New Beretta A400 Xtreme Unico 12 ga... really bad cheek slap.

[atek3]

So I bought a Beretta A400 Xtreme Unico 12 ga to be a good 'all-around' shotgun. It came highly recommended from quite a few shooters I know well.

I took it out for an afternoon of sporting clays on Saturday, shot around 125 rounds of Winchester AA light target. Really bad cheek slap. The last time I got beat up this badly was my Imbel FAL. Unfortunately, on that gun, I tried 2-3 different butt stocks, cheek pads, etc. to make the gun "work" for my face. Was never 100% satisfied.

I googled and I'm not the only one who's experienced cheek slap with this shotgun.

So my question is, now what? Gunsmiths can rework a wooden stock to fit a shooter's face, but with a synthetic stock I've got fewer good options.

Should I sell it and buy a Remington Versa Max or Benelli SBE II (after trying it to verify it doesn't give me cheek slap)?

thanks,
atek3

 

[rbernie]

Cheek slap, for me, is usually caused by a stock that has too little drop. Too little drop causes me to either crane my head down to the stock (doesn't hurt but is hard to do repeatedly and reliably and my performance suffers) or to not drop my head to the stock, in which case the stock slaps me under recoil.

The A400 stock drop should be adjustable via shims, no?

 

[Virginian]

I am not a Beretta guy, but that is a very good gun. Several things can contribute to cheek slap, including pitch and LOP, DAC, straight comb versus sloped comb, all kinds of things. You really ought to get some help from someone who really knows what they are doing, not just the guys at the club who think they do. Just for grins, fold up some cardboard about 1/4" to 3/8" thick and tape it to the top 1/3 of the buttplate and see if that helps. A VersaMax will be heavier and is a very soft shooter that may help some, but the Beretta is certainly not a hard kicker to start with. I would not consider an SBE2 an all around gun, but I must admit I don't like them. I don't know how the stock dimensions compare between the 3 guns.

 

[atek3]

Thanks for the tips.

 

[oneounceload]

Your gun does not fit and needs the drop adjusted. It should have come with shims to allow this. Your manual will describe how to change them correctly.

 

[atek3]

I went to the Beretta Gallery and brought in my A400. He looked at my stance and how I was mounting the shotgun and he said, "You're a rifle shooter aren't you." I said, "Yep, NRA High Power, expert ranked." He said, "You mount the shotgun like a rifle, that's why you are getting beat up."

He spent about an hour trying to get me to do it differently but damn, that muscle memory.

He was 99.9% convinced that the gun fits me like a glove, no cast-off, drop, or LOP adjustments needed, it's all stance and mount.

atek3

 

[MagicD]

Recently bought a similiar shotgun, Beretta A400 Explor...
With kick off butt plate and drop adjusted with shims included, its a pussy cat for recoil.these guns are very adjustable for fit both drop and cast easily modified.
Agree gets someone who knows shotgun fitting to help.
You need to jump on the face slap,I got a flinch now gone from a poorly fitting 12 gauge.
I also got the extra weight system from Beretta that replaces forend cap...works well.

 

[oneounceload]

If you are standing sideways like hi-power, you'll have a real hard time with targets crossing in front of you. Cheek slap causes from Rollin Oswald on Shogtun World:

Cheek slap can have a number of possible causes with most relating to stock fit.

Pitch is the first thing to check. Pitch is the angle formed by the butt and the rib or barrel -close to 90 degrees. To check it, watch how the recoil pad makes contgact with your wife's shoulder as the gun is being mounted. If the bottom toe of the recoil pad makes contace well before the top of the recoil pad, you have identified at least one cause of her cheek slap.

Another possible cause is how your wife's cheek makes contact with the comb. Are her head and neck in an erect and naturally upright posture when she shoots? If she mounts the gun with the recoil pad below her collarbone and has to lean her neck forward and tilt her head back to put her cheek on the comb, it encourages cheek slap.

Try this: With her gun mounted, look at your wife's eye. Do this with your eye just beyond the muzzle. If the pupil of her eye is near the top of its eye socket, it indicates that your wife's head is tilted forward and that a mroe sensitive part of her cheek with more pain receptors, is making contact with the comb. It can encourage cheek slap.

Too much cheek pressure on the comb encurages cheek slap. So can raising the cheek off the comb during swings to targets.

The way your wife is shooting now is involved in the cheek slap she is experiencing. She changed the way she shoots and whatever change was, is involved both with her difficulty breaking targets and with the cheek slap she is experiencing.

The length of your wife's stock is correct if, when she mounts the gun with the recoil pad on and extending about an inch above her collarbone and her cheek on the stock, there is a distance of 1" to 1.25" between her nose and the second knuckle of her trgger-hand thumb. If there is much more separation than that, the stock is too long for her and should be shortened one-quarter of the excess separation.

If the stock is too long for your wife, she may be leaning her neck forward (crawling the stock) to put her cheek on the comb.

Author: Stock Fitter's Bible, Second Edition - Gun-fitting & shooting instruction for shooters of all ages and disciplines. http://www.amazon.com in their book section.

Questions? For answers: http://www.stockfitting-shootingform.com

 

[MCgunner]

Cheek slap, for me, is usually caused by a stock that has too little drop. Too little drop causes me to either crane my head down to the stock (doesn't hurt but is hard to do repeatedly and reliably and my performance suffers) or to not drop my head to the stock, in which case the stock slaps me under recoil.

Bingo, we have a winner. Mossbergs do me the same way so I shimmed both of mine to increase drop. I didn't buy Mossberg's shim kit, just cut shims out of pop bottle plastic and added and took away until it felt right. This also dramatically helped me actually HIT birds, too. Fit is important.