how to teach the amount of lead ?

[cottonpicker]

i am looking for any advice on how to instruct the basics on far to lead a flying target. i know that speed and distance as well as velocity of the shotshells being used is all factured in, and that only practice will do the trick,but there must be some way to explain the basics on how many feet or inches is used.thanx in advace for any suggestions

[Graybeard]

It's really NOT a simple thing to do. To attempt it at all I feel you need a consistent target presentation such as a skeet range offers. There is a finite lead you need for each target presented on the skeet range but even there it varies depending on the type of lead you choose whether sustained lead, swing thru or pull ahead. Still the targets are consisiten and the next is gonna be exactly like the last at any given station.

When you have that you can then define the lead and can use visual aids such as placing something out there under the path of the target that represents the correct lead and you can have the student look at that visual aid over their gun barrel just as if they were shooting and that gives the most precisely defined example I can think of. Then they must learn to apply that same visual picture to their shooting of the target. That works best in my experience using sustained lead. The trouble is not all targets really lend themselves well to a sustained lead method.

If you're using a hand trap like those offered by Outers and others that sits on the ground so you can duplicate the presentation over and over like a skeet range then you can teach the same way without interference with other shooters as you would at a range.

Trap and sporting clays are far more difficult to teach in this manner in that the presentations change too much from target to target. Game is next to impossible to teach in such a manner it seems to me as presentation is NEVER the same twice.

I feel skeet or a hand trap in a secluded area are the best means to teach a new shooter the basics of lead. Once the basics are taught then it's really nothing but practice that's gonna lead to improvement.

[cottonpicker]

thanx for the great advice,guess its time to stock up on shells

[petemi]

Game targets never appear exactly the same way twice.  I really can't remember how I learned.  I certainly wasn't taught.  I just said to myself, "I missed" and tried to remember what I did wrong.  Today, about 50 plus years later, I still pick up a few boxes of shells and go over to my neighbors farms.  They're each only about a mile and half away and have barns and silos infested with starlings and pigeons.  I have permission to shoot whenever I'd like, but I always confirm first before going, just to be sure I'm not going to interfere with what they're doing.  If you set up about an hour or two before dusk, the birds will be returning to the silos and barns.  The more you shoot and the later it gets, the more desperate they are to get in and the harder to hit.  They come in low and fast.  It doesn't take long to figure out what you're doing wrong.  We always pick up the birds and spent shells and thank the farmer.  He's happy because we saved him some grain and crops and we are too because we had some fine shooting.  I certainly agree with Graybeard, It's a matter of putting lead down the barrel and seeing where it didn't go.  An instructor can be of great benefit if he watches a kid shoot and watches his form..follow through etc.  What I did with my kid, shooting at clays, I loaded an empty in his chamber......yeah, sure enough, he was flinching.