diff --git a/basis/cpu/x86/x86.factor b/basis/cpu/x86/x86.factor
index 5ae9e1c489..e12cec9738 100644
--- a/basis/cpu/x86/x86.factor
+++ b/basis/cpu/x86/x86.factor
@@ -61,8 +61,12 @@ M: x86 stack-frame-size ( stack-frame -- i )
 
 M: x86 %call ( word -- ) 0 CALL rc-relative rel-word-pic ;
 
+: xt-tail-pic-offset ( -- n )
+    #! See the comment in vm/cpu-x86.hpp
+    cell 4 + 1 + ; inline
+
 M: x86 %jump ( word -- )
-    pic-tail-reg 0 MOV 2 cells 1 + rc-absolute-cell rel-here
+    pic-tail-reg 0 MOV xt-tail-pic-offset rc-absolute-cell rel-here
     0 JMP rc-relative rel-word-pic-tail ;
 
 M: x86 %jump-label ( label -- ) 0 JMP rc-relative label-fixup ;
diff --git a/vm/cpu-x86.hpp b/vm/cpu-x86.hpp
index 71a85b4e82..e5852f9ad9 100755
--- a/vm/cpu-x86.hpp
+++ b/vm/cpu-x86.hpp
@@ -7,7 +7,15 @@ namespace factor
 
 inline static void flush_icache(cell start, cell len) {}
 
-static const fixnum xt_tail_pic_offset = 2 * sizeof(cell) + 1;
+/* In the instruction sequence:
+
+   MOV EBX,...
+   JMP blah
+
+   the offset from the immediate operand to MOV to the instruction after
+   the jump is a cell for the immediate operand, 4 bytes for the JMP
+   destination, and one byte for the JMP opcode. */
+static const fixnum xt_tail_pic_offset = sizeof(cell) + 4 + 1;
 
 static const unsigned char call_opcode = 0xe8;
 static const unsigned char jmp_opcode = 0xe9;
diff --git a/vm/quotations.cpp b/vm/quotations.cpp
index 32e5e37a79..b049f528e4 100755
--- a/vm/quotations.cpp
+++ b/vm/quotations.cpp
@@ -152,7 +152,14 @@ void quotation_jit::iterate_quotation()
 				{
 					if(stack_frame) emit(userenv[JIT_EPILOG]);
 					tail_call = true;
-					/* Inline cache misses are special-cased */
+					/* Inline cache misses are special-cased.
+					   The calling convention for tail
+					   calls stores the address of the next
+					   instruction in a register. However,
+					   PIC miss stubs themselves tail-call
+					   the inline cache miss primitive, and
+					   we don't want to clobber the saved
+					   address. */
 					if(obj.value() == userenv[PIC_MISS_WORD]
 					   || obj.value() == userenv[PIC_MISS_TAIL_WORD])
 					{