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forend with shorter reach available?

Your eyes are connected to your head, not your body. Your body has little bearing on where your eyes are looking. When using a weapon tactically, your gun follows your eyes at all times. Think that one through a bit. And the one organ thing....you're planning to stand facing someone with a gun and getting hit then? How about you plan NOT TO GET HIT and you shoot exactly like 99.999999% of the world and you utilize the weapon as it was designed and intended?

Not only are you not being helpful, but you may be somewhat ignorant on the stance in question. Allow me to elucidate you.

Sometime after September the 11th, 2001, the US and its allies went to war in the Middle East. There hadn't been any revelations or new tech or practices in as much as the art of war is concerned. The IBA had been standard issue equipment but as war continued, improvements were being made. War drives private sector creativity. Consider the advances made in prosthetic limbs. They're practically bionic now where there had been no advances in decades.

Back to the point;
(And I'm laying this out broadly and generally)
New body armor designs were becoming agailable. Some of these were being issued while other units and even individuals were purchasing their own. Troops were still using their old style training which included using a bladed stance. There was an unwanted side effect. Soldiers, marines, etc were taking shots to their vulnerable sides. Training changed to monopolize on the protection newer styled plate carriers offered. A square stance. The idea being that, while the individual presented a wider target, the armor plates would be most likely to take the hit rather than the soft unprotected areas.

Eventually, this type of training came home and armor was becoming available to everyone. Each of us among the general population had resources available to us that we'd not seen before. More and more of us were adopting the square stance with or without armor. It has definite and distinct advantages to many of us. For example, due to the way recoil is absorbed and transferred, I've been able to teach my daughter (beginning at 10 years old) to shoot a 12 ga shotgun and have no problems with 3" magnums at less than 5' tall and less than 100 pounds. She's literally half my weight. Ok maybe not anymore, I think now she's like 115 pounds.

This is my vague understanding, but its the foundation of why people train with a square stance. It isn't nuance or trendy. It isn't just something that YouTube selfie stick operators do. There have been some questionable and weird variations though. Thumb over bore doesn't translate real well on a shotgun for example but it hasn't stopped the tactical accessory craze that even I have indulged in.

I don't know where I was going with this or what it had to do with the question at hand. What can I answer here as it relates to the original post?
 
That one on top is with the action opened. Hard to get a feel for it. The overlap is a no-go, though. Mike above is completely right. Why are you standing square with the stock on your right chest, though? That position seems, to me, to be the source of your problem, not the weapon.

The forend on my 835 overlaps slightly. It's more common on sporting styled shotguns. It's also a non issue.
 
No, this is the older version which uses the MOE accessories. They do sell an adapter for $10. It looks like even with the adapter, the MLok accessories still attach MOE style instead of the quick on-off style of the MLok.

Ah. I wonder then if there's a way to attach a hand stop set back a little on the forend to make getting a grip on a little more comfortable.

You're already using a short LOP stock, yes?
 
Thanks. Yes, I am using the shortest LOP. I removed all the spacers and it is about 12 1/4". I thought about the hand stop. Even if I try and grab the rearmost part of the forend, my left arm is almost fully extended in the squared stance (By looking at pictures, I guess that is the way it is supposed to be?). Maybe having my left arm almost fully extended isn't comfortable because I am not used to shooting in that stance.

Yeah, maybe I can experiment with a hand stop. At least that way it will help lock my hand in place. If it doesn't help, then I can just throw it on one of my other rifles.
 
Are you able to have someone get a couple photos of the way you're standing and your hold?

Another possibility is a vertical foregrip.
 
Are you able to have someone get a couple photos of the way you're standing and your hold?
This image is how my stance ends up being. Slight bend in my left arm, but basically straight.
shotgun_shooting_stance_scheme.jpg
 
Have you thought about adding a front vertical grip?
 
Do you keep your feet parallel to each other?

That's probably why you feel awkward. Take a step forward with your left foot.

That will naturally blade your upper body and most likely give you the reach you need with your left hand.
 
Thanks. Normally I do stand with my left foot in front. My body is turned. That stance is relatively comfortable and I have enough reach with my left arm. Slugs seem to beat me up in that stance though.

I thought the whole idea of the square stance is that the feet are parallel from each other about shoulder width apart. The body is squarely facing the target. Lean slightly forward and have the buttstock on right chest to help absorb recoil.... Anyways, that is my weak understanding of the stance.

The more I bring back my right foot, the more comfortable the stance is and the more my upper body will want to turn. Which will bring me closer and closer to my normal shooting position.

The next time I go, maybe I will try experimenting with a "hybrid" of the two positions and see how that feels. Thanks.
 
Thanks. Normally I do stand with my left foot in front. My body is turned. That stance is relatively comfortable and I have enough reach with my left arm. Slugs seem to beat me up in that stance though.

I thought the whole idea of the square stance is that the feet are parallel from each other about shoulder width apart. The body is squarely facing the target. Lean slightly forward and have the buttstock on right chest to help absorb recoil.... Anyways, that is my weak understanding of the stance.

The more I bring back my right foot, the more comfortable the stance is and the more my upper body will want to turn. Which will bring me closer and closer to my normal shooting position.

The next time I go, maybe I will try experimenting with a "hybrid" of the two positions and see how that feels. Thanks.

I don't subscribe to the square stance at all with the feet parallel. Even in my pistol shooting. To absorb the recoil properly you'll need to be rooted to the ground. A front stance better suits that with follow up shots you're not on your heels when shooting a high recoil firearm.

I've looked at videos of me shooting shotgun and my left arm on the forend is almost straight as I shoot. Aside from your stance you might be where you're gonna be upper body wise.
 
^^^ I agree with this. I always have one foot back just a little with my support arm pretty much straight out and my upper body mostly squared.

If the vertical grip isn't for you, an angled grip may work if you still can't get a good grip on the forend. I tried an angle grip for awhile when the arthritis began to be a problem and I didn't have enough range of motion in my wrist to get a good grip on the action. It helped but I had to make sure I had solid pressure on it or it would kinda want to smack your hand. I think newer versions are probably a little better.

You said you're getting smacked around some with heavier loads?
 
Not really. A tactical firearm usually has a sling and attachments of all sorts. An overlapping forearm creates a pinch point at the front of the receiver that will grab that sling and create a jam. It can also grab loose sleeves, cords, straps, shirts, curtains etc. Depending on your gun, you have a short stroke jam, a failure to eject jam, a shell over the lifter jam, or a double feed jam. Overlapping forearms also interfere with sidesaddles....so you'll end up sawing/cutting one shell loop off or a chunk of the forearm. Not really a non-issue.

Looks like now's a good time to whip out my 1300 Speed Pump.

I prefer not to have overlap because it blocks the mag tube, but you can still load the shotgun with the tube blocked. But that's just personal preference. You drop the shell down in the ejection port, push the forend forward. At this point, you can either shoot again or reload as normal AND with one in the chamber.

But I've never jammed a shotgun because something got caught in between the receiver and the forearm.

EVER.

And I've used shotguns a lot. Hunting in thick brushy woods, target shooting, skeet shooting, just plain old shooting them. And if I were to put up a survey asking the same question, I'd be surprised if it has to anyone else either.

Interfere with sidesaddles, yeah, I'll give you that, but sidesaddles are a relatively newer thing the last 10-15 years or so and shotguns were never really made for that. That's more of an inherent issue with the side saddle than the gun and more grasping at straws of the point you're trying to make. I can't really blame the gun or the gun designers for something the user decides they want to junk the gun up with later. Myself, I keep a few extra shells on the butt pad. Always there, and never in the way of anything.

And here is some pictures of my 1300. It has the most overlap of any shotgun I own. Being so close to the body, Winchester choosing to use the name speed pump is a very fitting name for the gun. I can shoot it as fast as I can my semi auto. Heck, I only have to move the action 4 inches.

playing with holli 024.JPG

playing with holli 025.JPG
 
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