Rifle stocks
 

What do you prefer
round or flat/square stocks . forend
When hunting with shooting sticks or over a branch rest or even free hand ..
Does it matter

On a big game hunting rifle, round for sure, unless you do nothing but sit in a blind with the rifle on a rest of some sort. Have flat forearms on some varmint guns that get shot off bags or rests, and on target guns, but for spot and stalk, round is it for me.

I like a bit wider, flatter fore end, on all of my big game rifles. The McMillan 700BDL pattern is my favorite.

All of my hunting rifles have had rounded forends, every one of them since I started hunting 1966.
Cat

the reason I was asking is until just recently i got a sako AV/flat and never before paid attention to this..
The sako seems maybe be a tad more solid in movement on the trgger finger shooting sticks ..
I like the feel of the more roundy ones though

I agree with you. I find "rounder"/slimmer forends do tend to rock a bit more in shooting sticks. A cure is to take a small, thin "sand bag" or even a piece of cloth and lay it in the yoke of the shooting sticks. So the stock has something to bite into when you set it in the Y of the yoke. Personally I think a "squarer" foreend helps to stop the rocking and you will like it more once you have used it a few times. But if your rifle is a walking rifle, I agree with Cat and rounder fore ends "fill" the hand better.

The rounder forend can help you deal with rifle cant better in field conditions, as nice as a wide flat forend is at the range, it can be a bit of a PITA in the field at times. I have a fiairly narrow flat forend on my one varmint gun, OK for gophers and such on a flat field, my SxS has a "flatter" style on the beavaertail style forend, but is still round enough to work well on sticks, with a small bag. When working with a gun on the range, hard to beat a butt stock that is straight on the bottom, heel to grip, often curse the tapered butt on a hunting riifle in that regard. Having flush mount sling swivels is a plus to me, one on the front end of the forend and one up on the side of the butt, gets them out of the way too, they make sense when using a synthetic stock.

I prefer a flat stock as I'll usally try to look for anything around I can use as a base to shoot from, pack/stump/branch

Monte Carlo on the butt end. On the fore? Freehand, doesn't matter. If it is truly that long of a shot, I use a magnetic bipod attachment.