PAIN!!!!

he!!o everyone, well I took my No4 out for the second time this weekend and again I am very pleased with it accuracy. Wasnt shooting groups, just making contact with steel at different distances. Now, on to the reason for this post...every shot I was letting off was resulting in a sharp pain in my shoulder. I thought it strange based on the fact that my hunting rifle is chambered in .300 win mag and I shoot that fairly comfortably. Also strange because the .303, in all respects isnt really a thumper. So long story short, because i am not using a shooting rest i am forced to lean a little too forward and rest it on the table i was shooting off of to stable the rifle without a rest. That resulted in the stock being directly on my COLLARBONE! Geez that hurt so much! Lol. So then I shot it standing and I was able to see that I needed to adjust my form to place the stock in its proper place. Thus eliminating all discomfort. Because I am not shooting off a rest, I just thought "oh well, I guess this rifle is just going to hurt." But thankfully i realized my mistake, corrected it and now im able to enjoy my rifle. Sometimes I think we forget to get back to the basics and forget about proper form because we feel we know how to shoot all firearms. Well, thanks for reading and take care.

Being fairly small in stature what I do is to bring my shoulder pocket in line with the buttplate before shooting. It allows me to grasp the forend in front of the magazine swivel, get a better sight picture with the aperture rear & never have the butt contacting the collarbone.

I have a slip on recoil pad on my 303 and 7x57 as both have metal plates and also I have pretty long arms. They slip on and off very easily and are very comfortable. I often use on the gecado air rifle to give a bit more length.

My Father-in-law made a one size fits all slip on pad for his shooting some years ago.

He currently is 94 and still shoots once and a while.

He took a old time leather bullet pouch and lined it with a coiled of up roll of three inch wide cotton towel. The short side of the coil of the coil goes on the butt plate and the draw strings of the bag get tied to the stock and trigger guard. He add or removes padding depending on the gun size.

Works for him.

There must be something wrong with me.
My No4 has a brass buttplate & the No5 sporter a ribbed hard plastic.
I don't have a problem with either even when I shot a lot.

Funny thing is my No4 has a Short, but the NO4's sporter stock is longer than a MilSpec "Long" by about 3/4"!
I prefer the Short, not having real long arms, but neither really beats me up.

Shamu wrote: There must be something wrong with me. My No4 has a brass buttplate & the No5 sporter a ribbed hard plastic. I don't have a problem with either even when I shot a lot.

 No comment on the above! Alex my lad was shooting a #4 mk 1 with a brass buttplate at 9 years old wearing a t shirt and recoil never bothered him at all. Open sights at 600 yards he could pop 9ex 10 in the black with no problem ( little git)  his eyesight is excellent  whilst I had all on seeing the target.

The funny thing is I always used to shoot in shirtsleeve order. I felt the thick wool jackets gave the rifle a running start at you so I went down to the cotton shirt to fire!

I used to luv the newbies who folded & wadded berets under the shoulder for extra padding! If they got it just right the metal badge would neatly be embossed into the shoulder.