Dear Technoid,

I have developed a bad habit of stoping my gun on crossing targets. Can you give me any drills to practice or any help to cure my bad habit ?.

Thanks,
Mike

Dear Mike,

Sure can. At least this has helped a lot of people.

Go the to skeet field. Shoot station two low houses. Start your gun muzzle half way between the low house and the center stake with the butt down. When the bird comes out, stick that muzzle right on the bird, but do NOT raise the butt to the face. Follow the bird with the muzzle right on it all the way to the center stake, with the butt down all the time. At the center stake, raise the gun to your face as you accelerate ahead and shoot the bird the moment the stock touches your face. Practice the same shot on high house station six.

This method cures the two most common causes of stopping the swing- inadequate gunspeed to begin with and too long a time spent “riding” the bird with the gun on the face.

The first couple of times that you do this drill, I recommend that you do it with snap caps, not live shells. That will give you an even clearer picture of what you are doing. I am always amazed that more people don’t practice on targets using snap caps. We used that type of training all the time in International Skeet and found it very helpful. When a gun is going off in your face, you do a whole bunch of things that you may not be aware of. “Shooting” a few targets with snap caps before using live rounds can be tremendously valuable.

This Move, Mount, Shoot approach isn’t the best way to address every possible target, but it does work well for long crossers and shots that are quartering in if you are trying to stop riding targets.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Report’s Technoid