No Perfect Way to Practice the Move and Mount
Be aware that there is no perfect way to practice the move and mount. There’s no perfect sequence or order.
We continue to be amazed at the number of people who refuse to give proper emphasis to learning to move and mount the gun. In the beginning, it will always be confusing due to the distance between the target at 30 yards and the muzzle at 34 inches!
All of the drills are to help the brain to understand what you want it to look like. Acceptance of the barrel in the periphery is a journey that includes too much muzzle awareness at each plateau to better define how it is perceived.
You can do the drills as much as you want, but nothing will replace time on target with your focus on your move and mount. This will eventually create too much muzzle awareness. In turn, this must be constantly reviewed and adjusted as it improves.
Practice Your Gun Mount Before A Hunt
On our last trip to Argentina, first-time shooters who had a great gun move and mount found themselves confused with the number of birds in the air. It took them three or four hunts before their brains figured out how to cope with all the movement and how to concentrate on one bird.
Some of them did do gun mounts leading up to the hunt. Three weeks out, they did 350 per day, and one week out, they did more than 700 per day. That allowed them to go through the learning sequence more quickly.
In conclusion, gun mount drills are essential for training the brain to handle the gun without thinking about it. But the rubber meets the road on the practice field in the tournaments and the field.
A Lifetime of Mounting the Gun
As I think back to when I got my first shotgun at age 13 (54 years ago), I spent countless hours in my room mounting that Remington 1100. I was continually infatuated with my ability to mount that gun and have it come up under my shooting eye every time.
How many times have I mounted a gun since then? Likely more than most of all of you put together. How many times did I do the drills in 1983 when sporting clays first began, during our heyday as competitors?
Yes, I did them almost every night with and without the flashlight. And as a result, I can move and mount just about anyone’s gun and hit just about any targets out there.
But I must add that I have moved and mounted a shotgun much more in the field and on clays ranges. Millions of times in real shooting situations! That is essential, due to the distance to the target which changes from 10 yards to 80. And the perception of the barrel in the periphery is 34 inches in front of our nose.
The perception of the barrel is always there at the same distance and it’s the target that changes. The way your brain perceives that picture is based on how many times it has seen it in real-time and real distance.
