14 tips to better sporting clays - Shotgunner

Guns Magazine, Feb, 2004 by Holt Bodinson

Next to attending a shooting school where a little hands-on coaching can eliminate your faults and help you refine your shooting, nothing else comes close to the benefits of modern instructional videos. The field of shotgun videos is pretty crowded these days. There are some excellent ones, some average ones, and some in which the content is so poorly organized and presented that they're simply not worth watching.

Instructors Gil and Vicki Ash, of the Optimum Shotgun Performance Shooting School have just released a video that is worth its $49.95 price and your viewing time. Entitled, Sporting Clays: 14 Tips to Better Shotgunning, it's a refreshingly upbeat, irreverent and entertaining treatment of some of the most common problems associated with shotgunning in general and sporting clays in particular.

Here are just a few of the points made in the video that I found interesting.

"Missing is not an issue of leads but of the poor application of basic fundamentals." From that one statement, the Ash's lead into a discussion and demonstration of barrel awareness, focus, leads, stance-balance-and-grip, gun fit, follow through, grip pressure, problem targets, eye position and shooting glasses. If it's all beginning to sound a little dry by this time, believe me, it's not.

Take the issue of moving and mounting your gun. The Ash's have you practice quartering and crossing shots at home. All it takes is a Mini Maglite inserted in the upper barrel of your O/U twelve gauge.

Positioning yourself in a slightly darkened room, you practice quartering shots by focusing the light at an upper corner of the room with a lowered gun and then mount the gun while keeping the light transfixed at the corner. If your mount is smooth and proper, the light will not waver from the corner. If it does, the Ash's explain what you need to correct.

For practicing a right or left crossing shot, you begin with a lowered gun with the light aimed at a corner. Then swinging your gun along the line formed by the joint of the ceiling and the wall, you mount and imagine firing your gun at a predetermined break point along that line. If executed properly, the light beam will never waver from the joint line as you swing and mount.

Try it.

"The cheek is the anchor point of the mount." In their discussion of this point in the context of gun fit, the Ash's observe that when you gain or loose weight, your face, and particularly your cheek, is the first part of the body affected. In short, swings in body weight can very well affect gun fit.

One of the most interesting segments of the video is a discussion and demonstration of the three common methods of taking leads in shotgunning and the probability of missing with each when shooting a sporting clays course. The swing through, pull through and maintained lead methods are analyzed in depth. The conclusion is that the maintained lead for sporting clays work is the most efficient. It minimizes barrel movement and excessive follow through, thereby permitting the shooter to immediately track to a second target. Moreover, because the gun and the target are in sync and moving at the same speed, the speed of the target appears slower to the shooter.

This is a well done video. There is something in it of value for every shotgunner.

A Good Day For Ducks

It's been nigh impossible to find a hunting story book for children.

No longer!

Ducks Unlimited has just published a terrific children's book that tells the story of a young boy's first hunting experience. It is also the story of why we hunt, how we hunt, and why we are the world's leading conservationists.

A Good Day For Ducks is a delightful story about a grandfather taking his suburban-raised grandson to his duck camp for a late season hunt. During the experience, the young man learns about wildlife, retrievers, decoys, calls, shotguns, habitat conservation, natural history, weather and the overall lore of the hunt.

This is a true children's book. Two-thirds of each page is devoted to a beautiful story illustration. The type is large. The words are simple. It can be read by a child or read to a child because of its story perfect pictures.

The packaging of this unique 32 page, hardcover book is in itself unique. It can be purchased alone for $16.95 or packaged with a real duck call for $21.90.

Buy this book for your children or grandchildren. Don't pass it up.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

OSP Shooting School Videos

[800] 838-7533

www.ospschool.com

Ducks Unlimited

[800] 45-DUCKS

www.ducks.org/bookstore/