Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Having hard time with consistency this past season.

I have shot the best and the worst than I have ever shot this past season. I only got to duck hunt twice this year and didn't get to go much more than that last year, so time behind the gun is part of my problem I'm sure. I went on several pigeon shoots this year and did very well including some really long crossers and quartering shots, then I go on a few crow hunts where the shots are close and should be easy but had several days where I don't know if I ever hit a crow. I don't know if I'm shooting ahead, raising my face off the stock, over choked, flinching, I have no idea what is going wrong.
I'm left eyed and right handed, I can't see that well but don't like shooting with glasses on cause they fog up and rain gets on them and I'm constantly dicking around with them so I can see. I have tried with and without glasses and it doesn't seem to matter. I'm in a slump and it's pissing me off. I have always been fairly consistent. But now when I go out I don't know if it's going to be amazing or very disappointing. Anybody went through this?

More trigger time will fix all of this. Hard to just "pick up a scatter gun" and be consistent.

Trap, skeet and sporting clays should be a staple of any hunters diet.

A couple rounds of sporting clays twice a month will cure that.

Shooting trap Saturday. There is a skeet range two counties over and a sporting clays course about an hour away. Gonna try and shoot at one or the other every other week or so if fishing doesn't get in the way and I'm sure it will.

Ask yourself if there's something that's bothering you as in you aren't concentrating maybe at work or at home. Go see your optometrist and check for cataracts or an old prescription. My progressives drove me nuts at first, Finally have you changed guns or have you changed ( weight gain/loss) that could change your gun fit. I gained some weight a few years ago , along with age and I as my face for lack of a better word got cheeky made it harder to get down on my gun. I'm betting eyes and I note if I'm tired that I get sloppy in my mount and can't see as well.

Or just go practice more and get better.

Might be as simple as a change in loads. You probably aren't using loads with the same velocity for skeet/trap as you use for ducks. I'm assuming your using those high velocity steel loads for duck.

I haven't hunted duck since steel shot came in but I've shot a lot of crows. When I used factory loads(to get the hulls) I used the Win. heavy trap load. My hand loads were the same velocity as the heavy trap load so there was no need the change the lead.

I generally shoot good. It's just been all of a sudden. My gun mount is really good, I only shoot 2 different guns that are almost identical, one is a M1 the other is a SBE, on a rare occasion I shoot a 391 sporting. All of which fit perfectly. I'm gonna try and find a coach because the off days I'm having doesn't represent my shooting on my average days. I want someone to watch me and see if I'm doing anything wonky.

I don't think it's the loads, it's me. Something I'm doing. It may just be going from long pass shooting shots on fast birds to in my face crows just lolly gaging by. I also believe it wouldn't hurt to take out the imp mod and screw in a imp cyl.

Gonna start shooting clays more, so we'll see.

I like Remington nitro 27s for crows in 7.5 shot. I shoot 1220 fps 1 1/4 oz #6s at them too if I have been shooting pigeons. I bet the difference in lead isn't any more than a few inches with different loads.

It isn't and as the distance increases the faster shot slows down quicker due to air resistance, and the lead difference is less than closer.

The better one sees the better they can shoot. A start would be to wear your glasses since you admit to "can't see that well" without them. Draw it to the extreme and see how well you do with your eyes closed. See better, shoot better. Most SC courses are going to insist you wear glasses.

Choke is not a big deal up close. You just hit them harder with the IMP Mod. Chokes give us inches and we usually miss in feet.

Addition The more we miss the more we tend to barrel check. "Eye on the rock, head on the stock". Try to match the target speed as best you can.

The other human tendency when we miss, we often think we didn't give enough lead and the next time lead it more and often end up missing further in front. Cut it back and see what happens when you perceive to be shooting right at the target.

Thanks guys. I shot 2 rounds of trap today and dropped 5 targets and I know exactly what I did when I missed. I shot over three, didn't lead a quartering shot on station one enuff and shot under one strait away on station three. I wore my scripts, but hate it when it's cold cause they fog up.

I shoot quite a bit of Skeet and Sporting Clays. Once I started wearing "reading glasses" I quickly found out I HAD to wear glasses when shooting. I started shooting horribly. I now wear glasses all day...dammit! They do fog!
Consistency with a shotgun is the main thing. I would think I shoot enough to not have to "think" about what I'm doing, but when I start missing, the two things that help me get back on track are...Keeping my cheek welded to stock, and mounting gun with buttplate in same spot everytime,when rushing a shot I tend to have butt of gun more toward my arm than where it should be.
Practice practice practice