Options for Improved Eye relief on scope

[DenisA]

4/ 'Free recoil' is as effective with a very light shoulder touch and a springy recoil pad as leaving a definite gap. The bullet is free before the rifle recoils a few mm - especially with a heavy rifle.

Hi Peter, I do understand that theory and know that all top shooters perform flawlessly based on that, but in my personal experience, results have differed for what ever reason that I may be missing.

I've been playing with 300WSM's for a quite a few years now. In the earlier days I was having great results shooting small groups in load testing at 100y off a bench, but trying to replicate that in F-class always produced too much vertical.
At one of the Queens in Belmont in 2014 (I Think), I was talking to a F-class shooter on this forum that everyone highly respects. He told me that he had tried to get the 300WSM running with heavy bullets a while before without success. He thought that the recoil was that much more than a regular F-Open cartridge, that the butt was interfering with the shoulder before the bullet exited the barrel.

I realised that when I load tested from a bench I was free recoiling the rifle with good travel, but on the mound with my shoulder just touching the butt pad and recoiling back, I wasn't getting anywhere near the same travel.
I started modifying my technique and ended up with this.

Now my results of group shape and vert at 100y off a bench are replicated consistently when shooting prone.

I find that with this amount of travel the forend doesn't torque (barely noticeable). Sometimes I'll have a slightly high shot at 11:00 and I believe I can mostly always attribute this to my shoulder being closer to the butt, reduced travel and the forend torqueing aggressively. I find this at 100y too.

I applied the same technique to my .284W and improved the vertical in my shoots instantly. And the same applies, If I introduce my shoulder a little earlier, the forend torques aggressively and shots will go high left.

I'm not trying to change or re-invent anything, I only do it because it works for me.