What Gun to Buy   I'm 5'8" and most guns seem too long for me. I've never actually been fitted for a shotgun, but I want to buy a shotgun and then get it fitted for me. Which shotgun do you recommend?   It is preferable to get fitted to a shotgun while purchasing it; however, that’s not always possible, and most salesmen are not gun fitters. Given your height, it’s likely that you will need to cut or shorten the length of pull (LOP) of your shotgun. The LOP is the straightline distance from the front face of the trigger to the vertical center of the back edge of the butt … [Read more...]

  Reading   I'm an instructor, and, unfortunately, I've seen many shooters read articles and watch videos and try to incorporate what is said. It causes them to think too much rather than shoot. No offense, but shouldn't shooters just shoot instead of reading a bunch of articles?   Reading too much and exposing oneself to conflicting information can be a hazard. Many shooters — frankly, those who are not willing to put in the work — overdose on information in a fruitless attempt to find “the silver bullet,” the fairy dust that will propel him or her to the top of the … [Read more...]

  Below my Feet   Where I normally shoot, I don't see a lot of target below my feet. When I got to big shoots and have to shoot from a raised platform or down into a stream bed, I have a really tough time hitting the targets. Any suggestions?   The shooting stance employed on targets above the waist doesn’t lend itself to a target below the waist. Most shooters today employ what we refer to as a Stanbury stance or modified Stanbury stance, named after the legendary British shooter and instructor Percy Stanbury. For the right-handed shooter, this stance is characterized by … [Read more...]

  Rising Outgoing Targets   I have trouble with rising going-away targets with a bit of an angle to them. They look so easy, but I am very inconsistent with this type of target. What's wrong?   Here’s the thing about rising quartering targets. Our bodies naturally want to move either vertically (between 6 o’clock and 12 o’clock) or horizontally (between 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock). Our bodies don’t move as “obediently” on targets with a complex angle. Let’s take a target presentation in which the machine is about 10 yards to our right and in line with the front of the … [Read more...]

Switching Shoulders   If I am left eye dominant but do everything from the right side, should I switch to left-handed shooting?   Well, it depends. The first thing I suggest is to spend some time with an instructor experienced in diagnosing and solving eye dominance challenges. I see many shooters who have been told that their dominance was one thing only to discover that it’s something different. I often see a shooter who thinks they are dominant in one eye and they are actually center ocular. If this shooter switched shoulders, he or she would likely have the same issue on the … [Read more...]