Cheek weld pressure

[OSU Fisher]

Ive looked around on here but havent found much. Hopefully I didnt miss it. Hate double posting..

Anyways, playing around with my shooting techniques. Trying to find the best and most consistent ways for me.

Curious to what people do for cheek pressure? Do ya lay on it? Free float? Light? Etc.

Ive found that heavy pressure for me I tend to get occasional high flyers. Light pressure seems to get the most consistent results. This is prone off bipod and rear bag.

Also throw in any other things ya like to do. But I'm sure most all agree in slight forward preload pressure, straight back trigger pull etc

 

[Trevor73402]

Light cheek weld pressure. Don't lay on it. You want to apply as little as possible left/right external forces onto the rifle (zero is ideal). Light preload with the bipod. Very slight reward pressure on the grip with the firing hand. Square trigger pull and follow thru.

Just a personal thing, but I shoot both eyes open. It takes thought and muscle to keep one eye closed. Much more natural for me to keep them both open. I know this is a struggle for some people.

 

[OSU Fisher]

Light cheek weld pressure. Don't lay on it. You want to apply as little as possible left/right external forces onto the rifle (zero is ideal). Light preload with the bipod. Very slight reward pressure on the grip with the firing hand. Square trigger pull and follow thru.

Just a personal thing, but I shoot both eyes open. It takes thought and muscle to keep one eye closed. Much more natural for me to keep them both open. I know this is a struggle for some people.

I shoot fairly similar minus the pressure on the grip. My trigger hand basically lays alongside the stock. Really no contact beside pulling the trigger. I had just been getting some high impacts with my bigger magnums and realised I was applying extra check weld pressure. Played around with it and got it worked out. But it got me reading some more and watching videos. People opinions vary drastically. Some very very well known shooters say lay on it almost as you were sleeping. I just cant do it. Got me wondering what everyone else here does

 

[Trevor73402]

I'm saying this is regards to what most would consider extreme precision. Laying on it with all your weight introduces too much of a variable. You can consistently replicate lightly touching the stock with your cheek much easier. Everyone is different in some aspect though. At matches there are times where I will shoot shots completely free recoil where my head is not touching the stock at all and my shoulder is not behind the rifle. Now, this is not with a big bore magnum in a sub 10 pound platform either.

 

[WCB]

I personally lay my head on the cheek weld. So basically the weight of my head is on it. I do not smash or force pressure down but rest my head on it. Not sure if that constitutes light or heavy pressure. This is usually counteracted anyways with a rear bag or my hand under the butt stock for support.

For me this is the most consistent way. One reason is this is how I set my scope height and eye relief and also I go from having a full beard to stubble on my face and the feel is different so just resting my head on it makes me the most consistent.

 

[Jon Pynch]

for me, it really depends on my gun set up, and cheek weld. most of my guns I lay my head on cheek rest and relax. so, pretty heavy... the light weight hunting guns can be more finicky, and I'll experiment with different pressures, but my cheek weld on light guns seems to be lighter in general..

 

[Hill Difficulty]

Understanding cheek weld was a game changer for me.

Two tips:

#1 is to get the height right. It's OK to be low, too high is futile. Even a tiny bit high will cause inconsistent sight alignment and weld tension.

#2 is once you have the height right, weld should be natural snug and unforced. Try this: Have someone take a photo of you while looking down your scope with light cheek pressure. Cheeks are soft and pudgy, so your photo will show that even a light weld will look like you're trying to eat the stock through the side of your face. When we see pics of ideal cheek weld, it appears more forceful than actual.

Hope this helps!

 

[carter33]

@Jon Pynch

Not to change the subject of this thread but with lighter rifles do you also sometimes grip the stock more tightly with your trigger hand? Assuming the non dominant hand is on a rear bag. I heard this recently as a tip on the backcountry hunting podcast and was thinking that may help a bit when it finally warms up a bit here and I get back out to the range. Long range shooting technique from what I have read is to generally just rest the hand lightly on the grip and apply as little pressure as possibly.

 

[Hill Difficulty]

@Jon Pynch

Not to change the subject of this thread but with lighter rifles do you also sometimes grip the stock more tightly with your trigger hand? Assuming the non dominant hand is on a rear bag. I heard this recently as a tip on the backcountry hunting podcast and was thinking that may help a bit when it finally warms up a bit here and I get back out to the range. Long range shooting technique from what I have read is to generally just rest the hand lightly on the grip and apply as little pressure as possibly.

With my trigger hand I grip a rifle stock like I hold my iPhone. On a 700 my thumbnail is pointed dead center at the safety lever.

 

[Jon Pynch]

@Jon Pynch

Not to change the subject of this thread but with lighter rifles do you also sometimes grip the stock more tightly with your trigger hand? Assuming the non dominant hand is on a rear bag. I heard this recently as a tip on the backcountry hunting podcast and was thinking that may help a bit when it finally warms up a bit here and I get back out to the range. Long range shooting technique from what I have read is to generally just rest the hand lightly on the grip and apply as little pressure as possibly.

I don't ever grip the stock tightly, but on lighter stocks I will put a fair bit of pressure pulling grip straight back into my shoulder. thumb is relaxed on side of stock not doing anything. I really prefer pistol grip/vertical grip stocks the more I shoot as it makes this technique more comfortable. hope that makes a little sense.

 

[Broz]

Not sure this will work. But here is one of our video's from SHOT range day and I was shooting a big 30 doing exactly what Jon suggests. Even with bipod spikes on concrete the recoil control was great and always on target.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=689203728152432

 

[OXN939]

Ive looked around on here but havent found much. Hopefully I didnt miss it. Hate double posting..

Anyways, playing around with my shooting techniques. Trying to find the best and most consistent ways for me.

Curious to what people do for cheek pressure? Do ya lay on it? Free float? Light? Etc.

Ive found that heavy pressure for me I tend to get occasional high flyers. Light pressure seems to get the most consistent results. This is prone off bipod and rear bag.

Also throw in any other things ya like to do. But I'm sure most all agree in slight forward preload pressure, straight back trigger pull etc

Just wanted to necromance this thread since I just did a range day with a buddy of mine who's getting into distance shooting and this came up.

Get a bolt action .22. They are really fantastic training tools. A lot of information about what's going on during the process of trigger squeeze is lost in recoil and noise from a large centerfire rifle... and you'll see these subtleties when shooting a .22. One of these is how much the reticle moves after pulling the trigger with different amounts of cheek weld pressure. Fire a few groups with your .22 trainer paying attention to this, and I bet 90% of shooters will identify that less cheek weld pressure to their rifles will tighten groups.

 

[16Bore]

Can’t say it’s something I’ve ever thought about.