The journey of muzzle awareness is not as simple as most of us more experienced shooters make it. While the gun mount and muzzle awareness are part of a solid shooting foundation it is different from beginning to end. There are different amounts and different types of muzzle awareness from the beginning to the advanced levels of our game.
In the beginning, there is nothing else that exists but the barrel, so muzzle awareness is huge. You must have some awareness just to know when the gun is mounted correctly. Once you have gone through this, then you must learn to shoot with no awareness as a beginner, and then with some awareness as an intermediate shooter, learning sight pictures as you begin to take on longer targets that take lead. Once the sight pictures are learned and you have shot enough of them to become accustomed to letting the gun be well in front, the gun must again become less of a fixture in the periphery.
When you finally ascend to the level of an advanced shooter and you are learning to compete and winning tournaments, there will be an ever-presence of knowing exactly where the gun is. But you will not be looking at it. The muzzle will be in your preload, but by this time you know exactly how much awareness you can get by with and still keep the gun moving and run stations.
In the beginning, you will train your gun mount looking in a mirror at a round Snoopy Band-Aid, looking at where the gun is and where your eye is even starting from a full mount, aiming the gun at the bottom of Band-Aid. It is here where you will begin to understand exactly what a gun mount looks like, where your eye needs to be when the gun is mounted correctly, and where the gun belongs on your shoulder and face.
The journey begins with the gun mounted on the bottom side of the Band-Aid and in the correct position on the face and shoulder, with the eye aligned correctly with the barrel. Then, without moving your head, lower the gun away from your face and shoulder to the ready position and then raise the gun up to where it was on your face and shoulder. Check the eye position to make sure it is in the center of the rib.
You will have to do this over and over until you know what it is supposed to look and feel like. This will create muzzle awareness, but it must be done to establish an anchor point on the face and the shoulder. You will be confused when you go and shoot because when you look at the mount in the mirror, you look at the gun and when you look at the gun when you are shooting, the gun will stop moving and you will miss behind the target.
The unfortunate thing is that you must go through this to establish what a good gun mount is and what it really looks and feels like, both in the mirror and on the range.
So now it is time for you to begin doing the OSP flashlight drill and then the three-bullet drill. But first, let’s talk about the flashlight drill.
Go to the “14 Tips To Better Shotgunning” and “How to Practice and Understanding The Move” and “Perfecting Your Gun Mount” DVDs and view the complete videos several times to begin your journey towards both improving your mount and learning the move.
As you become more proficient with the flashlight drill, then begin to include the three-bullet drill every time you do home practice. There are over 50 one to five-minute-long video tips in the Video Tutorials section of the Shot Simulator. You would do yourself a favor to view them all – and yes, we will be adding many more as we move along our journey. Currently, there are over 500 video lessons in the Knowledge Vault. By the time you read this, there will be over 1,000!
Each drill at each level is designed to do something different, so in the beginning, there will be muzzle awareness to be able to know what it looks like and feels like and to make sure your eye is properly aligned with the barrel. Once you become more consistent in your mount, it is time to begin to do the three-bullet drill so you begin to understand sight pictures. At that point, you will begin to train your eyes to do several things, and they are all good.
The first thing you will notice is that your eyes are either looking down the left side of the barrel or across the barrel (for a right-handed shooter; it’s the opposite for left-handed shooters). The three-bullet drill simulates the two sight pictures that you must learn in order to become proficient with a shotgun. And yes, there are only two sight pictures.
The goal is to train your periphery to accept the muzzle in the picture without looking at it! It is part of the picture but not a dominant part of the picture. Doing this drill will help you train your brain to understand the sight picture.
Check out the Visual Circle tip and you will find out why this makes so much sense.
Another great thing about these drills is that they will help you visualize in your pre-shot routine what you are asking your brain to do with the visual input, which will keep your eyes from bouncing to the muzzle as you insert the gun ahead of the bird. That’s right, we said ahead of the target! The overwhelming majority of shooters that play this game are either inserting the muzzle behind the target or they get beat by the target because they are holding the muzzle on the trap when calling “pull.” Then they don’t understand why they are always behind chasing the target. Remember, you can’t chase the target from in front!
Yet another great thing these drills will help you accomplish is to always insert the muzzle ahead of the target by always seeing the target behind the barrel as you finish the mount. It may not seem like a big deal to see the target behind the barrel as you finish the mount, but it is huge in being able to keep your focus ratio at a level that will enable you to consistently hit targets under the pressure of competition.
You don’t intend to compete? Well then, when you begin to get tired in the field, guess what happens? The barrel begins to creep into your vision and at that point, you will begin to have trouble keeping the muzzle moving with the target and will begin to miss even the simplest of shots.
So as you can see, in the beginning, you must be aware of the muzzle to learn to mount the gun correctly. Then you must begin to shoot without looking at the muzzle and then you learn sight pictures and again the muzzle comes into the picture. As the sight pictures begin to be understood, you begin to accept the muzzle in the periphery and see the target behind the barrel as you mount. As you move to the advanced level, you mount the gun farther and farther in front and learn to slow the bird down as it comes to you.
Just remember that in order to shoot a shotgun consistently, you must learn to move and mount it without looking at it to check to see if the beads are lined up. When you do that, you will end up looking at the gun during the shot. The gun will stop and you will miss behind.
“The amount of muzzle awareness
in the shot will always be equal to or greater than the amount of muzzle
awareness in the set-up!”
– Gil Ash
Learn to move and mount the gun and you will get better faster and enjoy shooting much more.
