Beretta Blog

Sometimes when I’m trying to emphasize the value of shooting instruction, I use the analogy of riding a bicycle. I ask the individual or group which way you turn the handlebars on a moving bicycle to turn right. Over 90% respond you turn the handlebars right to turn right. They look stunned when I tell them they’re wrong. Then I explain.

I was at the Northeast Side by Side Classic Shotgun Championship and shooting with one of the best shooters in competition. While only a few of the target presentations on the course were long-range shots, J.D. was shooting a gun with modified and full chokes. Classic shotgun competitions do not allow choke changes because those old classic guns didn’t have interchangeable choke tubes. He was clearly a better shooter than I, but I was outdoing him on the close shots. I was shooting a gun with improved and modified chokes. The rules do allow using different loads for different stations, and I was using RST Spreader loads for the really close targets.

We all have our excuses about why we miss flying birds when we’re shooting our shotguns, but cross-eye dominance doesn’t have to be one of them.

As a child, and even into young adulthood, I had a strong right-eye, which matched my right-handedness. Unbeknownst to me, my eyes changed as I aged. Now my left eye will take over as the strong one if the right one is fatigued. The issue doesn’t bother me at all as I look through the scope atop my Sako Hunter rifle. When I need both eyes open, to point at and hit a bird is when I’ve encountered difficulty.

Sometimes in life, you look back on something and realize there was a lesson you should have learned, but you missed the opportunity. Recently I was instructing a new shooter on how to shoot crossing targets, and I remembered an important lesson I missed.

The first article in the Shotgun Shooting series focused on the necessary foundation needed to shoot a shotgun consistently. While most of shotgun shooting depends on that solid foundation, the art of successful shotgunning comes more from understanding how to move with the target to intercept it in the air. It’s essential that you have your basic stance and mount engrained in your muscle memory so that you can adapt your shot to the variables of a flying target. This summer I shot with Sporting Clays All-American Cynthia Kruger to get instruction on these finer points of shooting. Cynthia teaches at Kiowa Creek Sporting Club outside of Denver and is also a shooting instructor at the Beretta-endorsed Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming with her husband, Jon Kruger. Cynthia had several tips to improve the consistency in your clay shooting.

Proper shotgun shooting is a game of repetition – the more you shoot, the more often you will shoot well. However, if you don’t start with the basic shooting position engrained in your muscle memory, it will be hard to ever shoot consistently. There are a few fundamental things you should always do when you shoot a shotgun. Make these fundamentals habitual, and you will be able to focus on the more “intangible” parts of shotgunning and wingshooting.

I watched from my position on the dove field as Trey stepped out from behind the blind and raised his 20-gauge shotgun. The dove came in close and turned slightly. The gun came up smoothly, and I saw the feathers fly before I heard the report. The dove plummeted to the ground, and I watched eight-year-old Trey do a celebratory victory dance. He’d taken his first dove. He got two more that day.

With hot summertime temperatures, some might be surprised that we’ve already got our sights focused on waterfowl and upland hunting season. There are those out shooting summer leagues at the shotgun range and others who are booking September teal hunts, November pheasant hunts, and January goose pursuits. As many approach the stand at the range, they think of their scores, winning a shoot, or how to prepare for hunting season.

My client was an accomplished pistol and rifle shooter. In college he shot on the rifle team, he’d been an AAA class Metallic Silhouette shooter, and he’d taken game all over America and Africa. Now, he wanted to improve his wingshooting skills when shooting sporting clays. He was having trouble.

We began shooting the easiest target on my course, a straightaway target that was almost like shooting a tin can on a fence post. He’d brought two guns, one an excellent over-under and the other a high quality semi-auto. After a series of misses trying both shotguns, we checked how well the guns fit him, and I discovered that the comb of both guns was too high to allow him to see directly down the rib. I fetched one of my guns with a lower comb, and after missing the first shot, he crushed every target from that station. He was amazed at the difference, and we joked about the price I wanted for that gun.

Summertime means shotgun season: range time, league shoots, and competitions. To shoot our best we need to make sure that our guns properly fit.

First off, choose the shotgun that best matches your anticipated style of shooting. As you look through Beretta's catalog, you'll see over-and-under, side-by-side, and semi-automatic shotguns to cover everything from upland hunting to clay target shooting, to waterfowl hunting.