A Question about Gun Fit

I got an interesting phone call the other day from a man named Larry. He asked if I had a try gun. When I confirmed the rumor, he asked if I did stock fits and I said yes.

He then proceeded to tell me that 15 years ago he shot both skeet and sporting competitively. He was AA in both and was the best around. I’ve never met an ex-skeet shooter who wasn’t AA when they quit, and 15 years ago sporting classes were determined by average. And depending upon what you wanted your average to be, you either went to one club or another! So the fact that he was AA in skeet and sporting 15 years ago didn’t impress me very much.

He said he had two friends who he wanted to give a gun fit to because he felt it was the most important thing in being successful with a shotgun! I disagreed. He asked me to explain.

I began to explain that gun fit is more a product of how good the gun mount is than anything else. I might as well have been speaking Spanish to a man from Mars. He disagreed again. I asked him to let me finish.

Vicki and I work with gun fit on our students an average of 10 to 12 times per week successfully. We find that it might take someone two weeks, two months, or up to two years to get a good gun fit. Because if they have no consistency in their move or mount, the only thing that can be done is what we call a novice or beginning gun fit. Adjust the length of pull, cast, drop and pitch to get it close so the shooter can shoot without getting hurt.

Then the student must shoot the gun 1000-5000 rounds and get used to the fit and improve their mount and then the gun fit becomes better. You don’t have to have a perfect gun fit to hit targets with a shotgun. Although gun fit is important, it is far from the most important thing in being successful with a shotgun.

For example, you could give Tiger Woods a 5 iron that did not fit him and he could hit the ball well with it. Give him one of his custom-made clubs and he would be able to perform better with it.

In order to achieve a perfect gun fit, you must have a perfect gun mount. If you don’t have a perfect move and mount, it is impossible to have a perfect gun fit. As the mount and move improve, the gun fit can also be improved.

Larry began to see what I was talking about and although he never completely agreed with me, his two friends certainly agreed!

Gun fit is a journey, an evolution. The quality of the move determines the quality of the fit. One secret: don’t try to get a perfect gun fit before you plan on losing weight. A 10 percent fluctuation in body weight will cause a gun that fits perfectly to fit not so perfectly.