It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing
David Turner considers one of the most important aspects of your technique: the swing
Many years ago as a young and up-and-coming shooter, one of the most talked-about aspects of the art of shooting with a shotgun was the swing. I learned very quickly how important this swing had to be. It was soon to become my best ally, along with the mount, which we’ll talk about on another occasion.
Intuitive technique
It’s important to understand that shooting with a shotgun is an art form – using our hand and eye co-ordination abilities and developing an intuitive technique. Shooting a rifle is a more calculated and measured sport altogether.
These days, most teaching techniques seem to focus on tracking a target not, as I was taught, to swing through and then in front of the target as required. We need to be clear that the technique we use most commonly and I use for the majority of my shooting is known as the ‘follow through’ method. There are three basic techniques taught by the majority of instructors today: the follow through; the pull away; and, the maintained lead.
For this article we’re going to examine the follow-through and pull-away methods, which will help us develop and learn to swing and move rather than follow or ‘poke’.
Swing and movement make all the difference
Game shooters in particular often use the technique referred to as ‘Bum, Belly, Beak, Bang’. This helps shooters grab hold of the fundamental need to swing and move the gun past or through the target having come from behind, firing as we pass the beak or leading edge of a clay and, for more distant targets, the moment a given lead estimation is seen. You will appreciate that this means the gun is swinging faster than the target.
Stroke it – don’t poke it
When pigeon shooting some years ago, I remember that the birds were higher than I would have liked. They wouldn’t decoy at all. I found myself ‘stroking’ them smoothly, pulling ahead by quite a margin and enjoying some spectacular long shots. In