Shotgun Hand Stops

[Bergeron]

The Active Self Protection-Extra channel just posted neat little video about shotgun hand stops, inspired from Mr. Rhett Neumayer.

I recall one of the shotguns in the picture thread showing something along these lines, and being impressed with it. I'm messing with shotguns less than my pistols or rifles these days, but I am curious about the concept, and have been pondering adding it to an old Remington M11 that has a future as a "whippet"-ish SBS.

The handstop I saw seemed quite a bit larger than the ones in the ASP-E video, and so I wonder- if this is good, then are there certain geometries of hand stops that might work better than others? I'm almost to the point of thinking that a TangoDown stubby VFG might be what I'd want to try.

How about it? Good, bad? Somewhere in between?

[DDTSGM]

I would prefer not to put anything on the fore end.

We used these types on SBS, although ours were unfinished aluminum:

Wilson Combat/Scattergun Technologies:



S&J Hardware:



I've actually never used this type with a sling attached.

[Hambo]

How about it? Good, bad? Somewhere in between?

I'll go with "needless addition." Some of our chopped breaching 870s may have had the ones Dan posted. All the rest had fore end lights. In all my other uses and competition with pumps, semis, and doubles, I have never thought, "Damn, I need a hand stop on this."

[LHS]

I've never liked them, as they transfer the recoil directly to my finger. I can see them having a place on a super shorty where the handguard comes up nearly flush to the muzzle, but even then I wouldn't want to push my hand up against it.

Rhett likes them, and they certainly work for him, but we have different preferences for how we orient our support hand on the handguard.

In short, if it works for you, rock on. If it doesn't, then no big loss IMHO.

[gato naranja]

All I know is that whenever we have have something inadvertently become a hand stop on a shotgun (weaponlight and/or mount, bit of sling kit...), we are not amused.

[TCinVA]

Put me down as a "terrible idea" on the hand stop as described in the video. That's going to load recoil force into whatever flesh happens to be touching it. As shown in the video, it would be into the base joint of the thumb.

That will have consequences. Especially if you keep at it for a long period of time. As you can see in the video, it was immediately painful for one person, less so for another based on subtle differences in hand position. (There were other significant differences in body position, size, etc) Have either of those guys run one for a full day's worth of training and life will suck for them. The important part of push/pull is activating the large muscle groups in the upper body to help control the effects of an ounce of lead moving down the barrel. The hands are where that force gets applied to the gun. Targeting the load of force on small and relatively delicate structures in the hand might be something some folks can get away with...at least for a while. But overall it's going to be a sub-optimal technique for the vast majority who attempt it and will be readily evident as such the first couple of times they press the trigger.

You can have a hand stop on the gun to function exactly that way (keep your hand from going in front of the muzzle) but you don't want to actually be in contact with it. You certainly don't want to be loading force into it except in exigent circumstances where you have no other choice.

Arisaka makes excellent accessories. I have Arisaka stuff on all my serious use long guns because they're a cut above just about anyone else in the market. I just don't want that on my 12 gauge.

[nalesq]

I have become a big fan of cheeked bird’s head gripped shotguns, using Rhett’s techniques and his unique firing hand strap.

However, I could not tolerate for long any kind of handstop on the forend. I tried several different kinds of handstops. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong, but under the heavy recoil of a pump shotgun, the handstops were simply too uncomfortable - frankly it was painful - against the web between my thumb and forefinger.

I came to prefer instead simply using grip tape to help me with the strong push pull you need to manage the recoil for a cheeked shotgun.


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[Erick Gelhaus]

Without watching the video - I know, I'm a bad man - I'll be putting a handstop on my 1301 when I get the bbl back from Vang. A fellow classmate in Rob Haughts, Symtac, @LHS class last fall used a small, short Magpul handstop on his forearm. I was happy enough to experiment with it. Not a bigger one like on my ARs, but one that's maybe 3/4" tall.

The Magpul forearms on my 870s, 590 are short enough I don't need them and anything with a SF forearm (618F and beyond) already has a hand stop in the form of the battery/light housing.

[diananike]

When I first got my Tac14 my hand would slip off the forend with every shot. The idea of a hand stop to hold onto the gun better and soak up some of the recoil with the support arm made sense and Rhett’s videos are really compelling. It seems like he’s unlocked some kind of secret art to the pistol grip shotgun. The rear recoil strap truly is a game changer.

I tried a TLR7 first Gen on a magpul forend on my Tac14 as an imitation of Rhett’s setup.
Even with the firing hand recoil strap set up like Rhett’s the TLR was massively painful on my support hand even after I padded it with foam and inner tube.

I will concur with Matt a hand stop is not going to be shootable on a 12 gauge. Too much force concentration on a small area.
I switched to a TL racker and can keep a pretty good grip on the gun now.

[L-2]

I put one of these Bravo Company (aka BCM) "KAG" grip add-ons to my shotgun:
-already had this shotgun with a Magpul fore-end which has MLOK slots;
-had this BCM "KAG" laying around in my extra-stuff with no other place to put it;
https://bravocompanyusa.com/bcmgunfi...ok-compatible/

I wouldn't have bought one for this purpose, otherwise. My prior experience was using a Mossberg 590A1 sbs which had this strap-thing added onto the fore-end which came with the shotgun. I did use that strap-thing, only because it was there and don't remember there being downsides to using that strap.