A takeout mechanism for a section of a I.S. machine which will grip the finish of one or more bottles at a blow station and carry the gripped bottles away from the blow station and deposit them on a deadplate. The bottom of the bottles can be a vertical distance from the finish within a selected distance range. A Z-axis offset is defined for the bottles and an X-Z profile is defined for the Z-axis offset to control their displacement from the blow station to the deadplate.