SBE2 windage adjustments

[Longshanks]

To clear up some misconceptions/fallacies in this thread, if you are shooting your gun off a bench/rest and looking straight down the rib with the bead centered, no amount of shimming will change your POI.  Shims are designed to change the way your barrel is inclined when you shoulder your gun while wingshooting.  It won't do anything if you are shooting your gun like a rifle from a rest any more than changing a stock on rifle would without adjusting the scope.  Now, if your POI is different than POA when rapidly shouldering your gun and firing at a target as you would when wingshooting, using the supplied plates/shims will slightly change your POI as it changes your barrel/receiver inclination relative to your stock and eye.  Benellis notoriously shoot a little high in my experience and my M2 turkey gun also shoots a little left.  The only way I was able to correct this is with a red dot sight(Burris FF).  If you are using the gun for wingshooting and there is a left/right deviation in the POI and the supplied plates do not create enough correction, one can further change the cast by adding tape or extra shimming to one side of the stock where it fits to the receiver.  I've done this before with tape and/or a piece of aluminum cut from a soda can.

That would be the truth about shims. When it comes to turkey guns and aiming as if you are shooting a rifle the shims don't make that much of a difference. Shouldering the gun, cheek on the stock, with your eyes closed as if wingshooting and then opening your eyes to see if your are lined up will tell you if there is a shim problem.

[PineyRooster]

i agree with the shim comments however when i pattern i rest the barrel only to sturdy my position.. i still shoulder the gun and align my eye the same way every time.. the c shim that i replaced b shim with brought my pattern down and the elevation is great just still shooting to the left was my concern. it is still manageable just not as centered as i wanted it to be. center of pattern is 6-8" to the left with hvywt 3.5" 7s.. when i shot the 3" version it was centered up fine, the pattern was just not as dense as the 3.5".... apparently my gun just doesn't throw the 3.5" 7s straight for some reason... as mentioned before the longbeards i shot were all centered up too..

[PineyRooster]

i suppose you could say turkey guns are a lot like rifles in that each choke/gun combo has its favorite round.. guess my decision now is do i want to shoot beads and another turkey load or do i want to mount my ff3 and stick with the hvywts

[taylorjones20]

Mount the FF3 and shoot the heavyweights 

Seriously, it's really up to you.  But I like the heavyweights compared to longbeards...

[Mallards Only]

i agree with the shim comments however when i pattern i rest the barrel only to sturdy my position.. i still shoulder the gun and align my eye the same way every time.. the c shim that i replaced b shim with brought my pattern down and the elevation is great just still shooting to the left was my concern. it is still manageable just not as centered as i wanted it to be. center of pattern is 6-8" to the left with hvywt 3.5" 7s.. when i shot the 3" version it was centered up fine, the pattern was just not as dense as the 3.5".... apparently my gun just doesn't throw the 3.5" 7s straight for some reason... as mentioned before the longbeards i shot were all centered up too..

When you replaced the shim, which locking plate did you use along with it?

[PineyRooster]

yeah Taylor Ill probably put the sight on because if I use longbeards they are extremely tight up close and if I do that I might as well use the hvywt 7.... Mallards I used the C DX plate with that C shim, correct me if im wrong but that's what I understood the manual to recommend.. it came with B shim and B DX plate installed.

[PineyRooster]

maybe I should have asked this first, can I use the SX (left hand) plate instead of the DX.. I am right handed and the gun is right hand model. would putting the SX plate change the windage and most importantly will it damage the inertia tube in any way?

[Farmboy27]

It wont damage anything but it also wont change your point of impact.  You could put a red dot or a reticle scope on that gun and sight it in, then change the stock shims as much as you can and it will still shot the same.  If you're looking down the rib centered and centering your beads then no amount of shimming will change the impact.  shims are for changing the handling and fit of the gun, not the Point of impact! 

[PineyRooster]

It wont damage anything but it also wont change your point of impact.  You could put a red dot or a reticle scope on that gun and sight it in, then change the stock shims as much as you can and it will still shot the same.  If you're looking down the rib centered and centering your beads then no amount of shimming will change the impact.  shims are for changing the handling and fit of the gun, not the Point of impact!

then explain to me how my pattern was lowered and not shooting high when I swapped the b shim to c shim

[owlhoot]

You maybe shooting better than you think.
Your eye is the rear sight, the bead the front. (maybe the bead is burred and your concentration is on your turkeys eyeball , head or just dot on the paper?
Your cheek is the anchor, you changed the stock position. Correct?
You are shooting where your lookin up and down now. You have a sight picture that says FIRE!
Just a maybe 

[Farmboy27]

Didn't mean to offend you, just stating fact.  If you are sighting the same way each time then no amount of shimming will change the POI.  If you're sighting down the rib the exact same way, then the barrel is pointed the exact same way and nothing you did to the stock is going to mean a thing.  If a shotgun is not shooting to point of aim when shot from a steady rest then the problem isn't in the stock, its in the barrel or barrel attachment.  Again, didn't mean to offend you in any way.  Just saying that playing with the shims isn't going to solve the problem.

[PineyRooster]

I'm not offended farmboy just trying to make sense of it... Well I found a pretty smoking pattern with long beard 4s that's my best yet so far so and its on point with my beads so that's what I'm rolling with this year. If I can get this upload to work right I'll post some pics.. Was really surprised with 4s patterning like this in a tight bore barrel like the benelli

[Mallards Only]

Farmboy is right and I was trying to explain that as well.  Didn't see any sense in arguing with you.  If you THINK your POI changed as a result of the shim change, it likely has to do with a subtle change in how you were looking down the rib.  Personally, without shooting from some kind of rest with shotguns and turkey loads, I find my free-hand shooting to be pretty unreliable due to flinching and the heavy trigger pull on most shotguns. 
You can change the DX/SX plates without doing any damage whatsoever to the gun.  That's what they're made for.  I doubt changing to the SX tube will do much but if you plan to to use the gun for wingshooting as well, having it shimmed properly will make it a better shooter for you.  I usually start by shouldering the gun as I would to shoot several times with my eyes closed and then open your eyes to see how you're looking down the rib.  If you see one side of the rib more than the other, it needs a cast correction.  If you see too much of the top of the rib or not enough bead, it needs a drop correction.  Once I have a starting point, I then confirm and make further corrections at the range if necessary.  To do that, I take a full choke and bird shot.  Shoot at a large black dot at 20 yds by rapidly shouldering your gun, acquiring the target and shooting 3 rounds on target.  The full choke/birdshot combo will give you a pretty reliable indicator of where you POI is relative to POA.  Once you have it centered, then you can play with different chokes and loads at various distances to see what kind of patterns you get.

[chow hound]

I have a SBEII and was shooting high and to the left.  Like many here, I was skeptical that I could correct the problem with shims.  I played around with all of them and did find one that moved my POI dead on.  How can a shim move the shot left or right? The answer is that SBEII stocks have cast - meaning the stock is not straight in line with the barrel.  When you change the shims you are changing how far your eye is from that center line.  Shoulder your gun and move your head a little to the left off the stock - see what you have to do to get the to beads to line up - you will have to rotate the gun.  Because the barrel is below the rib, when you rotate the gun you are moving the shot left or right.

So my advice is try all the ships and don't shot from a vice type rest.  Shoot from your kneed just like you would in the field.

[Farmboy27]

Your thinking is good in theory and is exactly why changing shims can work well for a wing shooter or a clay shooter. However, your comment about shooting off your knee and not a rest proves my point.  Shooting off your knee is not a reliable test for true poi, a rest is. On a rest you're far more likely to line everything up properly. Off your knee you're apt to hold how the gun wants to fit on shoulder. Hence the reason shimming works for wing shooting where your not actually aiming. If changing shims changes your poi then the problem was never the gun, it was the way it was being pointed down range.