Balance?

[nomad]

While talking with other competitors, I've noticed a considerable difference of opinion regarding rifle balance.
Given that long barrels and weight well forward contribute to initial steadiness and reduced recoil (or at least a reduction in perceived recoil), all the various schools of thought seem to be channeling into two primary branches:

1. Those who feel that fairly serious forward balance is always good.

And:

2. Those who feel that a serious forward balance is good early on but that it causes the shooter to begin 'fighting' the rifle late in lengthy matches and, ultimately, results in more loss than gain.

I would characterize the two balance points as:

Significantly forward of the support hand.
Or:
About at -- or SLIGHTLY forward of -- the location of the support hand.
(While there may be others, I know only one higher level competitor who prefers a rifle having a balance point notably rearward of the support hand.)

With the understanding that individual strength and physical conditioning have to be considered, I'm interested in the opinions of the board members about rifle balance and would like to hear your comments...

[scorlett]

Thanks for the topic, Ernie. I'll be interested in hearing experienced opinions.

You know my shooting level and that I'm still very much in the learning (and hopefully improving) stage. This will only be my 5th year of shooting, but I've tried to be fairly studious about my progress. The last year or so, I've started moving my balance point back to about my front hand position. Even though a lot of weight on the barrel does slow down the movement, I find I have too much vertical stringing when the balance gets much in front of my hand.

When I started learning to shoot 5 years ago, I decided I'd look to the 10 meter air rifle pedagogy as my source. I know shooting outside is a whole different ballgame, but still I figured it was a good classical source. As I've been sampling "Ways of the Rifle" the last few months, it seems to confirm my finding about balance. A general rule of thumb, "if you experience vertical stringing, you may have the balance too far forward".

My novice 2¢ worth...

[ajj]

I agree with Scorlett (and my level of experience is similar.) The highpower heavy rifle I had to have has a long barrel with a substantial knob of reverse taper. I looks neat which is, of course, the most important thing. Balance point is well forward of the support hand. I don't consciously experience fatigue but the rifle is just unwieldy to get on target. Sort of like trying to quickly swing a lead sinker into a shot glass with a 20' long pole. The idea is that once you get it on it won't jump off target quite as quickly, but I dunno. The next one I build will be better balanced. One problem is that it makes the transition from the hunter and back even more difficult because they are so very different in balance...not just weight and fit and trigger. I shoot smallbore with a hunter, practice with a well-balanced airgun, use the highpower hunter and then pick up this thing that droops at the muzzle and it's a big adjustment. My airgun weighs 12 pounds but feels lighter and is easier to bring to the target than the HP standard. I think we just generally have more control over a balanced rifle.

[chunter]

I don't know if I would consider myself a great shot, but I tend to agree with ajj. All of my rifles are balanced slightly forward of my stabilizing hand.  I have found that when a rifle is to muzzle heavy I spend more time trying to get the gun on the target, than focusing on the animal and the shot. I also notice that I tend to start trying to push the barrel on to the animal at that same time as shooting, which of courses equals less hits.

I had an interesting discussion with Mark Pharr at nationals last year, where he said he had noticed that the different rifle ideas seemed to be somewhat regional by nature. The places that tended to have higher wind issues and quicker shots seemed to be producing guns that had a shorter lighter barrel, where as the places that didn't have the wind were producing the longer barrel forward balanced rifles.  So I guess that could be another issue, the weather conditions could change what style of rifle you wanted to use.

After seeing the Hunter gun that Augustin was using in smallbore it also made me realize that the long heavy barrel was not always the answer. It just turned the rifle into a bigger surface for the wind to catch.  

However my vote is for a more centralized weight closer to the fulcrum point on the rifle.

C Hunter

[nomad]

Keep em coming...it's all interesting. FWIW, I prefer a rifle with a balance point about at the forward guard screw.

AJJ

I'll defer to your experience but I have to ask:
What kind of party were you attending where it's necessary to dunk a sinker into a shot glass with a 20' pole? (And what were the rewards/consequences of success?)  

[ajj]

Nomad: You mean you ain't never played "Bumfuzzle?"

[cslcAl]

Nomad,  I have been learning this sport for over 20 years, and I have tried about everything it has had to offer as far as equiptment goes. There was a time when I did like a weight forward rifle, and I did shoot it fairly well. However due to an illness, I was away from active competition for 3 years. When I came back as a regular it was like starting all over again, and I had to give up the reverse tapered HP gun. I have now settled on a balance point right behind the recoil lug. I also shoot more SB than I used to and got so familar with the 54MS stock I switched to a McMillan Anschutz for my HP. Now both these guns have the same weight and balance point. I think this issue of balance is a most important factor that a lot of shooters overlook.

Al Foust

[tirador]

Hello Nomad, I will give you my take on barrel lengths and rifle balance. When my rifles are muzzle heavy I notice that I struggle holding them and sometimes my back gets sore fast.
I have experimented with very long barrels like the ones on the Anschutz 1813 actions 27-28” and I can tell you that the very few times when the conditions were ideal and I felt strong they were unbeatable because the movement of the reticle in relation to the target was very slow and I had more time to pull the trigger when the reticle was on the target but when shot in the wind which is more prevalent in the Western states (CA, AZ, NM and TX) it was the other way around and it seemed the rifle was impossible to slow down long enough for me to be able to pull the trigger so now my Standard and Hunting .22 rifles sport 21” barrels but are not by any means light they just have in my opinion a better balance for shooting in either calm or windy conditions.  

I like to have the balance on my silhouette rifles right where the action meets the barrel, if the rifle is muzzle heavy and under the weight limit I add more weight to the rear of the stock to achieve the balance I want.  

For Standard HP I like the Shilen #17 with the reverse taper contour or a #5 ½ contour barrel cut at 24-25” My Hunting rifle has a Shilen #5 26”
I seem to be able to beat my Standard rifle scores with my Hunting rifle so I will be putting a Standard rifle together that has basically the same characteristics as my Hunting rifle with the ultimate plan of using the same rifle to shoot both rifle classes.

[CB]

Interesting, for the last three months I've been turning epoxy into sawdust off my STD HP gun trying to get it to "feel" like my 54, the primary practice gun. When identical grips and an actual mold of the cheek was on the STD to the point of being no differance wherever I measured it---still didn't shoulder or "hang" the same. They both weigh 9.8lbs, 54 has 24" barrel .980 muzzle heavy fluting, short action set back into the stock, STD HP is 26" .8 muzzle also fluted but action length and stock design set balance point out about 1" or so. Hold or feel is dramatically differant even though I've tried to make the handling identical. In the calm I seem to favor the "54" setup (balance back to me) The muzzle heavy feel seems to put a tiresome amount of weight on the left arm, that's at my guns weight, I've heard couple of others last year with the dogknot out on the end saying the same thing.:In wind I haven't found anything resembling a technique other than lurch- launch and pray.
CB
 ps Finally got my copy Shooting Sports with the Nats in it, (sub expired) good job Nomad!!

[Gringo Grizzly]

When reverse-tapered barrels were the rage I quickly obtained one and put it into a light stock.
Just as Nomad mentioned as a scenario, I did well with it for a few matches and then fought it for the rest of a season, eventually cutting off several inches from the front.

Overall, I think my best balance point is just in front of the recoil lug.
Now, how do I explain this light Nesika Bay stock and new heavier-barrelled hunter rifle?
Beats me!

Gringo

[DanDeMan]

Hi Guys,

Thought I’d throw in my 2 cents (well maybe more) into the discussion concerning offhand rifle balance.

First, IMHO, rifle balance is not the most appropriate way to describe what we are talking about.  It focuses us on an inappropriate parameter, balance, when what I believe we want is maximum muzzle moment of inertia without having to fight a rifle that is too muzzle heavy.  Two rifles can have the same balance point at the recoil lug but have dramatically different moments of inertia when held offhand.  That means one rifle will hold very steady while the other will be very “busy”, more on that later in the post.

First, for the Hunter Rifles, especially SB, because of reduced allowable weight we want as much weight out as far as possible for an average strength male.  Adolescents and some women who are not able to hold such a rifle are excluded from this discussion.  It is limited to a minimum of say average males over 14 years of age and most healthy average sized women.

With an 8.5 lb weight limit the SB Hunter Rifle should have the longest, heaviest barrel allowable with the rifle still making weight.  That means a 26” barrel with about a 0.650” muzzle and 0.900 breech.  The stock would of necessity be a light composite and scope of no more than 16 oz with Al mounts and rings.  Even though this proposed rifle will have a “balance point” quite far forward, it will not be barrel heavy.  If that was done to a standard rifle it would be too muzzle heavy for most shooters.

For HP Hunter the same design concept is appropriate.  Most of the guys that are shooting custom HP Hunters have 26” barrels (max length allowable) with muzzle diameters of about 0.700” to 0.750” depending on how light their stock is as well as action.  The stocks used by The MetalHead (Marvin Pearson) and Mr. Pharr (Mark Pharr) are second to none if one is really serious about having a world class Hunter HP or SB rifle built.  If I was to have a Standard rifle built I'd use one of the new Hunter Rifle stocks aforementioned because they hold so well.

Another issue with both HP Hunter and Standard is the recoil reduction that a longer barrel affords.  Several years ago I embarked on a series of tests to asses recoil as a function of barrel length.  It was shown that the longer the barrel, the lower the felt recoil so use barrels that are as long as possible.  Thanks MetalHead.  Marvin quickly cut the test barrel back twice for me.  One way to do this is to use a typical Palma taper for HP Standard with flutes.  My current thinking on the subject says that a 29” long Palma taper with fluting works the best.

OK, so the recoil is reduced with the longer barrel, but what about the muzzle’s effect on one’s ability to hold the rifle without fighting it.  Simple, add weight to the butt stock as far back as possible.  If a HP Standard Rifle, in say 260, has a 29” barrel with a straight round taper that is fluted for about 20” in the middle and the rifle is built with one of the new, light composite stocks and the scope and mounting hardware are light it should be possible to add between 8 and 12 oz of lead to the back of the butt stock.  That way the moment of inertia is high and recoil low, but the shooter will not be fighting the muzzle.  This same technique can be used for HP Hunter rifles.  Mine has a 26” barrel that is 0.750” at the muzzle and still has 8 oz of weight up against the recoil pad.  One should add the counter balancing weight as far back as possible to maximize its effectiveness.

If you have a reverse taper barreled rifle and it is too barrel heavy, don't shorten the barrel, turn down the knob at the muzzle end.

So, to review, the idea of “rifle balance” in my mind leads one in a less than optimum direction when thinking about how to optimize the way the rifle holds.  Maximizing moment of inertia to damp down muzzle swing through the use of the longest, heaviest barrel possible and still not have to fight the muzzle is what I believe we want.  In general this is accomplished by moving as much weight possible to the two extremes of the rifle; muzzle distance from forward hand and counter balancing weight just in front of the recoil pad.

[ajj]

Dan, is it true that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers voted "Moments to Remember" the best song of the 20th century? What? You've heard that one before? Wasn't that funny the first time? Well, anyway, that was a very interesting and informative post.

[nomad]

Dan,

When you say: "behind the recoil pad" do you really mean "behind the FRONT of the recoil pad" or... :-D

Gentlemen:

Dan has put it very well. ('Longly' but well! I told you I get headaches every time I read his posts!)

The question arose mostly since we've been seeing rifles put together that start out with: "Lessee...X many oz for this new gravity-defying stock, Y many for the action, Z many for the scope and mount -- WOW, we can use a 7 pound bbl and still make weight!" and we get equipment on the line that 'balances' somewhere just ahead of the forearm tip...which is counterproductive.

Keith Cairns was discussing this with me at last year's PeEll match and it came up again at nats in discussion with Mark Pharr and others. More recently, Marvin Pearson called to talk about it.

The extreme example is the parallel sport of BPCR. (OK -- it might be a parallel universe!) I was watching the BPCR -- and even more, the BPCR/Scope -- people fight their nose-heavy rifles on the chicken line at Raton and it was certainly 'educational'!

Anyway, I've been thinking that this is something with more importance than most people assign it and thought that it was worth bringing up.

Thanks for the responses and the input.

There's a saying: "The true test of another man's intelligence is the extent to which he agrees with you!" If that's true, you guys are obviously brilliant. (With the possible exception of Theodore -- who may be over the line! )  :shock:

Anyone else...?

[DanDeMan]

E,

BPCR Silhouette Rifles are a whole other discussion with regard to rifle "balance."  Most of the rifles on the line at BPCR matches are fine when shooting prone off-the-sticks, but offhand they are atrociously muzzle heavy.  When shooting with iron sights the amount of “muzzle fighting” is not as obvious as when a 24X scope is being looked through.  Since the weight limit is 12 lb 2 oz a completely different algorithm should be used if one is interested in hitting the chickens.  For those not familiar with NRA BPCR Silhouette, the chickens are the only animal shot offhand.

Also, there are a few more parameters to consider.  For the Iron Sight rifles, scopes have just entered competition as a separate class, the issue of sight radius so that the markings on the rear sight roughly correspond to MOA adjustments should be considered; the longer the barrel the finer the rear sight adjustments.  Barrel length as far as MV is concerned is also to be considered.  The heavy lead slugs accelerated by black powder need length to maximize muzzle velocity.  Finally, if the barrel contour is too light barrel flex when the muzzle (about 1 to 2 inches behind the actual muzzle) is placed on the cross-sticks can be a problem as the lighter the contour the more variation there is in barrel flex for the same amount of inconsistent cheek and grip pressure.  These rifles are very grip and cheek pressure sensitive with respect to vertical dispersion of the bullets at long range.  Typically there is about 3 MOA elevation difference between shooting off-the-sticks compared to shooting offhand due to the barrel muzzle drooping down when shooting offhand compared to the barrel muzzle “bowing-up” when shot off-the-sticks..

From experimentation to optimize the above parameters, taking into account the tradeoffs, I’ve arrived at barrels that are 30" long for the smaller caliber/cartridge combinations I've been shooting.  With a straight round taper from 1.150" at the breech down to 0.900" at the muzzle the rifle will balance where it is held by the forward hand.  About 1 to 1.25 lbs of lead are added to the butt stock in front of the recoil pad.

That same “balance” point for SB or HP Silhouette Rifles would not be optimum IMHO as they should all have a “balance” point further forward, especially for the Hunter Rifles.   But remember, even though the BPCR Silhouette Rifle balances on the forward hand, the barrel is relatively long and heavy compared to what we’d typically use for SB or HP Silhouette so the moment of inertia is quite high.

[shootingpaul]

very interesting topic indeed,
I am experimenting with balance forward and even with your hold, from my shooting history I found that i could really shoot my 52B which is balanced at the hold, it is great in wind and you can really hold it up  for 2 1/2 minutes, latelly I started shooting a lot my 54 MRS, which is balanced forward, ending up with high scores.  
Conclusion, my scores in heavy went up, and scores in hunter went down, after giving much thoughts about it I found that I was practicing much more with my heavy than hunter and the balance was not as big factor as the TRIGGER, yes i could adjust to the ballance but I got beat by  the hunter trigger, fighting it more and more, it just become obvious obstacle.  
Solution, go back to your old days - shooting hunter more than heavy.
I find that I can adjust to the balance rather quickly, but the trigger is another issue, well I got carried away a little.........
just my point..........