I had always heard that if a rifle was shot with a tight sling compared to shooting off a rest the point of impact would shift. I was always told ( and said this myself a few times) that the pressure from pulling on the front sling swivel would cause the point of impact to change. Well, I had a customer that had a rifle I had built to call and say that his point of impact would shift about 3 inches when using the sling. Well later I got to thinking, if you pull down or to the side on the sling out front then you must push back an equal amount or the barrel would be pointed at the ground ! Well this called for a little test. I went to the range with my 6.5 and a 300 Win. One has a McMillian and the other has a High-Tech stock. I put each in my machine rest and set the rest up to the same place my hand would be if I were using the sling to shoot. Then I hooked a chain hoist to the front stud and chained the other end to the concrete. Sighted the rifles to shoot dead on a 100 yards. I then put some pressure ( one click) on the hoist and shot a group. No change. One more click. NO change. Moved the hoist to pull almost sideways on the stock. Applied pressure no change. Went back to pulling straight down. No change.Kept cranking on the hoist and shooting groups until I pulled the stud and a big chunk of stock completely off the rifles. The point of impact did not change at all during these two test !!! This makes me wonder if it is the shooter that is causing the impact to change. Maybe the stock doesn't fit right or the scope is the wrong height or something , I am not sure but I am fairly sure stock pressure or lack of wasn't having any affect. Both of these rifles I had full contact bedded the action area and on the High-Tech stock, it had a contact point in the forend. I was just wondering if anyone one else has done any controlled test or experimented with this. Would there be a better way to do this test ?
<br>Charlie Sisk

The data and opinions contained in these posts are the results of experiences with my equipment. NO CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE DRAWN FROM ANY DATA PRESENTED, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPT TO REPLICATE THESE RESULTSj