I'm interested to learn the practical application of the "high rib" I see on the newer competition guns these days.

I've always been taught to keep my head down and my cheek firmly welded to the stock. It seems to me a high rib encourages the shooter to do the opposite.

Any experience / thoughts ?

Even tho I am of the old school and shoot the lower stocks, you've got it backwards.

There are two primary reasons for the high ribbed guns. One, with the proper stock, you don't lower your head/cheek to the gun, you raise the stock to your normally elevated head position so your eyes are in their normal relationship to the world, that is more or less perpendicular to the earth. Whether this really makes any significant visual differences is debatable but there can be little question that your eyes probably function at their best in their "normal" position. Two, it is extremely difficult to lift your head if your head is already as high as it normally gets.

quote:

..... and my cheek firmly welded to the stock.

Gato's got it right.

The high ribbed O/U's are being seen more & more here in Europe for Double Trap. With the High Ribs you receive a correspondingly higher combed stock, to assist keeping your head erect.

From the shooting I've seen; whether this actually occurs or not is highly dependant on the individual Shooter and while I'm a solid Hobby Class Nimrod there are two Olympic Medal winners at our shooting Club here in Wiesbaden, Germany (WCW) so I get to be entertained by all sorts of High Rib Shooting Wannabee's every weekend who desire to follow in their footsteps. One shoots a High Rib/High Combed stock the other a classic, Flat Rib/Straight stock.

I've always considered that by the time you're ready for a custom stock you have to have enough shotgun shooting experience under your belt to tell a stockmaker what you really want in a stock.

I have shot a lot of skeet with the normal skeet grade guns. I can pick up a high rib gun and point it and the combs are so high that I would need between 1/4" and 1/2" cut off the comb to permit comfortable use. Once cut down though I think they would be much more comfortable to shoot with my hear erect especially since I now wear glasses and it would permit me to sight closer to the center of the lens.

What a great question. Well I guess the question could have been made a bit more specific to the "type" of competition.

TRAP:
Trap guns historically have had high ribs to begin with. So it should not be a game changing event for trap shooters.



SKEET:
Now, this is where things get interesting. Will the high rib shotgun help a skeet shooter ?


SPORTING CLAYS & FITASC:
Same question...will the high rib help the Sporting Clays & FITASC shooters ?



Every now and then a "Fad" comes through the shotgunning world. Anyone remember 34 inch barrels for Sporting Clays ??? Well the gun manufacturers have to "innovate" and keep the public interested to sell more guns.

High rib use in Skeet and Sporting Clays ... is it a Fad, or is it here to stay ? I do not know the answer. Yet.

As Gatogordo mentioned correctly, that the high rib shotgun (when fitted properly with the right stock) will enable the shooter to shoot in a more upright position. Does that translate to higher scores ?

The line that gun manufacturers are throwing out is that by using this configuration the shooter can:
- acquire the target a lot faster
- less recoil

So if that is the case, then after shooting say 10,000 rounds someone should be able to authoritatively answer these two basic questions. Now it can't be a sponsored shooter answering them as they will have a bias.

Very interesting, i have played around with one of the high comb shotguns and did not like it at all, granted this is not a very scientific sample since i only shot two boxes and the gun might have been long for me, but i absolutely hated it.

The only one that I ever fired was a Perazzi trap gun and I liked it but that was for 3 only rounds and I never cared much for trap.

I transitioned to hi-rib shotguns for American (ATA)trap competition in the mid-1980's. When I was an active competitor, I was registering approx. 10-12,000 targets per yr. and shooting that many more in practice rounds. Wouldn't shoot anything else for THAT type of competition. Allows a more erect stance and provides better view of the trap house to see the bird emerge. Never shot Sporting so I have no idea how they might help or hinder that game. I still have 2 hi-rib Trap guns and wouldn't want anything else.

So here you can see the rib height comparisons.



These are all Krieghoff K-80 12 gauge shotguns.

The one on top is the traditional high rib used for trap shooting.

The one in the center is the standard rib used for every thing else...Skeet, Sporting Clays, FITASC, etc.


The one at the bottom is the "New" High Rib which is seeing a lot of action in Sporting Clays and Skeet field these days.