Getting Control of Gun Speed

Hi Gil and Vicki, 

I am from Greece. I got all your DVDs and two books and I am following the OSP principles. I have been shooting for 1.5 years now and take part in tournaments with an average score of 68 per 100, although my performance practice average is at about 74-76. Usually, it is Compak, sometimes FITASC.

My main problem is inconsistency. I almost “dominate” some trajectories (shoot 10/10 sometimes, but sometimes not). Generally, I can hit any clay on a good day, but sadly I can also lose any clay- even ones I shot successfully hundreds of times, which does not give confidence. I identified a problem of hesitation in pulling the trigger and am working on it, but my main problem (besides stress in some tournaments) is this:

I seem to have a problem duplicating the precise tempo of my move, and sometimes I end up behind the clay. I noticed that precisely identifying a focal point and a hold point solves the problem, (after a few tries) but this makes me feel miserable about new courses where there can be to trial and error in order to precisely identify a focus point and hold point.

On the other hand, I do break clays (and not just once) just with “focus, feel, and trust” without trying to guess the lead, and it is almost like magic. My problem is that I am not sure I can repeat it. To give an example of my problem, one day I will break 22/25 on a very difficult five stand with targets at a range of 30 to 45 yards, and some days later I will have a score of 15/25 on the same targets.

Any thoughts or advice?

George Papanikolaou

George,

It’s hard to coach halfway around the world without seeing you shoot, but we have done it successfully before, so here goes.  

We have both read your post and have agreed on several things for you to try to help you isolate the problem. Just so you will know, the overwhelming number of shooters in sporting clays are in the 67 to 87 score bracket, and there are just as many in the group from 67 to 77 as there are in the group from 77 to 87. 

What’s interesting to us is that it has been that way for as long as we can remember, and we have been shooting sporting clays since 1983. Most shooters get stuck at about the high score plateau of 77 or 78 because you can shoot that score consciously thinking about lead and chasing the targets. The other part of that plateau is that their low scores are much lower than their high scores, giving them a score differential (the difference between their low and high score) of about 11 to 15 birds. That is the part of this particular plateau that no one seems to want to talk about. But it’s the most important part. Let’s explain.

Too many shooters get hung up in their best scores, which is normal. But those come about on an infrequent basis, and way too much emotion is given the score, and not what the shooter did to achieve it. Nonetheless, the expectation of wanting to do at least as good as your best score makes you hesitant, and therefore conscious, because you begin to shoot not to miss. 

We cover this and all score plateaus in our book You Gotta Be Out of Your Mind as well as how to tell if your problem is mental or mechanical. It also explains what you will have to master at each plateau and how to practice to master it to get to the next one.