Shooting Tips

Shooting Clays: Field Stocks vs. Target Stocks

Online Editors — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:35:43 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

As I mentioned previously, raising the comb of a field gun with moleskin or a slip-on comb pad makes it work better for clay target shooting--especially trap. The question arose in the comments to that post: Why should guns have different stock dimensions for clays or birds, seeing as how both are flying targets? Good question.

The gun in the picture is a Remington 1100 trap gun. I bought it (for $250. Score!) from a friend who used it as his duck gun for many years. It’s the gun I give to any kid who is having trouble hitting trap targets, especially kids who are struggling to hit trap targets with a field gun.

It has a stock that is straighter than a field stock but not aggressively high (1-3/8” at the comb, 1-3/4” at the heel). For most people, it shoots just high enough that you have to see the whole bird over the barrel to hit it. I believe it’s a lot easier to hit birds (whether clay or feathered) when you see them, rather than when you have to cover them with the barrel.

So, why aren’t all guns stocked this way?

I have no answers, only theories.

Here’s one: since so much of target shooting is done with a premounted gun, you have an opportunity to wriggle your cheek down onto the stock of, say, a trap gun. In the field, on the other hand, you throw the gun up hastily and rarely cheek it as firmly as you would on the target field. Therefore a field gun needs a lower comb to compensate for the fact that most people don’t have time to “get down” on it.

The man I bought the 1100 from was a serious sporting clays shooter. He has practiced his gun mounting enough that it was consistent, whether he was shooting ducks or clays with the 1100. For him, a gun with a target stock was perfect for hunting. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but it’s something to think about.

Shotgun Tip: Raise the Comb on Your Field Gun for Trap

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:43:50 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

I have posted this picture before but it gets a repost for good reason. It’s spring, and for many of you summer trap league is right around the corner. A lot of hunters shoot league trap with their field guns purely for fun and to hit more birds in the fall, and that’s great. However, you will shoot much higher scores (and get even better practice, as high scores beget confidence, and confidence makes good shooters) if you raise the comb of your stock a quarter-inch or so. A slightly elevated comb raises the gun’s point of impact, allowing you to see the target instead of having to cover it up with the barrel of your gun to hit it.

It’s simply easier to hit birds you can see.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to shoot good scores with a field gun. You can. I’ve done it, and seen it done a lot. But, it’s a difficult way to shoot clays, and what often happens is, eventually, the good shooter with a field gun starts to miss and doesn’t know why. Then he or she bears down, squishing their face even harder on the comb, which just makes the target even harder to see. A cycle of frustration, madness and despair follows.

Last night at practice I asked one of our shooters, who has been struggling, if he would let me use him for a guinea pig. I pulled the Beartooth products’ Comb Raising Kit onto his gun at the start of a round. He immediately broke his first 25 straight of the season. He’s a good shot. He had just been bearing down so hard he couldn’t see the targets.

Shotgun Tip: Staying In The Zone

Online Editors — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:50:27 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Talk to good shotgun shooters, and they will tell you they get “in the Zone” where targets look as big as trashcan lids and birds seem to fly in slow motion. I get in the Zone sometimes, but the difference between ordinary pretty good shots like me and really good shooters is that the champions can find the Zone regularly and stay in it. For me, being in the Zone is a fragile state.

I had cause to reflect on this these last few days as we filmed Gun Nuts, Season III. Having two camera men depending on me to hit targets helps me focus. It’s just the right amount of pressure and it often puts me in the Zone. In the picture here (actually taken last season) I am breaking a trap target with a camera on my gun. I broke 103x105 trap targets that day, about half with a camera on my gun blocking my view of the target. I was In the Zone.

This season, when the Wolf Creek Production guys cranked the cameras us I got right back into the Zone. I missed exactly one target before lunch the first day and we set up some stuff like a “grouse in the woods” shot that were pretty difficult. I crushed them all.

However, when I fall out of the Zone while we’re filming, I melt down completely. It happens two or three times each Gun Nuts season. That same afternoon we filmed a segment about sporting clays guns that required me to shoot a very easy double on a pair of looping targets. I broke enough of them for the segment – thankfully – but then I missed the closer, easier target, and that was it. My Zone evaporated. The target was 15 yards away and hanging in front of me. I missed it again and again. I would have had a better chance of hitting it if I threw shells at it. Shotgun shooting is a funny thing which is why I find it so interesting.

I am also grateful for the magic of editing. We will not be doing a “Gun Nuts Live” show if I have anything to say about it.

Trap Shooting Tip: Look at the Bottom Edge

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:45:22 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

I have given a lot of shooting advice to a lot of high school kids on our trap team in the past four years. If you threw out 99.9 percent of what I’ve told them, trap can be boiled down to two things: “Keep your head on the stock” and “focus on the bottom edge of the target.”

The former is obvious, since we have all been told forever that your eye is the rear sight of a shotgun. The latter, however, works wonders, and it surprises me every time it does. Looking at the bottom of the target should be wrong because trap targets are rising. But from what I have seen, far more targets are missed over the top than underneath. For whatever reason, people who don’t lock their eyes onto targets usually miss over the top.

The bottom edge of an outgoing target is distinct and easy to see. While I generally dislike the word “aim” in conjunction with shotgun shooting, the saying “aim small, miss small” applies here. If you look at a small part of a target (or the head of a gamebird) that’s what you will hit.

Last night at practice, one of our novices was mostly missing or chipping the few he hit. At first, I could see his barrel slowing as it got to the bird -- one sign the shooter is looking at the bead. I told him not to worry about hitting the target; just to look at it. He kept missing, but at least the barrel wasn’t stopping anymore, so I knew he was looking at the clay.

“What part of the target are you looking at?”

“The top,” he said.

“Try looking at the bottom,” I told him.

Then he started center-punching targets until I stopped handing him shells. Shooting a shotgun is easy when you look hard at the target.

A Brief Rant On Mounting Shotguns

Online Editors — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:59:55 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Last weekend I took a National Sporting Clays Association class for my Level I instructor certification. It was a wonderful experience, I learned a ton, and I’ll be writing a column about it in the magazine in the future.

However, since this blog space is supposed to contain “rantings and ravings” let me take the only complaint I have about the class and run with it. We did not learn to teach students how to shoot from a low-gun, unmounted start. Sporting Clays--once called “Hunter’s Clays”--used to be about hunting practice, just as skeet (another game that has abandoned the low-gun start) was. American sporting clays rules now allow a premounted gun as in trap and skeet. Unless you shoot international skeet or FITASC which do require a low-gun, there is no need to learn how to mount a shotgun.

Obviously if, like me, you shoot clay target games primarily as hunting practice, you can shoot with a low gun if you feel like it, and I do for skeet and sporting clays. The problem is, learning to mount a shotgun efficiently often takes teaching.

The first time I had a shooting lesson I had just turned 40 and had been hunting for a long time. The instructor watched me mount the gun, shook his head in a sad but kindly manner, and started me over from the ground up. He taught me how to move the muzzle to the target as I raised the gun to my face and shoot as the butt touched my shoulder. It’s a very efficient way to shoot birds, and I am grateful for that lesson, which made me a much better shot on game. My concern is that fewer and fewer people will receive such lessons if all the emphasis among shooting instructors is teaching sporting clays.

One of the best things about sporting clays has been that it has popularized shooting instruction, but now, because of the change in the rules of the game, those instructors no longer teach one of the most important skills of field shooting.

The Gun Nut Nation Survey 2012

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:42:59 -0400

Sound off, Gun Nuts. Tell us what you love about today’s rifles and shotguns. Tell us what you hate most about the perception of gun owners in the media. Tell us about your hopes and fears concerning a certain election this November. Tell us about what makes you a Gun Nut in the following survey—a collection of questions about the politics, economics, and state of Gun Nut Nation. The results will be published in the July 2012 issue of Field & Stream. Thank you for participating.

How to Fix Your Kid's Bad Shotgunning Habits

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:09:32 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

When you taught your son or daughter to shoot a shotgun, you meant well, but you probably taught some bad habits. That’s a harsh statement, but it’s the only conclusion I can draw after coaching high school trap for the past three years. Kids join our program as ninth graders, and most come to us with bad habits fully formed. They aim. They flinch. They lean back. They miss many birds and targets.

However, an ounce (but definitely not 11⁄8 ounce) of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have kids to start, here are five pitfalls to avoid. If you have already gotten off to a bad beginning, the sooner you undo the damage, the better.

Mistake #1: Starting Too Young
How It Shows: Kids who aren’t big enough to hold a shotgun yet bend backward to support its weight. Ingrained habits die hard: I have seen 6-foot-tall 17-year-old boys lean back and heave a gun to their shoulder as if it weighed 50 pounds.

The Right Way: It’s natural to want to get kids shooting as young as possible, but they should be at least 5 feet tall and 80 pounds, and/or over the age of 10. I started my sons at 11 and 12, and even then we took frequent breaks.

Have kids stand nearly square to the target, feet no more than shoulder width apart. Tell them to think “nose over toes” so they lean slightly forward with a little more than half their weight on their front foot. Leaning into the gun lets your body absorb recoil.

Mistake #2: Using a Gun That Hurts
How It Shows: Kids will snatch the gun down off their shoulder as soon as they pull the trigger to get the source of pain away from their face. Some will jerk their head up off the stock or even close both eyes.

The Right Way: Both 870 Express and Mossberg 500 youth models are good, kid-size first guns, but they are very light and deliver a sharp rap of recoil with standard loads. Either reload some 3⁄4-ounce practice ammo or buy Winchester Winlite or Fiocchi’s mild 1045-fps, 3⁄4-ounce Trainer loads for your young shooter.

You have to watch kids carefully for signs of recoil fatigue because some won’t admit the gun hurts. When your kids outgrow their youth gun, buy nothing heavier than 1180-fps target loads for 12-gauge practice.

Mistake #3: Shooting From the Wrong Side
How It Shows: Shooting with one eye shut, or cocking the head at an angle over the stock to use the off-side eye, is a sign that a shooter is right-handed and left-eyed, or vice versa.

The Right Way: Teach kids to shoot from the dominant side from the start. Give them an eye dominance test. Watch carefully and test both eyes; some kids will cheat. A rare few are truly center--dominant or “both-eyed.” They will need a spot of tape over the eye on the off side of their glasses to block that eye’s view of the barrel. Everyone else should shoot from the dominant-eye side. Period. My left-eyed right-handed older son has never fired a gun off his right shoulder in his life and he does very well in the field. I’ve made kids who already have shot from the wrong side switch to the correct one, and they pick it up surprisingly quickly.

Mistake #4: Aiming a Shotgun Like a Rifle
How It Shows: Kids “ride” targets trying to see a perfect bead-target alignment. They shoot too late because they stopped the gun to check the lead.

The Right Way: Start kids with shotguns before they shoot rifles. It is much easier, I believe, for a shotgunner to learn to aim a rifle than it is for a rifle shooter to learn not to aim a shotgun. Stress shooting with both eyes open, and pulling the trigger the instant the shooter is on target. Since it’s possible to aim at straightaway targets with fair success, include crossers and incomers in your practice sessions.

Mistake #5: Mounting to the Shoulder First
How It Shows: A kid shoulders the gun, squishes his or her head down onto the stock, then looks for the target. Bad gun mounts are the result of practicing only with a premounted gun.

The Right Way: Let kids take their first few shots with a mounted gun, but make learning to start from a gun-down position a goal of your training sessions. The gun mount should be the swing: The muzzle moves to the target as the stock comes up, and you trigger the shot as soon as the butt meets your shoulder.

On days you don’t shoot, have them practice 10 to 15 gun mounts with an unloaded gun under your supervision, pushing the muzzle to the target as they raise the comb to their face. They may not get straight A’s at school, but if they do their shotgunning homework, they will learn to shoot straight, which is almost as important.

A Call for Shotgun Questions

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:04:19 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Season III of “The Gun Nuts” is in production. As you can see from the video, on one episode our intrepid traveling host/reporter Eddie Nickens goes deep inside the Remington factory to learn its innermost secrets. Can Eddie hit the 200 yard target without glancing a few shots off the tunnel walls? Tune in to find out. It is going to be a fun season.

We will be introducing some new segments and bringing back some favorites, including reader questions. Once again I need you to send me your shotgun questions.

Those readers whose questions I answer on the air will again receive the extremely spiffy and hard to come by Gun Nuts hats Eddie, Dave and I wear on the show. Winning questions will be those that:

a.) I know the answer to
b.) Make for good TV

Let’s have them, and thanks in advance for helping out with Season III.

Shotgun Tip: What to Look at When You Lead a Target

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:43:41 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

My video post about how to shoot crossing targets provoked confusion, discussion and disagreement on the subject of exactly what you look at when you lead a target. Do you look at the target while the gun moves in front of it, or do you look down the rib somewhere in front of the target?

Both methods have their proponents.

Some believe you have to be looking down the rib the correct distance in front of the bird when you lead a target because the only place a properly mounted gun will shoot is where you are looking. Nash Buckingham, famous outdoor writer and equally famous long range shot, said that when he shot a crossing duck he imagined an invisible moving spot in front of it and shot at that. That’s as concise a definition of the “look in front” theory as you’ll hear.

The other method is to keep a tight focus on the target and let the gun barrel move in front of it, although the gun itself stays on your face. Gil and and Vicki Ash of the OSP school and others teach this style. Your eyes stay glued on the bird’s beak or the target’s front edge and the muzzle goes ahead of the target as a blur in your peripheral vision.

I used to lead targets by shooting at the imaginary spot. For me, it didn’t work well. I have found that harder focus on the target is the solution to 90% of my shotgunning problems. Also, I spend very little time looking down the rib during a shot. My eye is on the target and the muzzle is moving past it as I bring the stock to my face. I’m pulling the trigger as the stock touches my shoulder.

But, that’s what works for me. Your mileage, like Mr. Buck’s, may vary.

Shotgun Tip: The Right Way to Take a Crossing Shot

Online Editors — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:33:02 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

The video shows the right and wrong way to take crossing shots. Mounting the gun ahead of the bird and pulling the trigger immediately is the easiest, best way to shoot crossers. When shots are as close as these brant are to the blinds all you have to do is look at the beak and shoot.

Riding the bird, that is, swinging with it to make sure, is the best way to miss a crosser. Once you’re on target, shoot. Your chances don’t get any better if you try to refine your lead, they get worse. Your eyes drift back to the gun to check your lead and the gun slows or stops altogether.

The segment with the shooter missing shows that what happens when you ride a target, and it also shows a very common occurrence: you miss by being too careful, then think “oh no, it’s getting away” move the gun as you should have in the first place and make the shot. I’ve done it a million times, and you probably have, too.