Something new coming from Aimpoint 1/17…

[Elwin]

Broaden your horizons:



What you described re: target focus and pointing where you’re looking is EXACTLY how you are supposed to run a red dot, whether on shotgun, pistol, or carbine.

I believe that also explains why brand new shooters who start with red dots are more successful with them. Because they are doing exactly what you describe.

Those of us who transitioned from irons have to work a lot harder to break old habits. We say we’re doing target focus etc but more often than not we are not, or are not doing it consistently.

I had a long reply typed to this but to keep it shorter I think there are probably different ways of approaching wing shooting, and I don’t know if mine is right, wrong, just one option of multiple, or in either case if it’s a majority or minority approach.

I’m the guy who shot a 391 for an entirely unknown span of time before noticing, while handling it at home, that it no longer had a front bead, just to explain where I come from on this. To me, adding an Aimpoint to a sporting shotgun isn’t objectionable, but it is doing something totally different than before in that it’s adding a visual reference as the primary method of aligning bore and target when that wasn’t the method before. With the dot on my pistol, I’ve replaced one aiming reference with a simpler and better one. It’s different, but I’m still doing the same fundamental thing, just differently. Adding a sight to my shotgun when I wasn’t using one before is changing the fundamental process and it seems that would require relearning how to shoot it.

Others’ mileage, especially new shooters’, may well vary. For example, I do appreciate the point that the dot helps identify a bad mount in that if your mount is off the dot isn’t there. That makes sense, and that is definitely a huge struggle for new shooters.

[HCM]

I had a long reply typed to this but to keep it shorter I think there are probably different ways of approaching wing shooting, and I don’t know if mine is right, wrong, just one option of multiple, or in either case if it’s a majority or minority approach.

I’m the guy who shot a 391 for an entirely unknown span of time before noticing, while handling it at home, that it no longer had a front bead, just to explain where I come from on this. To me, adding an Aimpoint to a sporting shotgun isn’t objectionable, but it is doing something totally different than before in that it’s adding a visual reference as the primary method of aligning bore and target when that wasn’t the method before. With the dot on my pistol, I’ve replaced one aiming reference with a simpler and better one. It’s different, but I’m still doing the same fundamental thing, just differently. Adding a sight to my shotgun when I wasn’t using one before is changing the fundamental process and it seems that would require relearning how to shoot it.

Others’ mileage, especially new shooters’, may well vary. For example, I do appreciate the point that the dot helps identify a bad mount in that if your mount is off the dot isn’t there. That makes sense, and that is definitely a huge struggle for new shooters.

That last part is funny because it does the same thing for pistol presentation on the draw. We see a bunch of people who think their presentation and index is good, but can’t find find the dot. then when they do start finding the doctor consistently and they go back to Iron Sights, they are “amazed”…

[rob_s]

Seems to me that whether or not you want to out a read dot on your sporting gun depends on your reason for doing it in the first place.

We put dots on “fighting guns” because it's “stakes not odds” and there's “no cheating in a gunfight” and “mission drives the geartrain” and all that. You want every advantage you can give yourself so you don't get killed.

But when it comes to sporting clays (and, frankly, any gun game, now that I think about it) the “mission” gets a littlemuddier and the “gear train” can get pretty far off the tracks.

I wouldn't be opposed to putting an optic in the shotgun, but I kind of wonder why I would? I shoot sporting clays a few times a year with wife, friends, co-workers, etc. Don't get out there often enough to “get serious” about the game or even the gear. I'm shooting the cheapest beretta semi-auto I could buy at the time (and I often can't even remember the model, I think it's an a300 outlander). I am often accused of being “too serious” when I'm shooting but as soon as I step out of the boxits all about the socializing, being outdoors, having a cigar, good company (in retrospect, as it turns out, all the same reasons I shot idpa and uspsa all those years ago). Based on what I see on the course, pretty much everyone else there is there for the same reasons, whether they know it or not.

I'd like to be more serious about it, do it more often, improve, be able to graduate from the kiddiecourse to the big boy course (went over there once, missed every bird, went back to the romper room where I belong), have and excuse to buy a “real gun… but I have other time commitments, the range is too far away, funds wind up going elsewhere, etc.

But even if I *was* able to get out to the course every weekend, and I did finally feel like I'd earned that a400 (yeah, that's my big goal in sporting shotguns, haha), still don't think I'd want a “cheat code” because the point is the challenge.

I remember a friend that was really into road biking. He mentioned some god-awful expensive wheel he bought. I asked him what made it so expensive, and he said it was lighter and so it made it easier to pedal or some such. I said “I don't understand, I thought you were out there for the exercise?” he didntreally have an answer. I suspect there were other reasons, and he likely just got caught up in the pursuit of MOAR(just like many of us do),but to me putting an optic on a clays gun just kinda feels like that.

I'm there first and foremost to have fun.
After that, it's about the challenge and the pursuit of improvement (and I'd truly love to focus more on those)..
I'm not fooling myself into thinking I'm competitive in any way.

I'm betting the first two account for 99% of sporting clays shooters, and adding an optic not only doesn't help but would diminish them.

of their other 1% that are actually trying to be competitive, maybe 1% of those are going to change their standing with an optic.

Having never hunted birds, I'd imagine there's some parallels there too. It's not like anyone is out chasing pheasants with a $4k shotgun because otherwise the family will starve…