Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Burris Speed Bead

Anyone have experience with the Burris Speed Bead dot sights? Input is appreciated.

I tried one on a Beretta 391.....can't say it did anything for me.....It was a gift....never would have bought one...took it off and it's in the gun safe.

I view any kind of fancy bead on a shotgun as superfluous- their chief value lying in how well they seperate the rubes from their money. Beads of any kind are superfluous for that matter, but I do like a small ivory or brass bead just for aesthetic reasons. Try an experiment by which you remove the bead entirely and then shoot a couple rounds of skeet, clays, or trap. I bet your scores remain the same, or perhaps even improve.

Lots of turkey hunters use the FastFire for accurately placing a tight cluster of shot on a gobblers neck. I can sorta kinda understand that, especially if the load doesn't hit to point of aim and needs some adjustment to get it where you're looking. The FastFire III has some improvements that make it more user friendly than the Speedbeads Gen II version.

For wingshooting I'd never consider one.

There are some applications where a sight of some type might be handy on a shotgun; perhaps in turkey shooting as somebody suggested.

But otherwise Gnoahh is spot on for any moving/flying target shooting. If you are 'aiming' a shotgun with the bead you are probably doing an unnecessary amount of missing.

First time I ever saw 'Sporting Clays' was around 1986. A dude ranch in the area where I lived was setting up a course as they catered to a lot of English clients. They brought in a sporting clays shooting instructor to set up the course and I got invited to go through his program. I thought I was a fair hand with a shotgun (ATA 27-yarder), but this guy took us to school. He shot a very used H&H side by side with hardly any finish left on it. First thing he did was remove the beads on our shotguns. We then learned how to point, swing, and follow through. We learned the importance of fit and point of impact. We came out much better shooters.

Did not mean to take the thread off course. I have several dot sights on handguns, including a Burris, that I am very fond of. But I don't think they have a place on a shotgun except perhaps on a stationary target (?).

MWN, good info. Thank you.

This is spot on. Turkey hunting, OK. Anything flying no. Look ONLY at the target and anything that interferes with that needs to come off your shotgun.

I remove my front bead on my target guns and my field guns have such a small bead it just does not matter

I have one on my sbe2. and love it...those above who say beads of any kind are superfluous have never hunted much from a layout blind where getting a good mount isn't always possible simply due to the angle of the bird.. he'll I've had to shoot geese behind me one handed.


the nice thing about the speedbead is no matter where your head is the shot string is going where the red dot is