Originally Posted by msinc
I gotta agree with Sitka deer...most people are shooting a shotgun with way too short of a LOP. I am 5 ft 8in and have 33 inch sleeves on my shirt. I shoot an Ansley Fox 20 ga with a 15 inch LOP. I had a lot of trouble shooting behind birds until I got with someone that knows how to fit shotguns. Pretty much if you are pulling the gun back into your shoulder it is too short. You should be pushing it forward to mount. When you stop to pull back .....

I've thought most want their LOP too short for best shooting for a long time but found few that didn't think I was a bit goofy. If LOP is just a bit longer than most find comfortable you get a more repeatable anchor for your "rear sight" if you use a standard dimension stock. For instance I had a habit of crawling the stock so if I wasn't careful the mount would be inconsistent - actually all over the place if I was focused on a bird. The longer length of pull cured that. Also I think that little bit of tension you feel is a point of reference for "muscle memory."

I find that most people drag the stock closer to their shoulder when they begin their mount and get hung up. So it's not so much pushing the stock away, that works but it's extra motion and not as fluid, as bringing it up before pulling it towards your shoulder. Feels really awkward at first but make it a habit with summer trap shooting and it should become natural by fall. However thicker hunting clothes can be a real problem. For upland I put a shorter pad on the gun to compensate when it gets cool.
__________________________________

To clarify, by "bringing it up before pulling it towards your shoulder." I mean pulling it AGAINST your shoulder. There should be no appreciable gap.


The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

Which explains a lot.