MARCH 1995

THE TECHNOID LEADS YOU ON....[It is always a little off-putting
to have just finished writing a RELOAD! column and then find that the
same topic is currently being addressed in one of the national magazines.
Oh, to have arrived at your mailbox a week before they did! The March
issue of Shotgun Sports contains an article (and a pretty good one too)
about the different lead techniques used in short window situations. It
might be interesting to contrast and compare.]

"How much lead do I give this one?" "Oh, about four feet will
do it." So goes a pretty standard clay target conversation. It is simply
amazing that this well meaning advice ever works, but occasionally it
does.

Did you know that the lead on all skeet stations, except station 8,
is exactly the same IF all birds are broken at the center stake? Since
each bird is broken 21 yards away, there is no change in the distance the
target travels during the time of shot flight. Obviously, you see different
leads on the various skeet stations, but mechanically the leads really are
the same.

Since lead is more a question of perception than reality, how
much you lead a target depends on how you lead it. There are FOUR
main methods of lead: Spot Shooting, Swing Through, Pull Away and
Sustained Lead. They all work, but they work differently. There is no
one method of leading that is best for every angle and distance. A good
shooter knows and uses all four techniques. Here is the Technoid's
menu of lead methods and the situations in which to use them:

SPOT SHOOTING: This much maligned method is often
unintentionally used by beginners, but it is a useful tool for the
accomplished shot. Spot Shooting is simply shooting at your target with
a "dead" gun, the way that you would shoot a rifle at a paper target.
Spot Shooting might be used where the bird is going straight away in a
predictable manner. A sporting shot mimicking skeet's Low Seven or
the first bird of trap doubles would be a typical example. You simply
point your gun at the spot where you know the bird will go, wait until
the target arrives, and fire. The gun does not move at all. The right
lead is seen only for an instant and requires perfect timing.

Spot Shooting can apply in special situations. One particular
sporting clays match included a fast right to left crosser with an absurdly
small window about six feet in width. The gun could not be swung with
the bird in such a short space and many considered the shot impossible.
One clever shooter neatly solved the problem. She set her gun up on the
left side of the opening and spot shot with a dead gun the moment the
bird emerged on the right side. She had good timing and killed a high
percentage of the birds.

SWING THROUGH: Here the muzzle starts behind the bird and
swings through it and ahead until the trigger is pulled. It all happens in
one fluid motion. This is probably the most instinctive method of
leading and certainly accounts for more upland game birds than any
other approach. It is ideal for targets which get the jump on the shooter.
Swing Through, also called "come from behind", is virtually the only
method available to the skeet shooter when taking the second bird on
center station doubles. In sporting clays the Swing Through approach is
most popular on birds out to medium distance. A major advantage of
this technique is that it does a great deal to prevent inadvertent stopping
of the swing, the bane of many shooters.

The disadvantage of Swing Through is that it offers a relatively
short dwell time or "sweet moment" in which to fire. Since the gun
starts behind the target and swings in front of it, the muzzle must be
moving quite a bit faster than the bird. This ensures that the lead will be
correct for only the briefest moment, longer than Spot Shooting with a
dead gun, but short nonetheless. If the muzzle can be started close
behind the bird, rather than far behind it, the swing through the target
can be slower and the "sweet moment" of correct lead will be a bit
longer.

PULL AWAY: The British Clay Pigeon Shooting Association
promotes this form of lead as the best general purpose method. They
may just be right. Pull Away might be seen as the front half of the
Sustained Lead method. In Pull Away, the shooter starts with his
muzzle right on the moving target. By holding the muzzle on the bird
for a moment, the shooter automatically builds the target speed into his
swing. Then he slowly accelerates his muzzle ahead of the bird and fires
when he sees the lead. This method has two big advantages: There is a
longer "sweet moment" because the gun is moving quite slowly in
relation to the bird at the moment of the shot. As the gun is always
accelerating away from the target, the tendency to stop the gun is
reduced. The Pull Away method is great for sporting clays. It has the
advantage of working well on targets at an unknown distance.

SUSTAINED LEAD: This is the lead system most of the pros
use. In Sustained Lead one inserts the muzzle in front of the bird at the
correct lead distance, maintains that lead for a heart beat to make sure
that it is correct, and fires. This system has a major advantage: The
muzzle speed and target speed are exactly matched resulting in the
longest possible "sweet moment". The advantage is offset by two major
disadvantages. The shooter must know the exact lead. Also, this
technique makes it very easy to stop the swing.

Sustained Lead is probably the most popular method of shooting
long crossers. The accomplished sporting clays shooter will use Sustained Lead in even
more situations because he knows what the leads are. If a shooter is less
certain of the lead, Swing Through or Pull Away are better choices.

Trust the Technoid, whichever method of lead you prefer, and
make sure that you are familiar with all four approaches. No one
method works best for everything.

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