I’ve done a few of these articles, and it never ceases to amaze me at how many have the top of the line gear in terms of barrelled actions and really good sights, yet have all this set into a stock that does not fit!
My work with the full bore movement has brought this to my attention again, but it is really crucial to a small bore shooter.
What are the design requirements? Why is a stock so important?
OK, A stock is the method by which the shot is delivered.. In small bore, the fundamentals of rifle performance depends a great deal on ammunition compatibility with the barrelled action, and any serious shooter that has not spent hours and hours testing ammunition is having them selves on. If you doubt me, have a chat to Warren Potent and listen to what he says! In my case, the time spent at the Eley factory in England with Jock Allen at my side was of inestimable value. The selected Tenex I used for years shot incredible groups from my fluted Hart barrel, and was the undoubted reason for the success I enjoyed.
Remember always though, that no matter how good the rifle and ammunition performs, you still have to shoot the things!
This is why I pay an enormous amount of attention to my stock and the way that it fits me.
Design factors NOW, (as opposed to then…) show that all of the current new style stocks have fore ends that bring the forward hand as close to the barrel as is possible. They also have form fitting grips that are multi adjustable, and available in three different hand sizes. And so on…..
The important aspect of both the items listed above is a bid to build a factory stock that is capable of customising the adjustments for the general populace of shooters, world wide. THAT, is an enormous ask for a factory designed and built stock!
When I first built my alloy stock in 1982 after I came home from the worlds in Caracas, Venezuela, I had sat in the plane on the way home and thought about what I needed to do. I wanted a totally custom built stock that was only for ME, it needed a shallow fore end, a grip with a very consistent attack angle on the trigger operation, and a complete custom fitted cheek piece system that had enough adjustment to allow me to see through a set of sights mounted on sight raiser blocks. I reasoned that it would be an advantage (for me, Note) to be able to keep my head upright and level with the lowest centre of gravity possible. The rifle had to be capable of three different position factors, and certainly NOT made of wood!
At the time, there was only one alloy type stock in the world, that made for the bench rest shooters by Ron Marsden (RTM). So I got on the phone when I arrived home and rang the man (who incidentally, was Tolly’s gunsmith) and requested info about what type of alloy was desirable. Ron readily supplied his ideas, and I immediately set about building the first alloy small bore stock in the world.
I had not the foggiest idea about using a milling machine at the time either!
The rest of the story is history now, because just about everyone jumped on the band wagon after that, including a number of private machinists, as well as the principle small bore manufacturers in the world. The development of alloy stocks has gone ahead in leaps and bounds, and so we have arrived at the Grunig and Elmiger stock from Switzerland.
Warren Potent is campaigning one of these at present under his Bleiker action and barrel, however, I reckon the biggest single improvement in terms of innovation is the vibration dampening system under the forend accessory rail.
I recently had an extremely good full bore shooter visiting from WA, and he is also campaigning the G and E stock with this system in place. It even makes a difference to the crash of the full bore recoil.
These innovations are important without doubt, but the essential thing of any stock is the fit of the whole rifle within your position. The rifle must point at the target with the shoulder position and cheek piece assembly correct. It is mandatory in all forms of rifle shooting that you need face pressure on the cheek piece to locate the rifle, but still be able to see through the sights. The eye must be centred in the rear peep, and the foresight system in the middle of the aiming view. Once these are correct, it is then up to the shooter to finalise the aiming picture.
Your head position plays an incredibly important part and it is mandatory that the head is horizontal when viewed from behind. Your ears should be horizontal, ( to the observer from behind you) as the ears are where the balance mechanism is located. This is crucial to standing shooting, and if you doubt what I am saying, just stand up with your rifle in position, both small bore, and air rifle, then lay your ears to the right, or left, and watch the position fall with it. It does, and even a test as you read this can be conducted. Just lay your head over to the right, or left, and feel the confusion in your ear drum as it wants the head level.
Modern day stocks are extremely easy to adjust, (and also to confuse yourself) so these adjustments to your position need to be carefully thought out, and examined in a mirror as you develop them. This is one of the reasons the world elite shooters sort out a position fine adjustments according to your head position by viewing the effects aiming at a mirror. It applies to all three positions, but is critical for 3 position shooters.
Those with timber stocks need to make them fit you, and even before my alloy stock, I never fired a stock standard Anschutz timber stock without altering it some where. Nearly always the cheek piece was customised, and if you are shooting a full bore rifle without an adjustable cheek piece, or foresight system to allow the eyes behind the peep you are way behind the eight ball!
It stands to reason that if your eyes are directly behind the peep at 300 yards, and you do not have either of the above in place, when you move to sight to 1,000 yards, you have to lift your face from the cheek piece to see through the sight. This measurement is something akin to 34 minutes of elevation on the rear sight, which means you no longer have the pressure on the cheek piece to locate the rifle in the position. The tell tale of this is a sore set of neck muscles from holding your head up….
Think about it. Brooksie.
I read with a lot of interest the interview tween Kim Fraser and Warren Potent concerning the Bleiker Rifle he is currently shooting so well.
I agree completely with “Omni” (a nick name I gave him many years ago) that they are easily the best made rifles available at the moment.
The things I like about them?
Front locking lugs on a very short bolt
A screwed in barrel system
A really superb trigger
And, an extremely high manufacturing standard. Typical Swiss precision. If you doubt this, just unlock the bolt, chamber a Tenex and feel the difference when you operate the mechanism.
Warren has built a hybrid over three years comprising a mixture of the best available parts in his opinion. A Grunig & Elmiger alloy stock (More Swiss stuff) Centra sights and so on. It very obviously works!
During my time at the top, I too had an unusual rifle, and Kim is pretty right, they do make a difference… BUT…..
My rifle was based on an Anschutz 1813 action, also with a threaded in Hart (USA) barrel fitted by Fred Lawler (RTM). It was a parallel barrel, quite heavy, and it always shot well. It shot even better when Fred suggested we flute the barrel to adjust the balance point and remove some of the weight.
From that point onwards, it shot like stink! So I too know what it is like to use an unusually accurate rifle.
However, it didn’t really reach it’s huge potential until I came back from Caracas, Venezuela, and made the first alloy stock for a small bore rifle in the world.
Like Warren, I was unstoppable with it, but even then I found more, when I found a selected batch of Eley Tenex under test at the Eley plant in England.
Under several tests, this batch of ammo shot continuous 6mm 10 shot groups. One after the other! It also seemed to just shoot its way through the wind out there. I picked up the entire batch that was left on the shelves, some 36,000 rounds of it, and used this ammo exclusively from that point onwards until I stopped shooting small bore. I won an enormous number of events including ratified world records with that batch of ammunition.
There is also no doubt in my mind that Warren has found a “brew” that works really well in his Bleiker. I would bet my last dollar on that….
Tolly also had his pet batch of red box Tenex that shot like a mad thing through his Douglas barrelled prone rifle, and David Hollister had his as well.
I may add though, that rifles are finicky things, because the batch that shot so well from my Hart barrel would not hold the eight ring in both Wolfie Jobst’s or Anton Wurfel’s rifle.
We were doing some testing at the RWS factory in Furth, Germany with R50, and their technician was reticent to believe my claims, so I shot some 10 shot groups for him. Out of their factory rests, over their own course the average 10 shot group was 6.18 mm, and like Warren’s two of those ran to just over 5.8mm. He was stunned!
The American’s test ammunition rigorously, as do the rest of the world elite’s, and I reckon Harald Stenvaag (Norway’s greatest shooter) would give his eye teeth to have more of his pet batch of Russian “Olymp” match ammunition….
It is extremely important to test and evaluate rim fire ammo, purely to find the brew that develops the edge. Anyone who hasn’t, and aspires to reach very high levels, is just having them selves on!
It is a fact that all of the worlds top shooters that I know, all have extremely accurate rifles. The Anschutz, Walther, FWB, Bleiker, and the two Russian rifles, Tula and Strella have found their way continuously into the match winning lists.
Victor Auer, that top American prone shooter that won a silver prone in Munich 1972 shot a custom made rifle on a Winchester 52 action, a Shilen (?) barrel smithed by Dave Johnson and set into a beautiful birds eye timber stock.
In every case of the above examples, each had tested and found their “pet” batch of ammo.
Out of all of the above, one big fact emerges: top gear usually brings top results.
Warren Potent has piloted his Bleiker to the position of No.1 prone shooter in the world, be it due wholly to his rifle and ammunition selection. It is a huge achievement, and honour. When I see him next, I will shake his hand, because I remember……
The other “thing” that emerges as a truly significant fact is…..
Top gear or not, you still have to shoot the thing, it will never shoot X’s while it stands in the corner will it?
THINK ABOUT THAT!
Brooksie.
Over the years one of the things I learned was to shade the aim to combat wind and weather effects.
There were a number that used the technique in Australian smallbore, and one of the very best of these was Alan Smith. Smithy was a cracker shade aimer, and so was Barry Sturgess in my era at the top of the game.
Tolly was nothing mean at it either, and I would just like to relate a story when I shot next to him in a NSW prone championships at Aado Maranik's range in Bringelly, which brought shade aiming to my attention pretty quickly!
Tolly was a mean wind judge, and 1 reckon 1 was pretty lucky to draw next to him that day. I had already formed a plan on how to use him to beat him. (That was no mean feat those days, let me tell you.)
Quite simply I listened to his breathing which was pronounced due to an asthmatic condition he had. When the breathing suspended, I started to finalise the aim and during the shoot it was incredible how close the two shots went off together.
In the middle of the first string I hurried a shot and fired a nine, and when the scores came out, both of us had shot 199's. Clay Frederick and Jack Astley both had 200s so we had some work to do.
In the second series, after Tolly and I walked down to change targets, chatting together, (we were great mates) the series started well for both of us, and as I had set my scope up so I could see his target as well as my own, I was well aware of just what I needed. The breathing system I had worked out was working really well, and I was actually using Tolly's wind judgement to fire my own shots. The second ten shots of that match gave me the lead over him I was needing as he had shot a 198, to my 199. I was a point in front of him and really confident I could hold him. Clay also shot a 198, and Jack was 3 down with a 197.
Down we went to the targets again, changed them over, and walked back to fire the last 20 shots. Tolly was studiously quiet as was his demeanor when he was starting to settle into the big stuff, and we took up our positions again.
Once more the two shots were going off quite close together as the series developed. I was still holding onto the lead, and we were well into the last string with one down each. Both the shots we lost were at ten o'clock just outside the ten ring, and both those shots went off split seconds apart. (Mine were usually the first to release, but the timing was impeccable.)
Then, with four shots to go, Tolly suspended his breathing, and I started to aim dead centre, fully relaxed, and away the shot went.. I was stunned to see an eight at four o'clock on my target, and instantly zeroed in on Tolly's shot. It was smack in the middle.
In the aftermath, when all the results came through, Tolly had won the match with his characteristic 200 finish, Clay claimed the Silver, Jack the bronze counting me out with my 98 finish. So near, and yet so far..
Tolly just smiled at me, and when I asked him if he had aimed his shot left, he just gurgled with laughter, and said.. "You will never know willya".
By the way, Norm Rule felt the sting of Tolly's shading also in a Dewar Match fired in Gowlands Gully in Adelaide. Only Norm fired a six, (100 yards) to Tolly's nine. I cracked up, because I knew what the master had done. The look on Norm's face was priceless, and Tolly was shaking with great heaving laughter.. Those were fun days readers let me tell you.
So out of that exercise, I reasoned I had better learn to shade the aim, and I started to train so I could place my shots anywhere on the target at will.
I remember I showed this to Dean Turley from Broken Hill a while later when he came to Newcastle to train with me.
I knew I was on the right track when, during the ISSF (Sic UIT) world championships in Thun, Switzerland 1974, I was standing back with Jack Writer watching Lanny Bassham shoot his standing. (jack Writer had finished, he was the fastest standing shooter I ever saw) Both these USA shooters were incredibly good at what they did. Writer had won the Munich Olympic Gold in 3x40 two years previously.
We were watching Lanny suspend his shoot waiting out a wind change, when Jack murmured softly. "Come on Bassham, hold the thing at ten o'clock, and fire the Goddam shot". I thought, shade the aim standing? Phewl
(Lanny didn't, he waited and shot a ten at six anyway.)
Later on, after I had learned to really put the shade where I wanted to, I became aware of another facet of shading apart from the physical act of deciding to aim the shot where I wanted it to go. That part of the technique involved holding the aim, say, out in the wide nine ring, and letting the wind blow it into the ten.
But, as I developed the mental techniques based on the Bassham system under the premise of "The sub conscious mind moves you to what the conscious mind is picturing." I learned to "Think shade" picturing a direction of where 1 wanted the aim in my minds eye. I shot a heap of pretty big scores under this system, and to this day, I still use this, even in my full bore aiming which I am into these days. It works, but it doesn't come easy, you need to devote a lot of time to develop the system to the nth degree. In all my study, and research of the techniques of wind combat and development of very high standards, I consider this to be the most important facet I have achieved.
I put a heap of time into this factor, developed it to use in my kneeling shooting as well.
As a wind combat method it has one distinct advantage. It is fast, just requiring a wind readout, then the decision where to aim. You do not waste time adjusting the sights, or waiting out the change in the wind value, your shoot flows along without disturbance, and allows you a very high confidence level when you judge it correctly and shoot the middle out of it.
How do you think the top level competitors in the world today fire these incredible 600's in 22 minutes?
The fastest prone shoot I have ever seen was a world record 400 fired by Glenn Dubis (USA). He fired his 40 shots with five sighters in 16 minutes. You can only achieve this by learning how to shade the aim. I also saw Ernie Van De Zande (USA) fire a 600 in Linz, Austria in the most horrendous weather conditions 1 have seen on a small bore range. He shaded the match, and if you want to get there readers, you need to learn.