Most of my rational brain says to laugh and just move on....but I can’t.
I ll stand by my article on sights. In regards to the comparing shooting humans trying to kill you and a flying bird....Seriously? My wingsports experience is limited. My wife;however, spent a lot of years as a professional bird hunting guide. Easy question over breakfast...”Hey sweetie, when you were guiding, how often did you have to kill downed birds on the ground”...”All the time, we had to hand kill birds on every hunt”. So this woman who spent all day from dawn to dusk every Saturday and Sunday during upland bird hunting season for 8 years had to hand kill....BIRDS, little, tiny, weighed in ounces, BIRDS because they were “hit” so poorly at bird speed that in many cases wouldn’t kill the bird and hell most were likely killed by the fall and not the quality of hit.
So....Why would anyone think that the level of hit needed to drop a bird or break a clay (that are so fragile they will break in the thrower) is remotely sufficient for a full size, often enraged or medicated into numbness, human being that will require a minimum of about 12 inches of penetration through thick muscle and bone covered in resilient clothing and that load of shot or slug must then penetrate and destroy critical organs to stop the threat of a human trying to kill you.
So with that I use loads and sighting systems that best allow me to place the best ballistic package in a 5” diameter zone in the chest or head from any angle presented to me in any lighting conditions. I also have to take into account ballistic barriers presented in things like a vehicle or other cover.
By the same token, I use a Benelli competition clays gun for shooting flying clay birds and will be getting a Beretta A400 Extreme Plus to match my wife’s for trying to put a couple of small shot on a flying bird enough to make it stop flying...which isn’t a lot.
What I have learned from the wingsports is gun fit to put the sight in direct alignment with the eye is hugely helpful for hitting the vital zone of slower but much harder to stop humans. Combine that stock fit alignment with a well thought out sighting system and load selection for the problem most likely encountered and it is a winning combo.
I am starting to teach using sporting shotguns for defense and it is not that difficult but is limited to mostly indoor home defense scenarios. Exactly where a good fit shotgun with a bead is a workable solution.