If one is that easily distracted from their target maybe they shouldn’t be handling firearms. Some of the best competition shooters in the world use them or even go to the extreme of chalking the vent rib for better barrel awareness. Tests have been done with folks shooting clays at night and scores went down until better sights and/or barrel chalking was used.
No one should be looking at the bead when wing shooting but every good wing shooter is subconsciously barrel aware. I have shot with some very good shooters and each of them are aware of what happened if they miss. They are very aware where there barrel is pointing even though their concentration may be focused on the flight and behaviour of the target. Anyone that believes they can feel exactly where their shotgun is pointing without peripheral vision should try shooting from a comepletely dark area or blind folded for that matter.
I am absolutely baffled how someone would need fibre optic sights to hit a stationary target when they can whack a baseball sized target whipping by at 40 or 50 miles an hour with no barrel reference.
I personally love fibre optic sights especially as my sight has diminished over the years. It allows me to insure a clean mount through my peripheral vision without losing focus on my target. It is especially helpful when changing from my upland guns that fit ever so slightly different than my waterfowl guns or when extra layers of warm clothing alter length of pull a bit. I am not aiming or using the bead as a sight. My duck gun is a Maxus and I can shoot it with a heavy Mustang Floater jacket on in the early mornings and equally well with a shirt on in the afternoon. I can pick up the green fibre optic without a second thought and just concentrate on shooting.
In a perfect world we would all shoot a few thousand clays a year and be able to mount a shotgun quickly and consistently. We would use a perfectly fitted custom shotgun and each of our shotguns would fit indentical to the other if we own more than one. We would not have to wear winter coats/extra layers when hunting ducks and light shirts and vests when upland hunting. In reality, the vast majority of hunters do not practice nearly enough to mount a gun consistently under ideal circumstances let allow the scenarios that a wing shooter faces in the field. They have the shotgun they purchased off the shelf as recommended by a buddy or may even borrow a shotgun for the one or two times they venture out for a goose shoot or duck hunt.
A good sight IMO allows people to concentrate more on the target not less. Most all modern shotguns come with because many people like them including some of the best shooters in the world. To suggest, which seems to be the cool thing to do, that beads are a useless accessory on a shotgun is absurd. Vent rib shotguns with fibre optics are 1000 times more popular than a plain barrel and I think it goes without saying that a plain barrel shotgun with no bead whatsoever would sit on store shelves forever.
