Had a serendipitious moment yesterday....
I was down in the walk in closet my Wonderful Wife calls my store(as in,"You've got enough stuff in there to start a store") getting the 870 ready for dove season and messin' around with the 20 ga Youth Express. I had stripped the 20 and was relubing it a bit, and planned on weighing the darn thing.
As I was trying to figure out how to cut the kick a bit for the kids, I glanced at some of my bowhunting stuff, and noted that one of the stabilizers was roughly the same diameter as the mag on the 20 ga. Eureka!!
I didn't have an extra mag tube cap for the 20, but I did for the bird 870.So, it took but a moment to remove the cap, thread the bolt the shortie was mounted on through the sling stud hole and tighten the nut up to handtight. Assembly was quick and I took some swings with it.
The weight of a couple of shells in the tube always seems to smooth out the swing for me, and this stabilizer weighed about the same, 7 oz. In my bunty little 21" bbled 870, the swing seemed steadier and smoother, with more inertia.
And weighing all the stuff was in order. The little stabilizer weighed in at 7 oz, the 870 at roughly 7 lbs. So, a basic calculation shows that adding the weight reduces the FELT recoil by 6%,and may smooth the swing.
And application here?
For beginners, less recoil is good. For those past beginner stage, a little more weight when shooting lots in one day at a clay sport or dove hunt means less kick fatigue/soreness.
And in the field,removing the extra weight is simple, requiring no gunsmithing.
And how about sighting in your slug gun?
Reducing the kick means shooting better, longer,and getting that thing to shoot just where you want it to, with the most accurate slug.Here,since it's being benched, one could go to a stabilizer weighing a lb or more.
Downside,you lose your sling stud, possibly.
An extra mag cap will fix that, and they're cheap. And most of us know bowhunters with boxes full of old stuff.
Alternately, one could build up a weight with a bolt, washers and a nut or two.
Questions, comments, donations(G)?
I was down in the walk in closet my Wonderful Wife calls my store(as in,"You've got enough stuff in there to start a store") getting the 870 ready for dove season and messin' around with the 20 ga Youth Express. I had stripped the 20 and was relubing it a bit, and planned on weighing the darn thing.
As I was trying to figure out how to cut the kick a bit for the kids, I glanced at some of my bowhunting stuff, and noted that one of the stabilizers was roughly the same diameter as the mag on the 20 ga. Eureka!!
I didn't have an extra mag tube cap for the 20, but I did for the bird 870.So, it took but a moment to remove the cap, thread the bolt the shortie was mounted on through the sling stud hole and tighten the nut up to handtight. Assembly was quick and I took some swings with it.
The weight of a couple of shells in the tube always seems to smooth out the swing for me, and this stabilizer weighed about the same, 7 oz. In my bunty little 21" bbled 870, the swing seemed steadier and smoother, with more inertia.
And weighing all the stuff was in order. The little stabilizer weighed in at 7 oz, the 870 at roughly 7 lbs. So, a basic calculation shows that adding the weight reduces the FELT recoil by 6%,and may smooth the swing.
And application here?
For beginners, less recoil is good. For those past beginner stage, a little more weight when shooting lots in one day at a clay sport or dove hunt means less kick fatigue/soreness.
And in the field,removing the extra weight is simple, requiring no gunsmithing.
And how about sighting in your slug gun?
Reducing the kick means shooting better, longer,and getting that thing to shoot just where you want it to, with the most accurate slug.Here,since it's being benched, one could go to a stabilizer weighing a lb or more.
Downside,you lose your sling stud, possibly.
An extra mag cap will fix that, and they're cheap. And most of us know bowhunters with boxes full of old stuff.
Alternately, one could build up a weight with a bolt, washers and a nut or two.
Questions, comments, donations(G)?
