend stocks without damage to the stock or its finish. Most of the movement is in the wrist of the stock.

Some of today’s guns with synthetic stocks have interchangeable inserts for adjusting comb height, cast, and length of pull. The Savage Renegauge Security autoloader is one example. But synthetics do not have a monopoly on easy stock adjustments. My Remington 90T single-barrel trap gun has very nice wood, and the stock has comb-height, length-of-pull, and other adjustments.

If you watched proud American Vincent Hancock win his fourth Olympic gold medal in Paris, you may have noticed that the stock of his Beretta DT11 over-under could be adjusted in every direction imaginable. His teammate, Connor Prince, took home silver. Precise shotgun fit is more important in international skeet than in the American version because the low-gun (hip level) start is required, and there is a random delay of up to three seconds between the shooter calling for the target and its actual launch. Targets are also moving faster and farther away.

If you are missing a lot of birds with your shotgun, pattern-placement testing may reveal the reason why. 

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