Sticky Guns

 

My gun will occasionally get hung up on my shirt. Every so often, it causes me to miss a target in competition. What can I do?

 

If you tend to stand upright or lean back a bit when you mount your shotgun, try a stance that’s a little more “nose-over-toes.” You want 60% of your weight on the front foot with your nose out over your toes. If you are in the proper stance, the issue is likely your attire or your buttpad. A vest with a leather or imitation leather shoulder pad will often eliminate this issue. There are plenty of options for these types of shooting vests.

If you don’t like wearing a vest, I recommend wearing a synthetic, moisture-wicking shirt. Cotton shirts tend to get caught up on the heel of the pad when mounting.

If you have a proper stance and mount, and the right attire, the issue may be your buttpad. The most commonly used buttpads tend to be made of very sticky rubber. For well under $200, you can have your buttpad replaced with one that is less likely to snag when you mount. My personal favorite is the Pachmayr Decelerator sporting clays pad, which comes in two different thicknesses. This pad is a patented design, with a barely noticeable plastic insert molded into the heel of the pad.

If you are having snagging issues and don’t want to send your gun off until the off-season, there is a field-expedient solution I often use with my students. Cover the top third of the pad with four or five strips of electrical tape, placing them horizontally, making sure that the strips are long enough to extend onto the sides of the pad but not so long that they touch the wood. Then make two or three wraps around the outside of the pad with the tape to secure the ends of the horizontal strips to the sides of the pad. When you cut the tape, make sure the end is on the outside of the stock, away from your chest.

 

Torquing

 

I notice that I tend to twist my gun when I mount so that the bottom barrel is slightly to the right of my top barrel. Is that a bad thing? If so, what causes it and how can I fix it?

 

Twisting of your shotgun, or “torquing,” is usually caused by either your mount mechanics or a gun fit issue. How significantly it affects your point of impact depends on how severe the torquing is.

Let’s assume that you are mounting the gun properly and the issue is gun-fit related. Over the years, with a bit of trial and error, I’ve narrowed this problem down to one or more of the following three causes:

1) The shooter’s hand is too small for the grip. Grip length is the distance between the front face of the trigger and the front edge of the pistol grip. If this is too large, the shooter will tend to choke up on the stock, pull up instead of back on the trigger, and twist the grip away from his body. The best solution is a custom stock or an off-the-shelf shotgun with a smaller grip length. For ladies, Beretta, Syren and Zoli make good off-the-shelf options. For men, Caesar Guerini and Zoli have good options.

2) The bottom of the grip is too narrow for the shooter. This often occurs with a shooter who has a large hand and needs a larger palm swell. The solution here is either a custom stock or to wear a glove with padding on the inside of the hand, near the heel (hypothenar eminence). This forces the bottom of the pistol grip into a more upright position.

3) The gun has insufficient cast at toe or “toe out.” The toe is the lowest point on the butt, where the butt pad rests against the pectoral muscle or breast. Ladies and large chested men (body builders) typically need more toe out.

In some instances, the cause of torquing may be a combination of two or more of the above. It takes a bit of experimentation to figure out which of these issues, or combination thereof, is the cause of the torquing.

 

Measuring Crossers

 

I keep fighting the temptation to look in front of a slow-moving crosser rather than looking at the target. Most times, I check the lead and miss. What can I do to reprogram my mind?

 

There are a couple of possible answers. You might simply need more practice to develop the confidence required to maintain focus and visual follow-through on crossing targets. It could also be that the technique you are using (sustained lead) is not the best fit for you on this particular presentation. While there is nothing wrong with sustained lead as a technique (I use it often), some shooters are more comfortable and proficient with pull-away on flat-trajectory crossing targets. The technique appropriate for you will largely depend on how your eyes, optic nerve, brain and nervous system receive, process and react to visual imagery.

Based on what you’ve shared, I’d like you to try the pull-away technique. For many shooters who have a tendency to measure on crossers, the pull-away method tends to work better than sustained lead. Establish your hold point about two-thirds of the way back from your break point toward the trap. Your eyes should be soft-focused, out to distance, about halfway between your muzzle and the trap machine. As the target emerges from the trap, insert your muzzle to the front edge of the target momentarily, then smoothly separate from the target (accelerating away from the target along the target line) as you execute the shot decisively.

A few cautionary notes. 1) Get a good start from your ready position and avoid letting the target get in front of your barrel at any point during your move. 2) As you touch the leading edge of the target with your muzzle, your gun speed should very briefly match the speed of the target, before accelerating though shot execution. 3) Your eyes must remain on the leading edge of the target from the time it emerges from the trap all the way through your separation from the target and shot execution. 4) Because some crossing targets have a long flight time, ensure that you preserve your acute focus for the final second prior to shot execution.

 

New Barrels

 

I am swapping my K-80 barrels for a set of Parcours barrels and should have them in the next couple of weeks. I tried shooting my friend’s Parcours and was quite impressed. I would appreciate your insight/opinion on how my current K-80 will handle with a 34-inch Parcours barrels. 

 

Many Krieghoff shooters like the lighter weight of the Parcours barrels as compared to the K-80 barrels. That said, there are two potential issues you might run up against when you swap your K-80 barrels for the Parcours barrels (I consulted with Kemble duPont of duPont/Krieghoff to ensure my guidance is correct).  

With the lighter-weight Parcours barrels, you will likely find that the balance point of your shotgun has shifted farther back toward the trigger and that the front of the gun is a bit quicker to the target. If this is an issue, you can either have a stock-maker lighten up the back of the gun by removing some wood from the buttstock, or add some weight to the barrel set. This should move your balance point closer to the hinge pin. Adding weight to the barrels, however, will add to the total weight of the shotgun, which somewhat defeats the purpose of the lighter barrels. Most shooters like the balance point somewhere between the front and back of the hinge pin. Another way to resolve this balance issue is to inquire about the new Parcours-X barrels recently introduced by Krieghoff. The Parcours-X barrels are slightly heavier and can help mitigate the “whippiness” and balance issue.

The other potential issue you may run into is the sight plane. The rib on the Parcours barrels is slightly lower than that of the K-80 flat rib and stepped rib. This might cause the gun to shoot higher. If you have an adjustable comb, and you can adjust it downward, which would resolve this issue. If you have a fixed comb or an adjustable comb that is already flat against the stock, you can either shave some wood off the comb or opt for a new buttstock with more drop. Other options include raising the height of your rib with an aftermarket product or simply training your brain to float the targets a bit more.

 

Different Strokes

 

I am a fairly new sporting clays shooter. I hear people talk about different techniques for breaking targets. Why do I need to use different techniques?

 

Sporting clays and other clay target sports evolved from bird hunting. Most live birds are engaged in mid-flight. In the early years of sporting clays, the trajectories and behavior of airborne clay targets were designed to mimic that of birds in flight. Arguably, a bird hunter needs only one or two “moves” or techniques to down most birds in flight. As our sport has evolved, so has throwing machine technology and the sophistication of target setters. Targets that curl, curve and transition have become common.

A target thrown from a machine is decreasing in velocity from the moment it leaves the trap, while live birds are either maintaining or increasing in speed as they are engaged. These factors create the need for techniques that differ from swing-though, pull-away and maintained lead. That is not to say that these three techniques are obsolete. On the contrary, these remain our most effective strokes for engaging many types of targets, whether clay or bird.

But consider a crossing target that is thrown from a trap with very light spring, located to the right side of your shooting stand at a distance of about 35 yards. This target starts to transition from the moment it separates from the trap arm and, at the break point, is falling off its line and decreasing in speed. On this type of target, I like to use a hold point closer to the break point with a lower muzzle angle, allowing the target to close the gap between the muzzle and the target. I call this a “cut-off and collapse.” Some also refer to this technique as an “intercept.”

Yep, this subject is further confused by different shooters and instructors using different terms for the same technique. For target presentations that prove challenging for you, be open to discovering and perfecting different techniques. Remember, the best technique for you is the one that breaks the target.