Seeing Over the Lever

If you’re shooting a cross-eyed target with a lot of lead, there’s a technique that can help you. This is especially useful for long, high tower shots, big, crossing belly chandelles, and shots that are 40, 50, or 60 yards away.

As you mount the gun, your nose is back over on the right and you can see the bird across the top lever. This is huge because it means the bird has to travel a long distance before it reaches the gun. Seeing the bird from a long way away makes it easier for your brain and hands to work together to stabilize the picture. The longer the stabilization process, the easier it is for the brain to consistently merge everything together.

To explain this in terms of dots on a graph, you want to see more dots after the gun is mounted. The more dots you can see, the easier it is for your brain to create the timing sequence of accelerating the gun to the bird speed and stabilizing the picture in the breakpoint.

When coaching people who have trouble stabilizing the picture, we find that it’s often the gun’s movement that needs to be adjusted. You need to move the gun a tiny bit earlier so that it moves very slowly when the target is closing. This helps the brain synchronize the merger more easily. If you’re having trouble getting jammed, move the gun just real slow away from the target when it’s still a good way out. This can make the merger easier.

Instead of taking 100 milliseconds or a tenth of a second, the stabilization process can take 300 to 400 milliseconds, which is a little less than half a second. Although this is longer, it’s easier for the brain to make the circuits come together. The key is to start the movement a little bit earlier, which makes it easier for the brain.

This is an excerpt from the April 2013 Coaching Hour podcast. You can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.