I've always thought that the value that a vented rib added was that it eliminated heat mirage rising off of a hot barrel. The other day an older than me water fowl hunter told me that he used the front corner of the rib to determine lead when pass shooting ducks and geese. I don't hunt water fowl, too much forced human interaction, and wonder if what the old guy told me is a common use for the vent rib.

No

VR probably does dissipate heat with high volume shooting, and they sure look good. Some say they help align your eye with the barrel and that makes sense to me. But, a trim pump gun with a plain barrel is a great upland gun, and you don't have to pick twigs out of the rib after going tbrough a buffaloberry thicket...which I've done quite often.

If you’re looking that close at the rib the ducks are pretty safe…
And it’s completely untrue

Depends I guess that more than a few people do things different than others do. The ability to accurately estimate range while pass shooting is invaluable. The area the width of your rib covers at different ranges will help you accurately estimate how far it is. Whether you can do that and still get off a shot is something else. Mb

Any Duck hunter that has done it enough, knows by what his eyes tell them when they are in range. Knows when they are borderline and when they are too far out.....

And it isn't any different with any GameBird....you know before you decide to shoot. Varying skill levels allow some to stretch it.

Have yet to see any qualified shooter say the eye should be looking anyplace than directly over the rib or barrel.

Reason number one to have a solid rib Ithaca 37 or M12 as your upland gun ......

Great thread. Lots of good advice here. I have to admit that PB's just don't look right to me. I'm a VR owner and shooter, and if that means pulling a reed or a cattail out of one, then so be it.

This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt you don't understand shotgun shooting.

I think the rib is just there to guide your eye to the bead, vented or not. I view the vents mainly as weight reduction or cosmetics.

You may have noticed ribs are machined to have a surface which does not reflect like a shiny blued barrel does. The main function of the rib is to give you a better defined, unchanging sight picture so to speak. Ambient lighting and the angle of lighting makes a round barrel look different in different conditions.

This is not to say that you should actually look at the rib most of the time. You do see it in the periphery, though. That's how you gauge where to point it while focused on the target.

If your old timer was talking about pass shooting he may have been talking about using a pull-a-way method. I can see how that might work, but the few I've talked to about it just use the bead. The little I've tried it didn't go well for me.

30Gibbs, or an old Wingmaster!

Maybe, but I do allright and I learned that from Tom Roster at his steel shot field shooting clinic. SDGFP probably doesn' t know sh*t either as they promoted subtension as a way to range geese also. The width of ones rib is constant and it covers so much area at different ranges if you know how big your target is then you know the range. That maybe of no value to you who sees himself as a chattering monkey. Like I said before on pass shooting knowing the range and being in the lethal range of your gun and load is a good thing and will help cut crippling loss. But hey passport carry on and show us your Michigan intelligence.

Male Duck, small female Duck, big female Duck….while the Duck is flying and the gun is moving guess the area it covers???? The Duck isn’t flying on a true horizontal, etc.

If Rooster is teaching that he should stick to ballistics and omit the shooting advice.

Shoot more than a little and the eyes know.

Addition: A 1/16 inch difference may cover 8 feet at 30 yard. I’m not buying it.

How far away is the outer edge of your decoys. 😉

Who is talking ducks? Not me, I specifically mentioned and talked pass shooting on geese. As a matter of fact I don't bother range estimating on rising going away birds either I just shoot them. Why is it you and passport feel the need to criticize anyone who knows things about shotguns and shooting them? You think you own this forum and only you 2 have rights to an opinion? So you know just keep it up with your opinions so everyone knows what an expert you are. Mb

I am not a great wing shot, but am decent. I have used all varieties of shot gun barrels. I learned that a high vent rib on a trap gun that shoots fairly high. makes hitting easier. A target floating above the bead is easier to see and adjust ones swing . Side by sides have always been impossible for me to hit with , I find i tend to follow with left barrel ( being right handed) but i did shoot one with a goofy looking rib that helped. Having a clean flat sight plane is where the rib helps .Knowing the guns point of impact( high, low or dead on) is a function of fit and actual shooting a few sight in rounds is key to better shooting. All of this is just my humble opinion.....

Me saying I’m not buying the theory is not a personal criticism against anyone. You mentioned it, so then it becomes open to comment. And in this case, Ducks, Geese, Pheasants or Rabbits running, I’m not buying it.

Now that I know you object to others not fully accepting whatever you say, in the future, I will try to let it pass without comment.

before vent ribs or solid ribs, shooters sighted down a curved bbl surface. with time, shooters knew the alignment based on if all the bbl showed or just the bead hovering on the receiver. bbl showing was a high shot, bead on receiver was line of sight. knowing a gun was normally a 50/50 pattern, hovering bead was 50/50...and a bbl showing was 60-40 or even higher.
with a vent rib and dual beads, all that was eliminated. lining beads up in front of each other was a 50/50 and stacked beads (figure 8) became the 60-40 or whatever the gun was made to do. this is what guns are today.

i still shoot ribless guns and use the old way to achieve my pattern. works.

Ribless! For my pleasure


I've had VR barrels, got rid of all of them ( I think). Much prefer plain. As a matter of fact my main goose gun had the bead broken off the end for the last six or eight years.. still worked just fine for me and the dog.

Take the beads off your barrel, Look at the target!

I have never shot a target and said that was 20.30.40.50...... Yards.

Not surprising to hear most of the guys here shoot a shotgun like a rifle, its clearly a rifle forum. That said the correct way to shoot moving targets with a
shotgun is to look at the target and ONLY THE TARGET, the rib will be seen in our field of view but you do not AIM a shotgun, unless missing is the goal, the brain will adjust the correct lead and it will "feel" correct when the shot is made.

This is based on correct shotgun fit and staying in the gun after the shot has been executed.

I know we have all heard Uncle Jim fits the duck on the tip of the bead and aims bullchit but its wrong, all of it. Shotgun shooting is a very different skill set than rifle shooting.

Try looking HARD at the target with your head on the gun and look ONLY at the target with good follow through, you will be surprised at how hard you hit em.

The extreme example of doing it right, is when you see the feathers ruffle when the shot hits. When you see the body take the hit or the head flop. You are into pure tunnel vision to the target.

You will never see it looking at the rib or someplace between the Bird and the rib or bead.

The big boys will tell you it is the hardest part of shooting a shotgun well.

Couldn't even tell you if my shotguns have beads....

There are a few clay target examples when you can use the bead. They are rare with live Birds on the wing.

Exactly..

If you think you don't use the barrel to shoot, and are an exceptional shot (as in uses full choke for everything exceptional,) consider this. Targets painted luminescent or glued with glow sticks slung out into a pitch black night. No lighting so you can't see the barrel. How well do you do?

I'm not good enough for my results to count but I think I'll try it anyway. Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure everyone aims with the barrel even though it's best to not focus on it.

I totally agree with you....if you're focusing on anything other than the target you ain't hitting chit with a shotgun.

The vent rib is just a runway to your target....it's easier to check gun fit with a vent rib than a plain barrel.

Exceptional shots don't usually use full choke for most shotgunning, and who shoots at anything thrown into the air on a pitch black night?

Anyway, many successful shots can be made with the barrel out of focus in the peripheral, Especially clays....However, "consider this", the Dove that comes in from from behind unexpected. The Ruffed Grouse that you hear the flush and then see the Bird in your peripheral....your peripheral picks it up and you instinctively bring the gun up and fire..The Bird is centered and you never saw the barrel.. Makes no difference if you had a bead, rib or none of them the Bird is centered. And distance pretty much goes out the window also....Our personal computer instantly makes the calculations. All you did was look at the target...The more you can do that the better you will shoot. Clays or game...Barrels and sights are a necessary evil of shotgunning..Without them we would rarely miss...

Using your peripheral vision correctly is a key to good shotgunning that many don't understand..Without peripheral vision we wouldn't last long...

Great post. And what I meant by "I don't even know if they have beads" is with this.

Shoot a lot and IME - you don't notice the barrel/bead at all. It's there, you know it's there but like breathing, you don't see/think about it. You just do. Stacking the snowman was an exercise in building repetitive and repeatable mounting of the shotgun for me. Actually shooting - not so much. I used to practice the mount a lot as part of Move, Mount, Shoot.

Our brains are pretty awesome computers in that regard.

Move, Mount, Shoot is perhaps the best way to shoot live Birds..When it clicks it is magic....

move mount shoot is fine if the gun is pointing where you are looking.

I picked it up when I was shooting clays a lot - late 90's

Back then I was somewhere around 16 to 19,000 rounds of shotgun ammo a summer. Worked well for me then. I suspect like most "systems" - you aren't super faithful to it in execution and you steal what does/doesn't work or you're doing things that you don't realize have a term for.

MMS, swing thru, pull away, maintained lead.

Different methods for different games.Which is why I mentioned live Birds. Doesn’t work all that well with the mounted games.

Since we are into pointing a shotgun....

Do you point better with one barrel, an O/U or a SxS????

Good one.




There's no way I'm buying that you and your dog can use the same length of pull.

most low gunners i know have issues getting the gun into the pocket of the arm pit the same every time. yet, they pull the trigger anyway. that would be an example of what i mean by gun not pointing where they are looking.
ribs in my opinion were meant to guide the eye to the front bead so everything else could be used as a reference as to what is lined up right. the addition of the center bead aided in that too. but unlike rifle or pistol, where focus is on the front site, once everything is lined up the focus must change to the target. as gun owners shoot the same gun over and over, the actual need for the rib or sites does diminish, as the gun becomes one with its shooter. thus why many including me, can shoot a game of skeet or trap w/o realizing my front bead flew off. i just bring it up and it fits into my known pockets and stance. and for that reason, rib or no rib makes no difference. time will allow a gun to point for the owner w/o external aids.
hope this helps.

It does...and why a gun fit is mostly wasted money until one has a consistent and repeatable mount....

I likes my ribs bObski...

When I shoot, I couldn't tell you if I use a rib or not! I'm more of an instinct shooter. Point and bang. It's worked for me for 50+ years.
I love the looks of a ventilated rib on shotguns. All shotguns, except I do not like a vent rib on a Double Barrel/SXS shotgun or on a Winchester Model 42. To me, those need a solid rib.
I'm all about the looks of a classy shotgun!

The exceptional shots I know use full choke for everything. Clearly I am not omnipresent, but when I see the best shots in the dove club using 20ga, choked full, I notice. I need 12ga, SK2 and most of a box of shells to hang in there.

Nobody i know shoots at anything thrown into the air on a pitch black night, but I am suggesting that if you do you will see that you needed the barrel in your peripheral to aim by. This is the point of contention here. Rather than saying to aim or not aim I am saying they're all ways of aiming. Another test is shooting from the off shoulder with both eyes open. With the non-dominant eye behind the gun your dominant eye will present a competing image. You'll aim with the wrong peripherally viewed barrel, and be too far in front or behind, even though your were trying for a hard focus on the leading edge of the target while supposedly ignoring the barrel or rib or bead.

all my competition guns are vent ribs. but i do collect skeet & trap guns w/o ribs. rare puppies. low interest, thus cheaper to collect.