Well, by now you have handled your shotgun probably more than you are used to. You probably have gotten over the pain and sore shoulder caused by mismounting the gun, or just not being used to the recoil. Hope you have had some good days afield and that your gun mount is getting better.
We received a question from one of our readers, and although we have addressed the topic of the gun fit in the past, we thought it would be of interest to all of you.
“If you have laser focus on the front of the target, how can the barrel of the shotgun be out in front? In your 14 Tips DVD, your eyes were off to the side of the barrel. I always thought that if your shotgun fit you properly, that it would shoot at what you were looking at. Please advise.” – Bernard Galante
The phrase “shoot where you are looking” is in some ways misleading. In order for you to understand this concept, we must first be agreed that you do not aim a shotgun – you point it. It must be pointed ahead of the bird to hit it.
In order to know where to point the gun, you must know where the bird is. It is more important to know precisely where the bird is when you take the shot than where the barrel is. You are, after all, shooting a shotgun with a large pattern, as long as the muzzles are in front of the bird, you do have a chance to hit the bird. However, the more aware you are of where the muzzles are, the less aware you are of where the target is or what the target is doing with respect to speed and line.
I’m sure that Yogi Berra could put 100% of his focus on the target and the other 50% on the muzzles and hit the bird, but he is the only one I know of.
You have only a 100% of focus. For every percent you place on the gun, that percent is taken off the target. We find, for successful shotgunning, that the minimum amount of focus that must be on the target is 95%-97%. This creates a 3%-5% awareness of where the gun is without focusing on it. The other interesting thing that visually occurs is that your point of focus actually shifts away from the target as your awareness of the muzzles increase.
An easy way to illustrate this would be for you to place a salt and pepper shaker on a table 18 inches apart. Step back 8 to 10 feet away. Focus hard on the salt shaker. You will be aware that there is a pepper shaker to the side. You will know which side it is on and the direction of the line between the two while still focusing hard on the salt shaker.
While trying to maintain hard focus on the salt shaker, try to become more aware of the pepper shaker. How full is it? Is the pepper dark or light? You will find that as your awareness for detail shifts to the pepper shaker, your primary vision will also tend to go toward the pepper shaker.
The same thing occurs when shooting a shotgun and you check the lead. The more conscious awareness you have of the muzzles or the gap between the muzzles, the less visual input you have about the target line or the speed. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t look at two things at one time. If you try, you find your point of focus between them and not on either one.
Try it on the salt and pepper shakers. Look at the salt. Look at the pepper. Now look at both of them at the same time. Where is the point of focus? In the middle! Now gradually shift your point of focus from the middle to one or the other of the shakers. Do you see how as one of your awareness increases, your awareness of the other decreases?
These two objects are stationary. Imagine the confusion if they were both moving! With the target moving, the gun moving, and your focus bouncing back and forth between the two, it’s like a ping-pong ball in the bed of a pickup truck. How do you expect to hit anything consistently? Even with a shotgun.
This is why we say you must have 95%-97% of your focus on the target and have only a 3%-5% awareness of where the gun is. You focus on the target and point the muzzles where it is going. We were giving a seminar a few months ago and Vicki said, “Shotgunning is a simple game made difficult by people wanting to look at the barrel.”
You can achieve the proper ratio of target focus and barrel awareness, but there is one more piece to the puzzle. The gun must fit you in order for your point to be correct. Here is where the phrase “shoot where you are looking” comes to play.
Let’s assume that your buttstock was a little too high for your face and body shape. When you mounted your gun, your shooting eye was positioned about ½” high over the rib. This would make the gun shoot about 6”-10” high at 16 yards and about twice that high at 32 yards. When you shoot a crosser, for instance, the gun could be in the correct lead, but because the gun impacts high when you mount it, the correct lead would miss over top.
This problem could be solved by adjusting the fit of the buttstock such that your eye was not so high over the barrel. This would bring the impact point down on line with where you are looking.
How do you determine where or not your gun fits? By shooting at a stationary object like a pattern plate, with a dot on it. When doing this exercise, you must focus on the dot and mount the gun slowly to your face and pull the trigger – without aiming! Remember, you point a shotgun, you don’t aim it! Shoot about 10-15 shots, mounting each time you shoot.
The objective is not to see if you can hit the target. The objective is to see where the gun is pointing when you are focused on a point and mount the gun and shoot it.
If it does not impact around where you are looking, then some adjustment to the buttstock must be made so that the gun is regulated for you. Then the gun will shoot where you look.
Remember, you have neither the time nor the ability to aim a shotgun at a moving target!
Once the gun is regulated to “shoot where you look,” your point will be on line and the lead will begin to be more consistent and correct, if – and only if – you can consistently mount the gun to your face in the same place every time.
You never look down the barrel of a shotgun. As demonstrated in our 14 Tips DVD, your eyes are always off to one side or the other and focused on the target. The gun is pointed ahead of where the target is and the shot is taken.
This is why we consistently say you will never shoot better than the quality of your basic move and mount. Even if the gun fit is perfect, if you can’t mount the gun consistently, the gun will not be shooting where you are looking.
