Trying to “Not See the Gun”

In our travels, we come across many shooters that are stuck at certain score plateaus. While they realize they are stuck, they don’t know how to go about getting “unstuck.” 

The most common reason shooters get stuck at certain score plateaus is that their vision has not evolved to the next level. In the beginning, shooting a moving target with a shotgun sounds straightforward. But our research shows that nothing could be farther from the truth. 

We are understanding now that your vision or what you perceive when shooting a moving target with a shotgun evolves with the actual amount of shooting you do and your attention to detail as you practice. One of the main things that lead to the confusion is that you can’t actually “see” the shot as it happens. All you can really see is the result: either a broken target or a whole target flying off into the sky. You can’t actually see the shot go down range and hit or miss the target. 

While there is an abundance of advice from onlookers or teammates or friends about where you missed the target (and sometimes even a guess about why), it remains a mystery, especially in the beginning.

In the beginning, regardless of your vision or dominance (right, left, center, or some combination thereof), there is a considerable amount of visual confusion. This is because we must focus on the target at distance and have some awareness of the muzzle, which is close to our face. There is considerable distance between the two, which leads to a varying amount of focus or visual attention on one or the other or both! What this looks like is up to a person’s perception, which can be molded by the words and reactions of fellow shooters, coaches, and friends. The reality of it is never in doubt but rarely based on anything scientific.

The core purpose of our visual system is to predict what is coming next. Along with the other senses, vision provides information to the central nervous system that allows for a prediction of what is coming next. 

There are two different reactions in our visual processing system: simple reactions and complex reactions. A simple reaction would be a stop-go or red light/green light decision. When understood, this is a very simple obvious decision, which is the way most shooters begin their journey with a shotgun. 

The complex reaction occurs when you react to only one stimulus when it comes on while ignoring all other stimuli in the scene. When shooting a moving target with a shotgun, in the beginning, it’s very confusing because to be successful the brain must understand what stimulus to react to (the target) and which stimulus to ignore (the background and the muzzle). That is very confusing to many shooters, regardless of experience. 

A beginner will begin looking down the barrel and at the bird at the same time. This is really confusing (at best) because their focus is bouncing back and forth from the bird to the barrel and back to the bird again. This causes the muzzle to move much like the second hand on a quartz watch starting and stopping as the focus shifts from the target to the muzzle and back again and again. 

Once the shooter understands what the sight picture looks like, the confusion begins to subside and the reaction to the target begins to seem not as complex as in the beginning. Here’s where the enjoyment begins. The biggest hurdle we see shooters struggle with is just how much muzzle awareness they can get by with and still have enough focus on the target to consistently hit it. 

We will share with you that this varies, along with the perception of that awareness, based on how many targets are shot and what kind of practice drills the shooter does when away from the range. It also varies with the perceived difficulty of the target about to be shot. The greater the perceived difficulty, the more muzzle awareness there will be. And the less perceived difficulty, the less muzzle awareness there will be. 

This varying amount of muzzle awareness is the thing that keeps most shooters stuck at different plateaus. And at the same time, it is the very thing that allows shooters to excel past the plateau. 

“What it really looks like” is a big mystery. There are actually shooters who, for whatever reason, are trying to not see the muzzle at all during the shot. We find this difficult (at best) for this one simple reason: the eyes don’t see, the brain sees. What we see when shooting a moving target with a shotgun is a perception, because it occurs in the periphery. And what you are aware of in the periphery is as much as 300 milliseconds behind real-time. 

The brain cannot do anything unless it first has a picture of what it is trying to do. And the better you get, the more you know exactly what you are about to ask your brain to do with the visual data input. 

So, tell us: how do you visualize not seeing something (especially the barrel) when it is big and black and right in front of your face? How do you run a detailed visual program of what it is going to look like when you take the shot without including the barrel?