Ouch, using the side of my hand as the pivot point and the rear of the stock on a scale, I get 1.7lbs pressure, That would be a lot to ad to the front.
Yup, it usually is. I have a pound and a half of lead in the forends of both of my PRS rifles, and added 3lbs of bolt on weights to my gas guns, and I just bolted a 2lb brass bar into my son’s 22LR forend. I shot with a buddy on Saturday as a practice day, he has 2lbs of exterior weights and a 2lb brass bar bolted inside the MPA chassis on his CZ457. Justin Watts, one of the top pro shooters in the world, has a steel block, about 2.5x2.5x1”, bolted to the end of his arca rail to get his balance forward. The overall rifle weight isn’t as critical as the balance.
Having neutral balance over the bag is a little more palatable for 22LR than centerfire because the recoil is so low, but the idea is pretty straight forward: we want the rifle to stay on target to see our impacts or misses as much as possible, and balancing behind the center of support means the muzzle wants to rise in recoil - or just naturally throughout a stage, which makes our job harder, driving the gun much more than we should be, adding a bunch of influence to the system, instead of just putting the reticle on target and letting the rifle shoot where it wants (NPOA). The more rearward your balance point behind center, the more your support hand has to fight the rifle to put the reticle on target, and keep it there, and what a lot of guys end up doing is lifting the rifle with their shoulder or their trigger hand - which are both bad things. The trigger hand should be running the trigger and bolt, that is its only job - if it has to also drive the rifle, that means your rifle will move far more when you release to run the bolt, and you’ll waste time correcting between shots. Your should should only be catching the recoil, not driving the rifle - the shoulder is not a dexterous body part, it’s “dumb,” and has no fine motor control, so it will fight the support hand and will push the rifle in ways we don’t actually want it to move.
So it’s much better to have the rifle sitting neutrally on the bag, or SLIGHTLY muzzle heavy on the bag (balanced forward of the center of support) so the muzzle weight helps stabilize the rifle in recoil and helps keep the reticle on target.
A lot of folks don’t realize just how far away from their center of support their rifles really are during a stage. But it’s pretty simple, put the rifle on the bag and measure to the center of the bag - that’s where your center of support will be, so put your center of balance there.
