How many of you would go hunting with a rifle without first shooting it at a target to make sure it shot where you were looking?
Each year around the last of October, we go to the rifle range at our home base at American Shooting Centers just to watch the people sighting in their guns. You can instantly tell the size of the group shot by each shooter by simply looking at what they do when they shoot. Those who are relaxed, smooth, and calm as they squeeze the trigger have very tight consistent groups and don’t have to shoot very much at the range. They have put in their time learning the fundamentals of rifle shooting and have practiced enough to become proficient at it.
Then some get into the most contorted possessions, are tense, and have a death grip on the gun. They look like they are bracing for a rear-end collision. Their muscles are so tight they can’t possibly squeeze the trigger, and they wonder why their targets look like someone shot them with buckshot at 30 yards. There is no rhyme or reason for the placement of the holes in the paper.
We have all been there. Everyone had to be a beginner sometime in their life. As we learned more about how to do something like shooting a rifle (or a shotgun for that matter) we begin to realize that form and technique yields consistency.
How do you sight in your shotgun you ask? Well, let’s talk about the rifle again.
If you had a rifle that would shoot a ½ inch group but the scope mounts were loose, what do you think the results would be? If you had a rifle with the scope set too far forward or back so that you could not get the proper field of view without adjusting your face on the stock, how well do you think you would shoot it?
When shooting a shotgun, the shooter’s eye is the scope, and how consistently the shooter mounts the gun to their face determines the consistency of the results. That’s right, we said face. The face is the anchor point for the mount, not the shoulder. You mount a rifle to your shoulder, put your head down on the stock and align the sites with the target.
When you mount a shotgun, you keep your eye on the target, smoothly mount the gun to your face and then your shoulder with the muzzles ahead of the bird and take the shot. If you mount the gun to your shoulder and then try to position your face properly on the stock, you will take your eye off the bird, look at the gun, and a miss will occur. You will never shoot better than the quality of your basic move and mount.
We spend easily half of our time working with people on learning and improving their gun mount. We have come up with a home practice that will improve your ability to consistently mount the gun. All you need is a Mini-Mag flashlight some scotch tape and an unloaded shotgun. The Mini-Mag that uses AA batteries will work for a 12-gauge gun and the one that uses AAA batteries will work for a 20 or 28-gauge gun. We are going to talk about and demonstrate the quartering move, and next time we will be demonstrating the more difficult crossing move.
Without exception, anyone who has done the OSP Flashlight Drill has improved their shooting percentage in the field hunting or on the sporting clays course without firing a shot. The quartering move is the one that you will use when shooting flushing birds like quail, pheasant, chucker, grouse, etc. These are birds that are going away from you and there is no swing at all. The move and mount is more of a push than a swing. If you are going hunting, start practicing this move at least two weeks before you are leaving. A month would be better, but let’s be realistic.
When you do the OSP Flashlight Drill 18 things happen to your shotgunning game, and they are all good. This exercise trains the hands to work together mounting the gun to your face while keeping the gun pointed at what you are looking at. This enables you to not have to think about mounting the gun so you can keep your focus on the bird. Much like a golf swing, it is designed to take out excessive movements that increase risk. You do, however, have to practice it – and it does work!
