Project Appleseed

We've got 3 or 4 of the BlackHawk cheek rests and they've worked very well from .22's to AR-10's. Probably has a lot to do with the shape of the stocks.

D, the pads in them can be taken out, mixed and matched and/or cut to your needs. Keep in mind you want to build the top of the stock UP, not the side OUT. If right-handed, you'll have no padding to add thickness on the left side of the stock, only on top and the right side to keep it from shifting. I see some of our instructors make this mistake when improvising, build up, not out.....O.L.

DW,

To what's been said, add some physical conditioning to your week.

Upper body exercise, such as pushups or light weight training, are ideal.  Spend twenty minutes doing this three to four times per week, and you'll add meat to your shoulder after a few months and feel better besides. 

Strength training, shooting jacket, properly pulling the rifle into the shoulder pocket, plus several months and you'll be fine shooting an 80 round match with M2 ball.

Your rifle is your close friend.  You don't flinch when you shake hands or when you draw a close friend in for an embrace.  Flip the switch in your mind to categorize every shot you take as a friendly handshake or embrace undeserving of any protective physiological response.  Iron this situation out by dry firing and by willful mental effort. 

You will learn to behave as you wish to the shot by training and over time.     

Quote from: Old Dog on September 29, 2011, 02:54:15 AM
Not sure what your blackhawk stock pad looks like.  The ones we put on our M1A's were "sloppy" and didn't work right at first.  No matter how tight we got the straps it still moved around us more than we wanted.  We went to Lowes and bought some of those peel and stick velcro packs.  We took the two (or was it three) inch circles and put two on each side of the stock with the matching pieces on the inside of the cheek pad.  Nailed the cheekpad in place much better than the straps alone.

A tip if you do this - put the coarse piece of velcro on the inside of the cheek pad and the smooth/soft side on the stock.  That way, if you ever have to remove the cheek pad and use the shotgun (like if the scope broke or was knocked out of alignment) then the smooth/soft side won't eat up your cheek like the rough side might.

Fantastic idea.  I haven't bought a cheek pad yet.  I'm going to check out my local guy first before ordering one.  I like to try and spend the money local if I can.

Quote from: Francis Marion on September 29, 2011, 07:23:39 PM
DW,

To what's been said, add some physical conditioning to your week.

Upper body exercise, such as pushups or light weight training, are ideal.  Spend twenty minutes doing this three to four times per week, and you'll add meat to your shoulder after a few months and feel better besides. 

Strength training, shooting jacket, properly pulling the rifle into the shoulder pocket, plus several months and you'll be fine shooting an 80 round match with M2 ball.

Your rifle is your close friend.  You don't flinch when you shake hands or when you draw a close friend in for an embrace.  Flip the switch in your mind to categorize every shot you take as a friendly handshake or embrace undeserving of any protective physiological response.  Iron this situation out by dry firing and by willful mental effort. 

You will learn to behave as you wish to the shot by training and over time.   

Another very good point.  I definitely could use some conditioning work.  I'm not at the point where my shoulder gets sore because, as I've learned, I'm not properly fitted to the gun, and I'm therefore doing all sorts of weird things, especially since my current cheek weld is almost 3 1/2" too low, which is a major reason why I'm getting kicked in the eye by the scope.  I don't have nearly the problem with my 03, and after last night I see the 03 fits me much better than my Super X3.

Now to find those stock shims to add another 1" to the length, and that will fix my LOP.

The classic cure for a flinch is the surprise break.
If you know when the shot will fire, you will flinch in anticipation of recoil as you pull the trigger. This is a subconscious act.
If you don't know when the shot will fire, and it surprises you when it does, you will never flinch, since your subconscious is not expecting it.

Take a slow steady pull on the trigger so that you have a few seconds of pressure and uncertainty as to the exact instant of discharge. It will take a lot of practice, but you can shorten the interval of uncertainty down to a fraction of a second by 'sensitizing' your mind to ever-shorter intervals of pressure that still preserve the surprise at the shot.
And as one poster mentioned above, don't think about the trigger pull or the shot firing, rather focus intensely on your sight and think only of sight picture. Pretend your job is only to aim, and that someone else will pull the trigger for you.

Being raised in Ohio on a beef farm, and becoming a gunsmith professionally I see this type of issue every year. Flinching with slug guns is a slow battle you will struggle with the rest of your life. Limit your practice sessions with live ammo in the slug gun to small round counts. Every time you catch your self flinching, go back to dry fire and low recoil guns. ALSO ALLWAS PRACTICE WITH PLUGS AND MUFFS. LOTS OF PEOPLE FLINCH AS MUCH FROM THE NOISE AS THE RECOIL. I have watched several of my dads hunting buddies switch from 12GA to 20GA as they age, claiming they are not as tuff as they used to be. The smaller bore still kills just fine. You put a 20 GA slug in the heart or lugs of an Ohio white tall, it will get real still real quick, if it does not just drop at the shot and stay down. Shot placement matters most, less recoil allows more practice.
If you insist on staying with the 12GA sx3 get that stock adjusted to fit you. Also think about switching that scope to one designed for use as a shotgun scope. The shotgun scope will have longer eye relief, and be parallax free at 75 yards, instead of the typical rifle scope parallax free at 250 yards. I would encourage you to think about less magnification, 1.65-4 or 2-7 power slug scopes are plenty. Having the barrel ported is a double edge sword, it reduces recoil but redirects some of the muzzle blast back at the shooter. If your problem is just recoil/scope bite related, mag-na porting the gun might be a good option. Also mercury recoil reduction tubes will help.