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High Viz Shot?


Demonic69
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Hi All

As a newbie to clays, having a practice the other week got me thinking.

The last lesson I had the instructor was saying, just behind, above, below etc. I couldn't see the shot at all so I assumed he was just watching my barrel as I tracked the clays.

This led me to wonder if there was anything that could help us see the shot in flight. It may be impossible due to pellet size, but would day-glow orange, pink, yellow shot help us see shot placement for more accurate teaching? Does anyone even do such  thing, or is it just pointless?

 

Appreciate your thoughts.

 

Cheers

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46 minutes ago, Jay_Russell said:

winchester do a tracker wad, bright orange thats a good indication of where your shot is going 

Yes, great for seeing the wad!

Gamebore experimented years ago with a coating for the lead that aided the way the lead behaved, they then died that coating dayglo yellow and dayglo pink. We trialled it with them and on a nice clear day with a blue sky it could just be seen. 

They did not go in to production!

Previous attemtps by Eley and other manufacturers involved a tracer element in the wad, again only gives a clue to the wad, not the pattern of lead pellets.

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As above you do get tracker wads, but that in itself can be very misleading especially if you are trying to watch your own shot to see where you are at.

A typical example of where folk do have visible clues, but still get it wrong is shooting rabbits.  Very often people see the ground ‘boil’ behind the rabbit clay as the shot kicks up a lot of dirt and they think they have missed behind so give it a wee bit more lead.  What most commonly happens is people are missing in front, but because the clay is continuing to move by the time the ground boils the clay has moved on and it looks as though you were behind.

The shooters perception is skewed.  The same holds true with tracer wads as the speed of the wad is different to the shot so skews the perception of where the lead was.  Quite often you see this on a teal type target where folk are trying to shoot at the top of the clays flight, they miss and see the wad high above where the clay is and think they missed over the top, but the clay has dropped by the time you perceive that so it is misleading.

The more you watch shooting the more you actually do see the blur of pellets, but you really have to just gaze with a soft focus rather than look for it and it depends entirely on the light conditions too.

The biggest clue for the person standing behind you is the relationship of barrels to clay and most of the time it is obvious where someone is missing.

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3 minutes ago, grrclark said:

As above you do get tracker wads, but that in itself can be very misleading especially if you are trying to watch your own shot to see where you are at.

A typical example of where folk do have visible clues, but still get it wrong is shooting rabbits.  Very often people see the ground ‘boil’ behind the rabbit clay as the shot kicks up a lot of dirt and they think they have missed behind so give it a wee bit more lead.  What most commonly happens is people are missing in front, but because the clay is continuing to move by the time the ground boils the clay has moved on and it looks as though you were behind.

The shooters perception is skewed.  The same holds true with tracer wads as the speed of the wad is different to the shot so skews the perception of where the lead was.  Quite often you see this on a teal type target where folk are trying to shoot at the top of the clays flight, they miss and see the wad high above where the clay is and think they missed over the top, but the clay has dropped by the time you perceive that so it is misleading.

Fascinating. I don't shoot clays but last year I was trying some very high pigeons that were on an overhead flightline. I had a shooting coach (Richard Mumford, from Bisley) looking at what I was doing. When I started i did not have a clue as to why I was missing virtually all of them. The harder I tried the more frustrated I became. After correcting some basic stuff he spoke to me about imagining the lead picture and he was able after just a few minutes to get me on the birds. Once you have the shooting picture in your mind the rest was easy (well some of it 🙂 )and I have continued to use the technique. 

I have just purchased a hushpower 20g o/u which has a barrel like a drainpipe. I went out on the levels and shot at apples coming down the river to see where the point of aim and shot was going. It was pretty much as you described it for the rabbit target above. 

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2 hours ago, Townie said:

Many years ago, Eley did the same thing with a pyrotechnic thingy in the wad. V expensive and if I remember correctly, not that helpful because the wad is slower than the shot. Never bought any, so feel free to ignore!

I remember those, they came in packs of 10 because of the price, they were best used in low light with an observer standing by the shooter's side because the shooter himself was usually unable to see clearly what was happening.

Watching the wad can be useful, especially if the shots are going above or below. As previously stated they are not reliable for indicating whether the shot is in front or behind because they drop behind the shot. An experienced shooter can usually tell, some of the time, if the person he is watching is shooting in front or behind, especially if the error is large. Narrow misses are more difficult to analyse.

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55 minutes ago, grrclark said:

As above you do get tracker wads, but that in itself can be very misleading especially if you are trying to watch your own shot to see where you are at.

A typical example of where folk do have visible clues, but still get it wrong is shooting rabbits.  Very often people see the ground ‘boil’ behind the rabbit clay as the shot kicks up a lot of dirt and they think they have missed behind so give it a wee bit more lead.  What most commonly happens is people are missing in front, but because the clay is continuing to move by the time the ground boils the clay has moved on and it looks as though you were behind.

The shooters perception is skewed.  The same holds true with tracer wads as the speed of the wad is different to the shot so skews the perception of where the lead was.  Quite often you see this on a teal type target where folk are trying to shoot at the top of the clays flight, they miss and see the wad high above where the clay is and think they missed over the top, but the clay has dropped by the time you perceive that so it is misleading.

The more you watch shooting the more you actually do see the blur of pellets, but you really have to just gaze with a soft focus rather than look for it and it depends entirely on the light conditions too.

The biggest clue for the person standing behind you is the relationship of barrels to clay and most of the time it is obvious where someone is missing.

Some really good points there. One thing I'd not considered is that the clay is always moving, so even if you could see the shot you'd have to know the exact point at which it would have passed the clay to know where you missed.

 

Interesting info guys, cheers

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1 hour ago, Demonic69 said:

Some really good points there. One thing I'd not considered is that the clay is always moving, so even if you could see the shot you'd have to know the exact point at which it would have passed the clay to know where you missed.

Knowing if you were behind or in front is helpful of course, but it is also only part of the solution.  The shotkam is great to see where you missed, but why you missed it in front or behind is the real question.

If you know you are behind then it is easy to say give it more lead, but were you behind due to a lack of gun speed, did you just misread the amount of lead required, were you running out of swing due to your body position, is it due to eye dominance or improper sighting along the rib, etc.

That is where a good coach will always add value, to explain why you are missing and what you need to do to address that.

As an example on fast springing teal type targets i have started missing over the top way more than i used too.  The sight picture looks the same to me as it always did when i squeeze the trigger, but i miss over.  I wondered if it was a difference in gun mount or head position, but i wasn’t missing anything else over so that was unlikely.  I got a friend who is a very good shot and coach to stand behind me and in the space of 4 shots we had it worked out, it was my hold point being too low.  To catch up to the target i was moving the gun ever so slightly faster and although the sight picture was identical when i fired the momentum of the faster barrels was taking me over.  I held much higher, smaller gun movement, less momentum, slower barrels and kill every time.

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1 hour ago, grrclark said:

Knowing if you were behind or in front is helpful of course, but it is also only part of the solution.  The shotkam is great to see where you missed, but why you missed it in front or behind is the real question.

Yes but in the overall scheme of things it's better to know how you missed than to be left guessing.

You could go back the following week armed with the knowledge that you were say 18 inches behind last week, I'd rather that than have no idea at all

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2 hours ago, martinj said:

Yes but in the overall scheme of things it's better to know how you missed than to be left guessing.

You could go back the following week armed with the knowledge that you were say 18 inches behind last week, I'd rather that than have no idea at all

So how would that work if the following week there was a stronger tailwind and even with the added 18” of lead you are still behind, or if their is a headwind and you are now massively in front?

Or what if you have changed your foot position slightly and are now not decelerating in your swing and carrying more gun speed?  Or maybe you are colder, muscles tighter and you have a slower swing or are less smooth.

Knowing where you missed does not necessarily tell you why you missed or even help you hit it next time.

The problem with things like shotkam is that people think that knowing the size of the gap as being the fix to their problems, it’s absolutely not.  The lead that you see is relative to many factors and is never a constant such that x target needs y lead.

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58 minutes ago, wymberley said:

I quite like your "soft focus gaze". Down yer, that'll be a gawp. Stood there gawping with your mouth open all one would need would be a little dribble to pass as the village idgit. But I'm sure that I don't have to explain the open mouth.

I remember a shooting instructor at the West London Shooting Ground , (Peter Crabtree?)  trying to teach me how to see the shot. He said it was a knack but once you have got it, it was like riding a bike 

Edited by Vince Green
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I have been able to see the shot string when standing behind a shooter.  Having spent the best part of 65yrs shooting shotgun, I know instinctively where I missed .... usually behind:sad1:

Yesterday had a crossing snap shot at a pheasant through a gap in the trees and knew instinctively I was over the top by a mile and have noticed that recently crossing birds on my right I have been doing the same ...... getting older and less flexible I think.  I think seeing and knowing where you where only comes with lots of experience and spending a few bob on a pro instructor is money well spent.     I was shooting yesterday and one of the guns had a 'contraption' on his O/U half way up the barrel. One of these long illuminated strip sights and what looked like a red dot sight mounted above it.  It looked weird BUT he swore it had improved his performance and that is what counts.  Do not think I will be putting one on my Yilditz 410 though. Just a thought about 'seeing' things.  I wear long distance glasses just to sharpen up the scene and yesterday I forgot them and they where in the car.  I therefore shot all day without them and only missed one bird as mentioned above, all the rest bar one long crosser where stone dead in the air, like they hit a brick wall and my neighbour tidied up the long crosser for me.  I just looked at the bird and let my personal computer take over .... that is not attached to the gun but perched above my neck and so far the finest computer known.  

Edited by Walker570
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On 07/11/2019 at 09:09, Vince Green said:

An experienced eye can see the shot, I have never been able to but it is possible

This is true and i have seen it lots. However, i do think you have to have the right atmospheric conditions. 

*seen other peoples shot. 

Edited by Cawdor118
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3 hours ago, Cawdor118 said:

This is true and i have seen it lots. However, i do think you have to have the right atmospheric conditions. 

*seen other peoples shot. 

Its definitely about where you stand and an overcast day is best. If you video from just behind the shooter's left shoulder and then freeze the frames I am told you can see it clear as day but I have never tried it myself.

I know that if you watch videos of people shooting rats and foxes you can see the bullet clearly going down 

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