Optimum Shotgun Performance

[m24]

Source: G&A

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a one-day shooting seminar taught by Gil and Vicki Ash of OSP Shooting School that, at the risk of putting it too mildly, completely changed how I shoot shotguns for the better. I open-mindedly set aside all I previously learned about lead and follow-through and listened carefully to Ash as he not only instructed, but also entertained me with his witty teaching style. By the end of Station One--that's 5 shots into this endeavor, folks--Ash had me breaking flying birds literally with my eyes closed.

Ash didn't just wave his magic Krieghoff and give me the power to break birds blindfolded, though. Learning his shooting system had actually begun a week earlier in the comfort of my living room by watching his video on perfecting the gun mount and using a concept he calls "Breakpoint."

Ash was adamant about watching the video and practicing the drills shown in it for at least 15 minutes each day before our planned meeting at the Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania. There, we would spend a day of live fire instruction at the challenging sporting clays courses designed by NSCA Level III instructor, Mike Mohr.

Over that preceding week I realized Ash hadn't simply developed a mounting exercise that I was practicing. It was an exercise that was training my unconscious brain to know where my shotgun points and how to use the faster unconscious brain to break more birds than the slower conscious brain.

Seeing where the gun points for Ash's exercise is simply a matter of sticking a flashlight into the muzzle and shining its focused beam as you would a laser pointer. In his video, Ash explains to shine the light up into the corner of a room and to slowly raise the gun to your face and into the mount without moving the light from the corner. You never take your face to the gun, because your eye is the rear sight and you want to keep your sight on target. Instead, keep your head erect and slowly raise the gun into the mount all the while keeping that light shining in the same spot in the corner.

By practicing that over and over and over so my mount became smooth and consistent, my head didn't move but the shotgun did, and the light always stayed in the corner, I was training my brain to put my shot--in real time--exactly where I was looking. That would be key to breaking birds with this method.

The other key to Ash's method, "Breakpoint," is simply choosing a point in space along the trajectory of the bird, and letting the computer between your ears calculate when the two objects (the shot and the bird) will collide at that point. All you have to do to hit the bird is mount the gun, poke the muzzle into that space and pull the trigger.

For example, when a quarterback throws a football to a receiver, he's not leading the receiver with the football prior to the throw. Heck, the football is even cocked back behind his ear and completely out of the quarterback's sight.

Instead, the quarterback and receiver have already decided on a play where the receiver is going to break to one side or quarter away, and then the quarterback is going to throw the ball to the receiver. If they decided the receiver is going to turn left and run toward the sideline, then that space between where the receiver turns and the sideline is the breakpoint. The plan is for the football and receiver to intersect somewhere in that "window."

At the hike, the quarterback visually picks up the moving receiver and lets his unconscious brain calculate the rate at which the receiver is moving. As the receiver approaches the breakpoint, the quarterback's unconscious brain tells his arm when to throw for the two to meet within the breakpoint. Unless the receiver is blocked, fumbles the ball or the throw intercepted, the pass is completed.

Since we don't have clay pigeons that play defense in sporting clays, properly using Ash's breakpoint method results in hits on moving birds. Ash's "Breakpoint" method is really very simple, but it takes an epiphany for most shooters to get it.

"The reason I get there faster by moving slower is by using breakpoint" Ash chided as one of the other shooters in our group tried mounting his gun when he called "pull," then leading and following through in the traditional shotgunning manner.

"I want you to choose your breakpoint, focus on the front edge of the bird, and when it gets to the breakpoint, just shoot right at it," Gil instructed. The method works. I saw it work, and it worked for me.

Granted, there is a time and a place for traditional lead and follow through, such as on skeet with targets at known distances, angles and speeds, but when it comes to games such as sporting clays and certainly bird hunting where a shot could be from any angle, the OSP "Breakpoint" shooting technique certainly got my attention.

Regards

[paddy]

Hi M24,

many thanks for sharing. wish we had such seminars here in Delhi NCR Too.

Cheers!

Paddy

[shooter]

good tip.
will try it and keep the group updated.

[brihacharan]

Hi M24,
> Great post - very interesting to read & get wise.
> Liked the way Ash took you through the steps - teaching is an art & some are truly gifted.
> Keep sending such gems.
Cheers
Brihacharan