Sporting Clays

In previous articles I have described the building blocks that are essential to successful shooting. But these elements need to be combined with an understanding of lead and how to correctly apply it—how to drive the gun in your peripheral vision while maintaining hard focus on the target with your primary vision.
    There are two types of lead: mathematical and perceived. Mathematical lead is the sum of quantifiable parts, including individual reaction time, lock time, and the time that the shot charge is in the barrel and in flight, as it relates to the target’s speed and distance.
    So “How much lead?” In mathematical terms, the answer will give the definitive amount of forward allowance needed for each and every target. But mathematical lead is applied with the conscious mind. The conscious mind can process only one thought at a time, which, in this case, is the application of the required amount of lead. This means that when applying mathematical lead, the focus is on the lead rather than on the target.
    In terms of perceived lead, the answer is applied with the subconscious mind, which can juggle myriad inputs at the same time. The subconscious mind can apply the correct forward allowance by total focus on the target. Robert Churchill is often quoted as having called this “the ability to make an instinctive shot”—that is, when the shot is taken, the shooter is aware of the lead but not looking at it, as he is focusing hard on the target.
    Does the outfielder focus on the glove or the ball to successfully catch a long fly ball? Years of training and practice have instilled in him a total faith in his eye-hand coordination and, yes, of course his total focus is on the ball.
    To shoot with this “instinctive” style consistently, the fundamentals must be learned, practiced and ingrained so that the shooting action can be performed without conscious thought. That practiced skill combined with a properly fitted gun allows 100-percent concentration on the target, just as the outfielder sees only the ball.
    The difference between sporting clays competitors who shoot scores in the 70s and those who shoot in the 90s is the ability to correctly apply lead. The majority of targets can be broken using mathematical, or measured, lead. When the shooter’s focus is on the lead, even though this creates a millisecond delay in pulling the trigger, the muzzles are close enough to the target to maintain the target in view throughout the “delayed” shot. Closer targets can be hit consistently, because the narrow angles in their presentations create a relatively large margin for error in the shotgun’s pattern and shotstring.
    But the wheels fall off when targets are presented at longer distances and the greater angles from the shotgun to the targets require increased lead. Here the “mathematical shooter” looking at the larger lead will lose sight of the target in his peripheral vision. As he tries to measure the lead, either his gun will stop completely, resulting in a miss behind, or his swing will stutter as his eyes repeatedly lose and find the target in his peripheral vision. Finally, the target is broken or missed with a “poke and hope” shot.
    The Master Class shot does exactly the opposite. He maintains hard focus on the target throughout the shot, subconsciously receiving a continuous flow of information on the target’s speed, angle and distance. In his peripheral vision he accurately places the muzzles in the correct place on the line of flight and breaks the target.
    Our eyes are drawn to movement and will shift focus to the fastest moving object they perceive. If you swing your gun faster than the target is moving, your eyes will leave the target and look back to the barrels. That is why it is so important to match the muzzle speed to the target speed. Concentrate on the leading edge of the target. This concentration on a single point rather than the whole target will ensure hard focus and reduce the gun to a blur in your peripheral vision.
    Understanding this concept is one of the key elements in my shooting instruction. To illustrate this in everyday terms, I ask, “How do you drive your car? You look 20 to 30 cars up the freeway, looking for dangerous drivers and speed traps. But how do you keep your car between the lines, in your own lane, maintaining a safe distance between your car and the car in front if you are looking at a point far away?” The answer: peripheral vision.
    This is exactly the way our eyes are designed to work. This is how we catch a ball and how we should shoot a shotgun. Looking into the rearview mirror or at the radio for a second too long while driving could cause a loss of direction or even a crash. Looking at the shotgun while shooting almost always will cause a miss. Looking at the target allows the body, driven by the eyes’ stimulus, to react in concert with the target’s movement. Whether you are shooting sporting clays or birds in the field, the harder you focus on the target, the less gun you will see; conversely, the more gun you are aware of, the less target you will see.
    Trigonometry demonstrates the clearest explanation of perceived lead. When taking a shot at a moving target, we are completing a triangle of invisible lines. These three lines or sides of the triangle are: 1) the target’s flight line, 2) the line between you and the trap or the location of the bird’s flush, and 3) the shotstring. The point at which the shotstring intercepts the target’s flight line gives you the best visual indicator of the lead that you need to apply to successfully break the target.
     To make this even easier to understand, consider a skeet field. If all of the targets are taken at the center peg, then all of the targets are flying at the same speed, distance and height. If you shoot a target from the Low House on Station 3, the angle created between the flight line and shotstring is approximately 90°, requiring 3' 6" inches of lead. Yet the same target going straight away from the Low House taken from Station 7 requires no lead.
    Because it is the same target moving at the same speed, distance and height, then mathematically the leads should be the same. However, at each different station you see different angles and, hence, different lead pictures. This dramatically and visually proves my point that lead is more a question of perception than mathematics.
    Now let’s move on to the practical applications of seeing lead. When you are waiting your turn to shoot sporting clays, consider the station and its relationship to the trap. Imagine a straight line between the two—this “station-to-trap line” is the baseline of your “triangle.” Next, follow the target’s flight line. Point your index finger at the target as if you were shooting it. This “flight line” is the second leg of your triangle.
    Last but not least, you need to visualize the inception point of the shotstring on that target line, or the point at which you intend to break the target. This “shotstring line” completes your lead-finding triangle. (This last line can be determined best by visualizing where your muzzles will be when you pull the trigger). The angle created at this point is the key to the amount of lead each individual presentation requires. If the target is a straightaway, it requires no lead: You can shoot straight at it. But as the angle between the target flight line and the shotstring line increases, so does the amount of lead required.
    Simply put: The smaller, or more acute, the angle between the flight line and the shotstring line, the less lead is required. The larger or more obtuse the angle, the more lead you need. A good example is the long, quartering incomer. Because it is coming toward you and the target is getting bigger and easier to see, the brain perceives it as slowing, and more of these targets are missed high and behind than anywhere else. In reality the angle created between the flight line and the shotstring line is very large—more than 90°—and requires considerably more lead than you would think.
    As the targets flies, this lead angle is constantly in transition. Consider Station 5 on the skeet field: If you shoot the Low House target past the center peg, it requires less and less lead, as the angle is transitioning from obtuse to acute. Once again hard focus on the target allows your “onboard computer” to make the minuscule adjustments for the speed, distance and angle—especially important when shooting pairs and in second-barrel shots in the field.
    To visualize the lead and angle in sporting clays, imagine a clock face overlaid on the shooting field with you standing at 6 o’clock and the target’s flight path across the clock face and through its center. For example, if the target entered at 3 o’clock and exited at 9 o’clock, it’s easy to judge the shotstring’s interception point on its path at 90°. The degree of the angle indicates the amount of lead required.
    As this angle is always in transition, changing second by second throughout the target’s flight, you can visualize different leads shot from different positions and find the point that best suits your particular technique and style. This also helps you get the angle advantage on the second target of a pair or when shooting the ever-changing angles of a single target in FITASC or a bird in the field.
    Then there are the factors of speed and distance. I’m afraid only personal experience and practice are going to teach you this aspect of lead perception. An instructor can help you on the path, but we are all individuals with personal visual acuity and reaction times, and no two people see lead, or forward allowance, in exactly the same way. One man’s two feet of lead can be another’s six! Do you see inches at the barrel or feet at the target? Why do you think they invented rulers?
    Remember that the perception of lead is exponential. To demonstrate this, Robert Churchill placed white-painted boards across two blocks—different-length boards at different distances. Boards three feet long were placed at 20 yards, six feet long at 30 yards and nine feet long at 40 yards. If you looked downrange and held your fist out in front of you, palm down, with your little finger and forefinger extended upright and placed on each of the markers in turn, you would find the lengths all looked pretty much the same. The ability to judge a target’s distance is a valuable one and well worth the trouble of learning.
     When it comes to assessing lead in terms of feet or inches, I often find it is better to imagine the lead as an object, say a loaf of bread or the length of a flat of cartridges. Use whatever images are in your personal “picture bank.” In your mind’s eye a fast, quartering target might need a “half-box lead” and a true 40-yard crosser might need “six full boxes” of lead. And, yes, there are targets out there where you might perceive the lead to be a “school bus.”
    Over time you will develop a file or cache of perceived-lead pictures for different targets presented in competition and in the field. These pictures combined with good fundamentals will allow you to concentrate on the target, apply the correct lead and make a successful shot. Then you truly will be shooting instinctively.

Chris Batha’s book, Breaking Clays, and his DVDs, “Mastering the Double Gun” and “Take Your Best Shot,” can be ordered by visiting www.chrisbatha.com.