Dear Gil & Vicki,
I’m confused. I’m a 53 year old shooter, (5’-10”, 183lbs), active and in decent shape. I have always been a passionate shooter and hunter and have been shooting the shotgun games for the past 23 years. I shoot mostly sporting clays, but have only competed for 3 years, this season being the fourth.
I’ve gone through lots of guns, but two years ago I bought a good one. I’m presently shooting a Perazzi MX 2000 with an adjustable comb, and 30-5/8” barrels (fixed with Teague chokes) that are stamped 1.54kg. The gun also has a slim tapered forend (suggested by Andrew Litt), and this makes for a very fast handling gun. And that’s the point – I’m wondering if it is TOO fast. Twice now, I’ve picked up 32” Beretta DT-10’s and a 32” Beretta Gold E and crushed targets with them. The heavier barrels seem to pull away a little slower from the target allowing the correct sight picture to develop a little slower and they seem a bit more forgiving in follow through. But I know one could move the Perazzi slower with a lighter touch. I’m also aware of the “new gun syndrome.”
There seems to be little said about barrel weight in guns. People say they like 32” barrels or whatever, but they don’t know or say what the barrels weigh. And as you certainly know, people shoot differently. Some are fairly deliberate and others fast. I shoot fairly fast. And where do you go to try good guns in different configurations?
And all that for the main point. Does it really matter? Is there such a thing as an optimum gun for an individual, or can good shooters learn to shoot anything equally well in time? I’m wondering whether to keep practicing with the Perazazi, or switch to something else?
Okay, maybe it’s not the gun. It could be me. I shoot a lot, but I’m stuck at a plateau. I can’t seem to get out of B class, although I’ve won that class in small shoots and have finished 3rd overall in a large but difficult fun shoot.
Bill
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Fairly Fast Is Too Fast
We could talk till the cows come home about barrel configurations, weight, rib height and width, length, etc. But the bottom line is it’s about what feels right for you and what suits your shooting style. Target guns are heavy to help with recoil. There is no trade-off between weight and recoil. Heavier guns have less felt recoil. How heavy is heavy enough? The typical target gun weighs between 7 ¼ to 9 ¼ pounds. But how that weight is displaced is the key.
Depending on the shooter’s height and weight, different weighted guns feel differently to different people. What is important is how it feels in the shooter’s hands. It should be balanced with the bulk of the weight between the hands. Some shooters like a little more weight forward and some like a little more toward the butt of the gun. I think I hear the cows starting to come home. Homer Saye, one of our students, summed it up well: “The most mainest thing is that you get a gun that feels good and fits and learn to shoot it.”
There are people in this game who attempt to use their credit cards to improve their score or their ability. All that does is waste a lot of time, money, and effort, which eventually turns into frustration. Dean Olsen, another one of our students summed it up this way: “Never look for equipment solutions to training problems.”
Although you may have tried other guns with success, we find that people shoot guns that they like and are proud of better than ones they don’t like or aren’t proud of.
How well a person shoots a given gun has more to do with how much they’ve shot and how much they’ve shot that gun. We are constantly called on to demonstrate shots with other people’s guns. In most instances they don’t fit, but we hit the target anyway, because our hands have been trained to point the muzzles where they need to be to hit the target.
When we began our journey with Dean Olsen several years ago, he was shooting a Beretta semi-auto. He had just purchased a custom stocked Kemen shotgun. As we were determining the dimensions for his new gun, he expressed concern about switching from a semi-auto to an over and under shotgun. We explained to him that we were not training the gun but training his hands, and not to worry about the switchover. When his new gun came in, he shot two rounds of skeet with it and won a tournament with it the very next day. Some people would surely credit the gun for his success. If you were to ask him, I’m sure he’d give you a much different answer. It would include things like working on his gun mount and the quality of his move on the target.
You mentioned that you shoot “fairly fast,” and that you are stuck at a plateau – B class. This would mean that you are shooting in the mid seventies. We see many people in this predicament. And except in the rarest of occasions, each and every one of them are shooting “fairly fast.” Our experience as professional coaches has taught us that shooters develop a fairly good move and mount but only one speed, and it ain’t never “too slow.” In fact, it’s not even “fairly fast.” For some reason, “Warp 5” comes to mind.
They fail to realize it’s their gun speed that’s creating the risk and inconsistency in their game. As long as the targets are close and fast, they are fairly consistent. But they rarely run many stations because their gun speed is so much faster than the target’s speed. With their muzzles waving around in front of their eyes like a paper bag in a tornado, it’s virtually impossible for anyone, regardless of their ability, to hold focus on the target. The last time we checked, the target is what you’re supposed to be focusing on.
All the research we’ve done on vision concludes that the eyes will always want to go to and focus on the fastest moving object in the scene they’re looking at. If the gun is moving and/or mounting faster than the bird is flying, visual confusion will occur and the result will be a missed target. After several expletives, the shooter realizes they don’t know what happened during the shot, much less why they didn’t hit the target.
Then it happens. Their buddies pour forth with their diagnosis of why the target was missed. One says you were over. Another says, “you were behind.” Another says, “you stopped your gun.” Another says, “you raised your head.” Another says, “how could you miss a target flying that slow?” Of course, everyone knows if you are ever lost in the woods, all you have to find out where you are is fire two shots into the air and there will be six or eight sporting clays shooters who’ll appear out of nowhere just to tell you where you are.
Albeit well intended, these kind of observations and comments rarely help, because for the most part they deal with the result of the miss – not the cause. The misplacement of the shot cloud is the result of the miss, not the cause.
The cause is one of three things:
1. Lack of focus on the target.
2. Lack of tempo – the gun’s speed is not the same as the target’s speed.
3. The gun was not mounted correctly to the face.
I know it sounds too simple, but it’s true. We find that those three things are the foundation for consistency. The one you are going to have to work on is tempo. You must begin moving and mounting your gun the same speed as the target you are shooting, whatever that speed is. Fast target, fast hands. Slow target, slow hands. Learn to mirror the speed and line of the targets. We know from experience that the targets will appear to slow down. You will be able to maintain focus on the leading edge of the target through the shot. You will become a smooth, more consistent shooter, shooting better and better scores.
