I have problems with shooting English Sporting!

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I have problems with shooting English Sporting!

Hold low and bring the muzzles to the target.

By Clay shooting

Sunday, 04 December 2011

Clay shooting: I’m all over the place when I try to shoot slow, low, quartering-away birds at English Sporting.

Can you give me some pointers that might help?

CLAY SHOOTING
John Bidwell
Problems with this sort of target are normally down to the speed of gun movement – too slow and you ‘poke’ at the bird missing it behind, too fast and it’s missed in front.

A ‘slow’ clay is usually one that’s also dropping, so there’s a tendency to miss over the top as well.

And the likelihood of missing high increases if the gun muzzles are held too high to the line of flight, before the bird is called.

So - address yourself to the kill point, weight on the front foot and place the muzzles mid-way between where you first see the bird clearly, and where you plan to break it.

By making sure the muzzles are just under the line of this bird you will be able to watch it all the way through the mount as you bring the gun up to, and into, the target.

Because it’s slow this bird doesn’t need a lot of lead so try shooting off its front edge and if that doesn’t work, increase the gap a little at a time until you get the sight picture and start hitting it.