What are you thinking when you line up the bead

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colinkjpark

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I have recently picked up an 870 with a bead instead of the ghost ring sights and I feel like the bead kind of floats. I want to line up the bead with the rear of the receiver faster. If you have some words of wisdom, a good trick, or perhaps a lymrick I'd love to know it. Specifically with lining up the sights.

Aim small miss small. Thanks.
 
colinkjpark said:
I have recently picked up an 870 with a bead instead of the ghost ring sights and I feel like the bead kind of floats. I want to line up the bead with the rear of the receiver faster. If you have some words of wisdom, a good trick, or perhaps a lymrick I'd love to know it. Specifically with lining up the sights.

Aim small miss small. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Practice mounting the gun the very same each time.
Without the rear sight , your eye has not become the rear sight , so if you are tighter or looser to the comb on a given shot, you will have a higher or lower POI on the target .
You are taking about shooting with slugs, yes?


Cat
 
I found the fastest way to be able to get a shotgun "aimed" was practice bringing it up from a 2 handed carry to my shoulder in low light - with a drop of White Out on the bead to highlight it. You need to learn where the gun fits you "naturally" and where the rear sight line is in your natural "ready" position. Form there, you can almost ignore it and just focus on the bead and putting it on the target.

Soemthing I was told years ago as I was learning that helped me:

Even with your eyes closed, you will always know where your hands are in spatial refence to your head/eyes. You can make a gun shape with your hand, eyes closed, and point it anywhere in the room. Look at your raised thumbnail (the pretend hammer) "in your mind", and then open your eyes. You'll be looking directly at your thumbnail. Holding a shotgun is pretty much the same ... visualize your thumb reaching for the hammer of an old double barrel and you'll be instantly looking at the rear sight line of your shotgun.

After that, it's ensuring you have a gun that fits you comfortably and sits farily true and level when it's in a shooting position. You should be able to raise and point it straight out in fornt of you with your eyes closed, and on opening your eyes, the sights shoudl be close to lined and level. I found I was prone to having the bead naturally sitting about an inch above my "natural" shooting position - soem time doing drills of raising, aiming, then opening my eyes (with an unloaded gun of course) - and paying attention to body position throughout - soon cured me of that and I created the muscle memory that enabled quicker, more accurate sightings, which comes in very handy when pushing brush for bunnies, partridge, etc.. and paddling streams and rivers for ducks - carrying your shotgun on your shoulder looking down the bead all day "commando style" while looking for game is a VERY tiring process. The time spent learning to "draw" it from a normal carry position is well worth it.

After all of that .... practice, practice & more practice is the true key :) It's all about creating the muscle memory of a good ready position for each gun you carry.
 
Just my opinion> A shotgun is a close quarters (25-40 yds) multi projectile gun designed to kill moving small game. (rabbits, birds etc) A proper fitting shotgun and practiced operator can hit fast moving targets relatively easily using a small bead or even no bead. Sending a single projectile through a smooth bore at a distant target calls for a proper sight arrangement to get consistant accuracy. Game can and has been killed using single bead but a proper sight helps greatly.
 
Your question is "What are you thinking...?"

This is a mental management question, that is a basic in sports psychology.

Firing the shot (like tieing your shoelaces) is done by the sub-consious. getting a good result is a matter of muscle training (practice - dry firing) and being mindful of the orders being given to your brain. the orders must be positive and specific. The brain works in positives and pictures. The worst order is a negative, like "Don't miss."

If firing a slug at a deer, the message (what you are thinking) should be a positive like "In the heart".

AllBulls-1.jpg



fivebulls.jpg
 
I don't think... it's instinctive. You should be practicing bringing up your shotgun to the shoulder over and over and over again until your arms are ready to fall off.lots of range time as well. The gun is an extension of your arm. Where it points the gun should follow. Train your mind to look at your target, not the sight. Don't think at all; focus on your target, bring the gun up, and fire. good form really helps.
 
Mount Sweetness said:
...look down the barrel
Click to expand...

That is a definite yes. Thanks for posting that. Looking down the barrel can work for everyone. No matter what their skill level :rolleyes: Good God...
3 Macs got it right

"For me when I start seeing the bead I start missing the target".

The reason for that is your focusing on the bead not the target.
Doesn't matter if it's Clay's or Hunting. The Focus should be the Target.
Practice mounting the Gun over and over again. And soon you will forget the beads.
Or you could be a pro like "Mount Sweetness" and just look down the barrel.:)
 
I am so impressed with the quality of answers you folks provided. I don't want to say too much to prevent you from posting freely but some of what you said is going to stick, I have not practised much with my new shotgun yet but i will do some dry drills to develop the muscle memory till my arms fall off and each time i will open my eyes to see how the fake hammer lines up with my barrel. I'll keep my head down to the stock in the same position every time and point the barrel at a small part of the target that i am focused on.

I really liked the fake hammer comment, that was exactly the thing i was looking for.
 
If you're looking at the barrel you're not looking at the target........Just think about it. If you try catching a baseball you don't look at your glove. Millions of broken targets can't be wrong..........
 
I have twin beads on my shotgun. Yesterday I was out shooting trap and each time before I called pull, I lined up both beads on an imaginary target - sort of to "remind" my body what the proper hold was. Then I put the gun down, stared at the trap and called for a bird. I didn't do great, but I did better than I have in the past - and I don't remember seeing either bead when actually shooting.
 
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