Reasons for shooting high?

MrNg

MrNg

Regular
EE Expired
Rating - 100%
5   0   0
Location
Vancouver, BC
Today while shooting my grizzly for the first time I noticed all of my shoots were going high.

This is what my target of Remington Managed Recoil 00 buck looked like. Shot at 17 yards with bead sight.

p1030702d.jpg


On this target I took two shots. If you look at the top where the letters are you can see another group. This is my first shot with the bead at the center. The second shot you can see scattered upward in the white. I aimed a bit lower. Subsequent shots were fired aiming about midway from the bottom and they would pattern around the center.

Can anyone give some insight on why this is happening? I am a relatively new shooter of shotguns. My other shotgun is a wingmaster with a 20ish inch barrel. The recoil is a lot lighter and my shots were going exactly where I pointed it.
 
All barrels are a little different. And they all shoot various loads a little different. Change loads and you could be low, left, right or dead on.

In this case - you could always raise the bead a little. A quick way to do that is to buy one of those clamp-on fibre optic beads. Give you a little more height to the bead, drops the nose a tad. Might put you back on target.

Otherwise - just aim a hair low :) It's a bead -not an adjustable ramp sight or anything, you're going to have to use a little 'kentucky windage'.
 
I did end up aiming lower for the rest of the day but I would much prefer to change the gun than to remember to aim low with this particular gun.

I think I will investigate these fiber optic beads. I'm looking for some sort of tritium bead to give me low-light capabilities. I really don't have any use for ghost rings with this gun, then again, ghost rings could give me adjustability.
 
My Winchester mdl 1300 does the exact same thing with the very same loads and with rifled slugs. I'm going to replace my front bead with a raised fibre optic front sight.
 
You might already know but make sure you are getting the proper sight picture, which means that only the front bead shows above the receiver. If you see any of the barrel in your sight picture you will shoot high, it is a really common error.

I tried to show below what I mean.

Correct:
___0___ (Bead right on top of receiver)
 
The reason is simple. Your bead is mounted directly on the barrel, thus you hold the muzzle high to be able to see it. As a test, shoot at one target with the bead on the center of the target, then on another target put the bead on the center of the target then lower the muzzle until the bead is just out of sight, I bet you get a center hit.

The solution is to get a pedestal mounted under the bead to make up for the height of the receiver.
 
Hmmm --- your pattern centre looks to be about 4" high from centre. Could it be a simple case of ballistics? If a shotgun might be expectes to shoot (centre pattern) at 30-35yds with a pellet charge on a patterning board, then could we not assume that the trajectory might naturally somewhat high at 17 yds? -- This may also transulate into a similar looping trajectory with slugs due to larger mass and weight and in the case of both shot & slug be more exaggerated than a center fire rifle Projectile? Just a couple of questions to ponder.
 
That's a good guess Grouser, but some rudimentary calculations indicate that if it is four inches high at 17yds, it will be 9" high at 30yds, 15" high at 50... in fact, the buckshot will still be rising at 100 yards.

Due to the shortness of the barrel, it will be impossible to properly use the bead, as doing so will raise the barrel approximately 0.62 degrees which is about 37 MOA. The only solution is to raise the bead somehow or learn to "instinctively" shoot... I suggest the raised bead. :)

The good news is that you don't need to raise it very much. One of the clip-on fibre-optic beads available from TruGlo or HiViz ought to do the trick.
 
If it's not ballistics then I would presume that it's a barrel regulation problem. It may be that it's a matter of fit and if the gun is worth the bother you might want to consider having an adjustable comb installed --- this would allow adjust the head position so that you are looking flatly down the barrel and not loseing sight of the bead or seeing too much barrel/rib.
cheers/luck
 
Try shooting farther out and see if your placement comes down.

For example.. Slugs at 25, aiming at the base of the target with the bead, shots landed in the center. I'm guessing it would be smack on at 50.
 
Last edited:
The previous owner of the shotgun told me that he had been using it to hit the gong at 25 and 50 yards and had no problems. I suspect it's a training issue on my part.
 
Length of pull is also a possibility. Too short a lop will make you shoot high regardless of sight picture. I also disagree with the statement about not seeing anything but bead above the receiver for proper sight picture. These are shotguns not rifles and most but not all are designed to be pointed not aimed like a rifle.
 
Ike said:
You might already know but make sure you are getting the proper sight picture, which means that only the front bead shows above the receiver. If you see any of the barrel in your sight picture you will shoot high, it is a really common error.

I tried to show below what I mean.

Correct:
___0___ (Bead right on top of receiver)
Click to expand...

I would also think this is the problem, not seeing the right site plane. It sounds like you're seeing too much rib/barrel. You also might not care for the recoil, and consequently, have your head a little too high.
Ike and Dutchhunter are on the right track.
 
i dont know how much shooting experience you have.. but a common thing i see with new shooters is that they shoulder their shotgun, then bring their cheek down to the stock... try bringing the stock higher to the cheek by raising your shoulder..

like HOGIRON said.. this would cause you to see too much rib and shoot high.
 
I think I found out why I was shooting high.
sightpicture.png

While doing some dry firing I noticed my sight picture was like this. The image is a gross exaggeration but my sight picture looks like the image to the right. The lines are the straight lines on the receiver (not sure what the term is).

If I look straight down the receiver I cannot see the bead. Compared to the wingmaster, looking straight down the receiver I am able to see the bead.

If this is the reason for shooting high, it would appear that you guys are right that the bead is too low.
 
Actually it means that your hold is too high, like posted above you need to align the sights (cheek weld) and then shoulder the gun after. If you see the receiver top or the barrel that means the stock is too low on your shoulder and the gun is pointing high. Practice will aleviate this, it is very common.

As for the bead sighted shotgun not being accurate, the simple receiver/bead rudimentary sight system is more accurate than most people give it credit for. The standard bead is plenty accurate to hit accurately at way further than 50m with slugs. I can't remember offhand how far I have hit consistently accurate with a bead but it is closing on 100m, and sporadically at 378yd with slugs.
Cheers
 
Last edited:
Ike said:
Actually it means that your hold is too high, like posted above you need to align the sights (cheek weld) and then shoulder the gun after. If you see the receiver top or the barrel that means the stock is too low on your shoulder and the gun is pointing high. Practice will aleviate this, it is very common.

As for the bead sighted shotgun not being accurate, the simple receiver/bead rudimentary sight system is more accurate than most people give it credit for. The standard bead is plenty accurate to hit accurately at way further than 50m with slugs. I can't remember offhand how far I have hit consistently accurate with a bead but it is closing on 100m, and sporadically at 378yd with slugs.
Cheers
Click to expand...

I'm having a hard time picturing this but if I look straight down so I don't see any of the receiver top I cannot see the bead.

Perhaps I need to find an experienced shotgunner to give me some coaching.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom