The back surface of butt front near the grip is called the tang. The grip is at the front portion of the butt that connects with the fore-end, and is held by the shooter's trigger hand during firing. These stocks are also used on combat shotguns like the Franchi SPAS-12 to allow the stock to collapse when not in use. A butt hook, which is an attachment to the butt of the gun that is put under the shooter's arm to prevent the rifle from pivoting forward from the weight of the barrel is sometimes used in competitive rifle shooting. A collapsible (or telescoping) stock makes the weapon shorter and more compact for storage, carrying and concealment, and can be deployed just before shooting for better control. There are also in-between designs (such as the Weatherby Mark V) with a "halfway" heel drop where the front half of the buttstock stays leveled.Ĭollapsable or folding stocks are often seen on military carbines, SMG/ PDWs, their civilian-derived versions and some machine pistols. In one-piece rifle stocks, the butt also varies in styles between the "European" type, which has a drop at the heel to favor quick shooting using iron sights and "American" type, which the heel remains horizontal from the grip to favor more precision-oriented shooting using telescopic sights. Traditionally, two-piece stocks were easier to make, since finding a quality wood blank suitable for a long one-piece stock is harder than finding short blanks for a two-piece stock. Two-piece stocks use separate pieces for the butt and fore-end, such as that commonly found on break-action and lever-action firearms. In a one-piece stock, the butt and fore-end are a continuous monolithic piece, such as that commonly found on conventional bolt-action rifles. The most basic categorization of stock types is into one-piece and two-piece stocks. SPAS-12 shotgun with a skeletonized folding stock In some modern firearm designs, the lower receiver and handguard replace the fore-end stock, leaving only the butt portion as the recognizable "stock", even though they serve the same function as the traditional fore-end. The stock pictured above has a thumbhole (7) style grip, which allows a more ergonomic vertical hold for the user's hand. The butt (or buttstock) is braced against the shooter's shoulder for stability and also interacts with the trigger hand, and is further divided into the comb (3), heel (4), toe (5), and grip (6). The fore-end (or forestock, forearm) affixes and supports the receiver, and relays the recoil impulse from the barrel via a recoil lug. The rear portion is the butt (1), and front portion is the fore-end (2). Techniques for gunstock hand weapons are being revived by martial arts such as Okichitaw.Ī gunstock is broadly divided into two parts (see above), with the boundary roughly at where the trigger is. Ironically, the stocks of muskets introduced during the European colonization of the Americas were repurposed as hand-to-hand war clubs by Native Americans and First Nations when fragile accessories were damaged or scarce ammunition exhausted.
This greatly improved the accuracy of the arquebus, to a level that would not be surpassed until the advent of rifled barrels.
With both hands available to aim, the arquebus could be braced with the shoulder, giving rise to the basic gunstock shape that has survived for over 500 years. Firing a hand cannon requires careful application of the match while simultaneously aiming the use of a matchlock handles the application of the slow match, freeing up a hand for support. The modern gunstock shape began to evolve with the introduction of the arquebus, a matchlock with a longer barrel and an actual lock mechanism, unlike the hand-applied match of the hand cannon. Įarly hand cannons used a simple stick fitted into a socket in the breech end to provide a handle. The term stock in reference to firearms dates to 1571 is derived from the Germanic word Stock, meaning tree trunk, referring to the wooden nature of the gunstock. An early hand cannon, or gonne, supported by a simple stock