My wife has a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis. It causes tendons and ligaments to ossify - turn into bone.
She loves skeet shooting, but lately it's become too painful for her to shoot. The problem is that the tendons in her shoulder have begun to fuse, along with her ribs along her sternum. That makes a pretty rigid bone structure, so that there aren't any stretchy tendons and ligaments to absorbe the recoil of the shotgun. Additionally, most of the vertebrae in her upper back are fused together.
The part of the recoil that causes the problem is the actual movement of her shoulder, not so much the impact of the stock against her shoulder. All of the energy goes into the bone and the quick motion of her shoulder tries to move bony structures that just don't move like they're supposed to, so by the end of 25 rounds, she's in agony.
She's shooting a Berretta AL390 Silver Mallard 12 gauge with pretty light target loads. Right now, it just has the stock recoil pad. She also uses a little shoulder pad thing that slips inside her shirt.
I'm wondering if something like a Limbsaver pad and something more substantial on her shoulder would work. If we could sort of slow the recoil down so that the movement of her shoulder was less violent, I think that might help. What do you guys think?
She loves skeet shooting, but lately it's become too painful for her to shoot. The problem is that the tendons in her shoulder have begun to fuse, along with her ribs along her sternum. That makes a pretty rigid bone structure, so that there aren't any stretchy tendons and ligaments to absorbe the recoil of the shotgun. Additionally, most of the vertebrae in her upper back are fused together.
The part of the recoil that causes the problem is the actual movement of her shoulder, not so much the impact of the stock against her shoulder. All of the energy goes into the bone and the quick motion of her shoulder tries to move bony structures that just don't move like they're supposed to, so by the end of 25 rounds, she's in agony.
She's shooting a Berretta AL390 Silver Mallard 12 gauge with pretty light target loads. Right now, it just has the stock recoil pad. She also uses a little shoulder pad thing that slips inside her shirt.
I'm wondering if something like a Limbsaver pad and something more substantial on her shoulder would work. If we could sort of slow the recoil down so that the movement of her shoulder was less violent, I think that might help. What do you guys think?