Rib Height and Gun Fit
Rib height has little to do with how well you will shoot one gun
over another.
In the end, it is the relationship between the rib height and the
shape and height of the comb and where your cheek softly and comfortably
touches the comb.
Most shooters are wrestling with trying to fit their bodies to
factory stocks that are made to fit a male that is six feet tall and weighs 190 pounds!
We have learned several things about guns and gun-fitting.
You can shoot a gun that has too much cast and drop infinitely better than one that does not have enough of either. While this might be controversial or contrary to what some might say or think, it nevertheless reflects our experiences.
Take it from someone who had made a living shooting difficult
targets with students' guns that do not fit us. We would much rather have a gun that is stocked too low for us than one
that is too high. While we can shoot and hit extreme targets with ill-fitting guns using our system of
shooting, it is more a testimony to the OSP system of
shooting than gun fit.
We have shotguns that have a 70/30, 60/40 POI and have evolved to 50/50 with slight cheek pressures. And as a result, the gun mount is more forgiving.
Should a mismount occur with a 50/50 gun, you will still break
the target. But with a high shooting gun that must be mounted with medium cheek
pressure, if a mismount occurs, the POI will be so far off that your chances of
hitting the target go way down.
Shooters we have helped with gun fit who are shooting flat
shooting guns find that with less practice they are shooting as much as three to five percent higher scores after their stock alteration (creating a 3/16 offset in the
comb and lowering the comb so that they see flat down the rib when looking down
the rib to check for eye alignment)!
Another thing shooters across the country are finding out is that
they can pick up our guns after we do a LOP adjustment. And instantly, they can not
only hit more targets, but when shooting modified chokes they are smoking
targets that they could not even hit before!