“East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” So said Rudyard Kipling, and it’s been gospel since the day he wrote it. It’s elementary stuff, but if you’ll bear with me a bit, there’s a point at the end of this little discussion.
Shotguns and rifles are that way too, wouldn’t you think? I would, or at least I did until about 20 years ago. After all, rifles have sights! You line up the sights, hold as steady as you can and gently squeeze the trigger. It works pretty well on stationary targets that give a fellow a little time to line it all up. Some very gifted shooters even manage to hit the occasional running or flying target with a rifle’s single projectile, but for those of us who aren’t so gifted, we’re better served if we stick to more pedestrian targets.
Ah, but there’s the rub! Birds don’t like to stay still, and neither do clay targets once they’re launched. The same applies to rabbits and deer and most other game that’s been disturbed. That’s why we have shotguns! Shotguns are, of course, radically different in the way they function. And I’m not just talking about the fact that they throw a small handful of shot, either! Shotguns are built for speed. They have to point quickly and naturally and track moving targets. And they have to do it with extreme speed and precision.
Most folks don’t think about the need for precision in a shotgun, but if you look closely at the task, it’s amazing that any of us ever manage to make a charge of shot intersect with a flying target. Think, and I mean really think about the problem. The average shot charge starts out at about 1,200 feet-per-second, but quickly slows as soon as it leaves the muzzle. Birds present us with an infinite number of variables. Range. Speed. Is it speeding up or slowing down? Is it coming or going? At what angle vertically? What angle on the horizontal plane? Every shot at a bird presents an infinite number of variables. And each variable is subject to change in an instant—without notice. The net result is that the shot must be extremely precise in three dimensions of space, but also in time. And the period of intersection is measured in microseconds!
As a result, shotguns work differently from rifles. Sights, whether open or optical, are simply impediments on a shotgun. They slow things down too much. Long, long ago some very smart people figured out that a shotgun worked better without sights. With that as a “given,” they had to figure out how to get the gun quickly aligned with the target without using sights. The solution turned out to be simple in concept—and very complex in execution.
The simple part is that the eye of the shooter functions as a rear sight. That means that instead of lining up a rear sight, the pupil of the eye has to be in a fixed position in relation to the gun—shot after shot after shot. The best and fastest way to achieve that is with a properly fitted stock, one that automatically places the shooter’s eye consistently in the right place when the gun is brought to shoulder. The barrels then become the “front sight,” and once you learn to focus on the target and keep the barrels in your peripheral vision, and once the technique is ingrained into mind and muscle memory, the process become very quick indeed. And with practice, it becomes faster and faster.
What does this have to do with rifles? The answer is that there are situations where you just have to throw all the rules out the window. Situations where you must take your rifle shot with all the speed you can muster! This particular “light bulb” came on while I was preparing for my first trip to Africa. That particular trip was exclusively for Cape buffalo, which is as dangerous an animal as any that exists on our planet.
While I was preparing for the trip, I played around with double rifles for a while and, by pure happenstance, came across a big, burly 470 Nitro Express from a prestigious English maker that fit me perfectly. I shot it a good bit, and in time, it occurred to me that despite its ponderous weight, the thing was incredibly fast! That’s when the bulb flashed. It was just like a shotgun in the respect that the stock placed my eye in exact alignment with the sights. Every time. No exceptions. All I had to do was shoulder the thing and the sights were aligned! No squirreling around on the stock. No weaving and bobbing and time-wasting while I tried to line up the sights or find the target! The sights almost became superfluous, because all I had to do was focus on the target, shoulder the gun, and the sights were in alignment.
No, I didn’t take that rifle with me, but I did discover that there is a fairly sizeable crossover between rifle technique and shotgun technique. Then, I found a first-rate custom riflemaker who had a firm understanding of what I was trying to accomplish. The result of the collaboration was a mid-weight 416 Rigby on a Mauser action that had a slightly weight-forward balance and also fit me “to a T.”
We mounted a low-powered scope as close to the top of the action possible and put a little extra drop at the comb to compensate for it. We dialed in about 3/16ths of cast-off at the heel and “toed it out” another 3/16 inch, too, if memory serves.
In the end, the gun was pure magic! All I had to do was focus on the target and shoulder the gun—and lo and behold, there were crosshairs neatly imprinted on that very spot! In short, it worked just like a shotgun. And, dear God, it was fast! Subsequently, I carried that rifle to Africa several times and I’m absolutely convinced that it saved my wrinkled old hide at least twice and arguably a couple more times.
The principle doesn’t just apply to dangerous game rifles and situations where life expectancy is measured in microseconds. It works just as well on any rifle that you simply want to be “just right.” Todd Ramirez, the master gunmaker from Alba, Texas, is currently building a “small antelope rifle” that P.H. Gordon Stark and I intend to debut in South Africa’s Limpopo Valley this July. He’s incorporating the same dimensions into the little gem. I doubt that my life will ever depend on it, but I guarantee that it will handle like an English “best.”
If, for some reason, I haven’t convinced you that both rifle and shotgun stocks should be properly fitted, the Cape buffalo bull I took was flat-out and hell-bent-for-leather when I took the snap shot at less than ten paces. And I wouldn’t be telling the story if that 416 hadn’t fit perfectly!