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Ask the Instructor: Comb Adjustment

Comb Adjustment

 

Short of having a gun fitter adjust my comb, how can I be sure that my adjustable comb is in the right place and adjusted properly?

 

Most senior instructors would be more than glad to take a quick look at your shotgun and help you adjust it without charge, but here are a few tips for the do-it-yourselfer.

Find a mirror inside your home or in the clubhouse and stand in front of it, facing the mirror, with the muzzle of your unloaded shotgun about six inches away from the mirror when you are fully mounted to the shotgun. Use a whiteboard marker to place a small dot on the mirror at the same height as your eye. This is the dot you will be mounting to and using as your target. Mount your shotgun to the dot on the mirror and observe the position of your eye on the rib when your mount is complete. Your objective is to adjust the comb up, down, left or right until the eye naturally comes to rest on top of the rib, and is centered on the rib, when the mount is complete.

The entire colored portion of the eye — the iris — should be visible, but you should not be able to see the lower lid of the eye or the white portion of the eye below the iris. Additionally, you should see the iris centered on the rib from left to right, aligned with the center of the rib. Keep mounting and adjusting the comb until you get it right. That’s it! Verify your fit on a patterning board. If your adjustments look perfect in front of the mirror but are a bit off on the patterning board, it could be that you are mounting differently on the patterning board than you are at the mirror. If that’s the case, you might want to invest in a trip to a nearby gun fitter or senior instructor.

Don Currie is NSCA’s Chief Instructor, an Orvis Wingshooting School instructor, and Master Class competitor. To get free shooting tips and videos, sign up for his monthly newsletter.  You can also see more tips from Currie at www.doncurrie.com.

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Ask the Instructor: All About Combs- Part 1

All About Combs- Part 1

 

Can you explain why an angled comb makes sense? Why wouldn’t everyone want a parallel comb? Parallel combs are being offered on more sporting clays guns. And no, I can’t buy the idea that drop is a good idea for correcting a sloppy technique on low and/or high targets.

 

Historically, shotgun stocks have been angled, which means they are higher at the peak of the comb (front end, toward receiver) and lower at the heel of the comb (back end, toward the butt). The reason behind this, as with almost everything shotgun related, has its historical origins in English-style shooting. Whether shooting game or targets, shooters did not premount the shotgun (unless you include pigeon/box shooting). For shooters who initiate the gun mount to the cheek and shoulder after the bird becomes visible — as in game shooting, FITASC and international skeet — the sloped comb makes for a more successful mount and more consistent cheek/stock connection. Since mounting a shotgun is dynamic instead of static, as it is with premounted shooting, the shooter can much more consistently “slide into” the comb and make a good cheek/comb connection. For the disciplines of American trap and American skeet, premounting is commonplace. The mount is completed prior to calling for the target, and thus an angled comb is of less importance. This is why we see more parallel combs in these disciplines.

There are two commonly held misconceptions about combs: 1) Parallel combs result in a more consistent cheek weld (placement of the cheek to the gun). Again, this is only true if the shooter premounts or has highly aggressive mount mechanics. 2) Angled combs are more likely to cause cheek bruising. This is also not true. To cause cheek bruising, the shooter must either cram his head into the gun with great force during shot execution or lift his head off the stock as he executes the shot, causing the recoil to force the gun into the cheek. As with high-rib shotguns, parallel combs are not for everyone. Each shooter has to weigh the advantages and disadvantages against their style of shooting.

Don Currie is NSCA’s Chief Instructor, an Orvis Wingshooting School instructor, and Master Class competitor. To get free shooting tips and videos, sign up for his monthly newsletter.  You can also see more tips from Currie at www.doncurrie.com.