A Few Good Tips

Etiquette: Field etiquette requires that you stay behind the shooter in front of you, and are always ready to walk onto the station as soon as he/she finishes. Use this time to your advantage and watch the flight path of the targets, review the fundamentals, visualize your hold, and where you will be watching for the target. See the leads and mentally break the targets.

Coaching: Never volunteer unsolicited advice to others when they err or miss. Likewise, try not to heed unsolicited advice from individuals who do not follow the coaching rule-the advice may not be correct.

Barrel alignment: Front bead only-Center the front bead over the cross furrow in the rib, or (other models) at the top of the ramp so the rest of the rib is not visible. Two beads, front and middle-place the front bead on top of the middle bead, forming a figure 8.

Foot position: Place the same part of both feet on an imaginary diagonal line from upper left to lower right corner of the stand. The graphic below shows the foot placement for a right-handed shooter. Left-handed shooters would align themselves along the dotted line.

Mounting the gun: From a rest position (butt of gun is almost under the armpit with muzzle pointing down), level the gun, then raise it to the face/shoulder at the same time. Always keep your head erect and chin at a natural level. Practice bringing the gun to your shoulder and face without moving your head. Practice 100 rimes looking in a mirror. Practice until you can mount the gun the exact same way every time. Learn to feel a good mount. If the mount does not feel right, take the gun down and start over.

Eye focus: Always direct your eyes away from the barrel; otherwise, you may have a tendency to focus on the sight alignment beads. If you focus on the sight alignment beads, you won't be watching for the target. By the time you finally see it, it may be nothing more than a big blur as it goes whizzing past the end of your barrel. So, forget the beads, forget the barrel, and once you have the gun at the hold point, move only your eyes toward the window of the house as far as you comfortably can without looking right into the window and without pulling your head away from the stock. Typically, that point is about halfway between the barrel and the window.

First stations to learn: The logic of learning stations 1, 2, 6, and 7 before the others can be seen in the math. If you hit 80% of these targets, that's 13 targets out of the 25. Not bad for a beginner. If you get 50% of the remaining targets at stations 3, 4, 5, and 8, that's four more, and you're already up to 17 targets and that really makes a new shooter happy.

Memorize: One of the most important things a new shooter must learn is how to eliminate the variables. You can't be thinking about what target comes next, how to stand, or where the hold point is. The only thing you should be thinking about and visualizing when you walk to the station, is the type of lead you want to put on the particular target you are getting ready to shoot and what the sight picture looks like. It is always best to have the entire shooting sequence memorized before you walk onto the station.

Target Speed: Target speed variation is only an illusion; all targets are thrown at the same speed every time. However, as a general rule of thumb, if a target appears to be flying fast, use more lead.