Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Shotgun: Sights or Bead

I read the damned article years ago and don't have the month, year and magazine committed to photographic memory. I drive pretty good with a hood ornament and shoot pretty damn good with beads on my shotguns. Sounds like you have a problem with target concentration.

Dan, your "instructor" needs to attend a three-day shotgun course from Randy Cain or Lewis Awerbuck. Then he needs to go to Elijay and pass the Rogers shooting course. If he can't pass the latter he has no business as a firearms trainer. They shoot steel in the afternoons at the Rogers school with 9mm AR's and shotguns.

Why am I not surprised?

Target concentration is the bane of most of us and one of the reasons I take beads off my shotguns. However, since you are pretty damn good with a shotgun, I'm curious. So, outside of the above mentioned stationary target situations, just how do you use shotgun beads to advantage on flying targets?

I'm always willing to learn from the damn good and great.

I figured you were gullible enough that you actually did remove the beads from your shotguns because some "shotgun expert" said you'd be able to shoot better without them. I don't really look at the bead on a flying target but it does register in your peripheral vision and is used subconsciously as a frame of reference to muzzle position in relation to target.

Have to admit that subconscious stuff works with the easy and intermediate oopportunities. Actually there is nothing subconcious about it.

Then again if you don't really look at the bead why do you need one? The end of the barrel will serve the same purpose.

You ever had tunnel vision on a flying target? Where all you see is target and things are in slow motion, and you actually see the effect of pellets striking feathers. If so I would be interested in a descripiton.

You use the term shotgun expert very loosly. Mine have names, some of which I have already given you. Still waiting for yours.

I'm fairly certain that Blackheart is likely one of those individuals who can't hit the side of a barn with a shotgun (without a "bead"). However WITH a bead....and much concintration...he probably Can hit the side of a barn. He has no idea exactlt WHERE on the barn he will hit, but can do it if he has sights (bead).

Of course that is only true as long as the barn isn't moving. If a target is moving, even with sights, you won't hit very well unless you practice a bit......and then you won't NEED sights!

What a dipschitt. I bet I do more small game and upland bird hunting than you and battue combined and have been doing so since the early 70's. I've kept beagles for rabbit hunting ever since then and for many years would shoot between 100 and 150 from in front of the dogs every season. After all that practice, hitting rabbits on the run with a shotgun is so easy it's almost boring. Of course, I've also killed plenty of grouse and woodcock as incidentals while spending all that time afield with my hounds and used to hunt pheasants pretty avidly as well. I don't shoot many clay pigeons anymore but the last time I shot a round of trap at the club I broke 24/25. I know how to handle a shotgun very well thanks.

Well I'll probably get 30+ days of Grouse hunting in this year, Lord willing. So far this spring and summer I've gone through approximately 10,000 shotgun shells which is pretty much on average of the last 15 years or so.

I really should be better than I am, but I will always have you to look up to for guidence. Don't know why I wasted my time with all those other unknowns all these years.

Maybe a months supply when things are slow.

The actual answer will depend on the style/model of shotgun and barrel.. If you use just a bead on a Browning A-5's barrel w/o rib, you'll shoot high every time.. If you use a bead on a Remington shotgun that has a barrel with vented rib, you'll most likely be ok.. It has to do with the height of the comb on the stock, coupled with the receiver height measured against the height of the bead from the top of the muzzle..

If you see your shotguns bead, you're looking at the wrong stuff. Save the sights for shooting slugs...at long distances.

That does it, I'm going to have to do a 00 Buck range report using my smooth bore with sights and smooth bore with bead. If anything, I think using the sights slows me down. Maybe even the bead as well.