Does weight matter??

[Richard59]

For us clay bashers does weight matter? Is there such a thing as "too light" or to the other extreme "too heavy" Balance does offset weight in that a heavy gun can feel / move easier than its dead weight so in my mind its not such straightforward question.

 

[westley]

For us clay bashers does weight matter? Is there such a thing as "too light" or to the other extreme "too heavy" Balance does offset weight in that a heavy gun can feel / move easier than its dead weight so in my mind its not such straightforward question.

In my experience, weight matters a lot. I sold my ProSport due to my age and old injuries. I bought a Classic Doubles which is 1lb lighter. I was shooting reasonably well with the ProSport, but in a 100 bird sporting layout, I was probably dropping more targets on the last 4 or 5 stands than on the previous 10. I have had the Classic Doubles for 12 months now and with a few 'stick on' bits on the stock, I am back to my usual average scores.
On the other hand, I know of someone who has gone too far and is using a gun of under 7lbs. Watching him shoot, the gun is jumping all over the place on firing. Although he says not, he must be feeling the recoil. I saw another guy who had the same make and model gun, he was complaining about the recoil. I see several guys of pension age using K80's, I don't recall seeing any of them shooting well. I found it was just too heavy for me.

 

[Jonny English]

My dt11 can be anything from about 8lb 2 to 8lb 7 depending on how it's set up and I would have thought it was pretty much bang on the money. Anything from 8 to 9lb is a good sporting gun weight.

 

[Westward]

Years ago I had a few shots with a 9 1/2lb adjustable stock K80 belonging to someone we both know. I noticed several things about it such as how easily it moved to the lead and how little recoil there was, but one thing I didn't notice was the weight. He later switched to a K80 Parcours which he didn't get on with at all. He subsequently did the sensible thing and bought an Invictus (8lb 3oz) with which promptly shot into AAA.

I too like 8lb 3oz or thereabouts in a sporter and with the balance between the hands rather than at the hinge, but I don't think I'll be shooting my way into AAA though.