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Lead required?

4K views 68 replies 33 participants last post by  High Rib 52 
#1 ·
Every year our club runs a 'Duckshooters' style shoot, a bit of afun day and our Gunclubs are open to all game shooters to try their luck.
We normally have 8 stands, 3 traps a stand, but I was hoping to put on 1 (non scoring) stand of a 70/80 meter springer and a 50 meter/yard crosser.
My question to the techno buffs, finally, is what lead is required (standard target off Promatic Falcon/Ranger)to break that target. I'd like to give the punters some idea of required lead, just a fun stand.
Thanks in advance!!
 
#53 ·
KRIEGHOFFK80 said:
Ulysses said:
A standard crossing target at 50 yards will take about 14 to 15 feet of lead with a typical 1200 fps shell. Varying the muzzle velocity makes very little difference (perhaps a few inches) in the amount of lead required.
So if your gun fits, shoots where you are looking and you are looking hard at the target you will be 14 to 15 feet behind?
Terry. Exactly. Do not look at the target on crossers. At the last minute look exactly out in front to the perfect lead and crush the target. These guys that tell you to insert a desired gap in front and stretch it out while you look only at the target are lost. Also, in line intercept( collapsing lead) is also a bad method, because it to requires you to look hard at the bird.
 
#54 ·
Mmm... :shock: :?
Well let's see, do you agree that in Dubai there were the longest and fastest and thoughest targets ever seen in an international competition?
Do we agree that for example Gebben M and Anthony M. say that they look hard at the target and not at the gap?
If you go and check the scoreboard you will find that, casually, they are in the first three positions, maybe it's a pure coincidence? I don't think so nor I dare to say that this IS the right method, but please don't come out with those unbeliveable affirmations like "those guys .....are lost", cause there can be some unexperienced new shooters here that maybe can believe at what you write.
P.S. This subject of where to look must be an obsession for someone, aren't 92 pages sufficient to understand it?
Illini Shooter has given IMO two posts before the most appropriate answer to the question since now {hs#
 
#55 ·
I suppose you shoot in the grade your in, and the style/s you are happy with and in the end the scoreboard tells you where you stand, and in the overall mix how good you are with your style.
All the big boys and girls seem to tell you to have all methods in your toolbox to challenge any presentation.
Personally I wouldn't challenge anyone's method, why would you, each to his/her own.
 
#56 ·
Exactely Madds,
if you read with attention my post I was just saying the same thing.
I'm not challenging any method, in fact I wrote that
Pock65 said:
nor I dare to say that this IS the right method
, while 1redvette wrote
1redvette said:
These guys that tell you to insert a desired gap in front and stretch it out while you look only at the target are lost. Also, in line intercept( collapsing lead) is also a bad method, because it to requires you to look hard at the bird.
.
It seems to me that I'm not the one who criticizes one method or another, and surely we must know how to use all the various tools, I just said that we must be cautious with the affirmations we do, and maybe perhaps avoiding to give them the tone of judgments carved in stone. :?
 
#57 ·
I am no expert but on most courses looking hard at the leading edge works just fine for me most of the time. But some longer crosser's had quartering birds need some conscious thinking to get the gun out far enough. Now I tried Anthony s method of inserting to the lead on long birds, gun speed same as target and a tiny stretch at the end. Sometimes this works great but I need to remember the stretch.
 
#58 ·
So I guess I'll throw my 2 cents in here. Ill start by saying that I'm a fairly new shooter. Ive always hunted but have only shot clays for a year (and don't get to shoot often enough). Over the last year I have watched my scores steadily increase until recently. I've plateaued. I shoot ok now. I'm right there with the average to slightly above average guys when I shoot. But, of course I want to get better (an I realize more practice is the BEST way). On, many targets, i feel like i know exactly what i have/need to do to break them successfully. But on a few targets, im just lost. I dont know if im in front, behind, above, below, or somewhere else. So, I decided to give the "unit lead method" a try for giggles to maybe guide me along into figuring some of these out. I will say that it DID help me a bit. I don't know if I'd use the method full time, but I think it did narrow down some of my misses. It helped me realize HOW I was missing. I will say, IMO, the method of using a hand stretched out and counting knuckles is a little weird. Weird to me because, the gap (lead in knuckles) is being measured at the forearm of the gun (or an extended arm). So IMO you really need to interpolate a little. Measure the lead in knuckles, then give it a little more lead to compensate for the distance from the knuckles to the end of the barrel. This gives a pretty close approximation to where the gun needs to be in relation to the target. I basically will use it as a practice tool occasionally to help me narrow down a target that is giving me trouble. Not the end all be all for ME, but I will use it as a tool.

Thanks to pock for sending me the PDF. Much appreciated.
 
#60 ·
Diyelker said:
But on a few targets, im just lost. I dont know if im in front, behind, above, below, or somewhere else. So, I decided to give the "unit lead method" a try for giggles to maybe guide me along into figuring some of these out. I will say that it DID help me a bit. I don't know if I'd use the method full time, but I think it did narrow down some of my misses. It helped me realize HOW I was missing. I will say, IMO, the method of using a hand stretched out and counting knuckles is a little weird. Weird to me because, the gap (lead in knuckles) is being measured at the forearm of the gun (or an extended arm). So IMO you really need to interpolate a little. Measure the lead in knuckles, then give it a little more lead to compensate for the distance from the knuckles to the end of the barrel. This gives a pretty close approximation to where the gun needs to be in relation to the target. I basically will use it as a practice tool occasionally to help me narrow down a target that is giving me trouble. Not the end all be all for ME, but I will use it as a tool.

Thanks to pock for sending me the PDF. Much appreciated.
Diyelker,
thanks for taking the time to try the "hand method", I would suggest you to use it in the simplest way, as it must be used, i.e. look through the extended arm and see directely down at the chosen breaking point the lead needed. It is not correct to make interpolations or other weird things, you only have to look through the knuckles and you will have instantaneously your "sight picture" materialized. Then procede to shoot in your usual way, without measuring, trying to replicate the sight picture you saw an instant before. Very simple.
Thanks for the feedback, and if you have other further questions don't mind to ask, posting in the other thread "Visualizing the lead". :D
 
#61 ·
Madds,
This thread COULD run to 100 pages if you let it, but why?
All you guys who are obsessed with Lead and mathematics / calculus, should instead get yourselves a copy of the Eley diary where it gives calculations for leads at numerous distances, but you still have to go out and visualise your perception of that lead, in other words, practice.
Your time would be far better spent and more rewardingly by setting up a crossing target to be shot from various distances such as 10,20,30,40,50,60 yards back from the target line .
Charge each competitor 2$ per shot moving back after successfully hitting a target at each distance until they get to the 60 yard line . Person having the least number of shots to be successful is the winner who could then receive a prize or a percentage of the takings?
 
#62 ·
salopian said:
Madds,
This thread COULD run to 100 pages if you let it, but why?

The moderater will shut it down before then. No worries there.

"All you guys who are obsessed with Lead and mathematics / calculus, should instead get yourselves a copy of the Eley diary where it gives calculations for leads at numerous distances, but you still have to go out and visualise your perception of that lead, in other words, practice."

I agree with the practice part. As a new shooter though, I have to be in the ballpark as far as amount of lead to start the practice. If I shoot a flat of shells, 20 feet in front or behind the target, then that is a waste. For a NEW shooter, some calculations seem appropriate. Calculate, get close, practice, and when you do start breaking the target, remember/learn.

One day, when I've shot 30,000 rounds and I can tell right from wrong, then I will probably think the calculators, measuring methods are phooey...but as a new shooter, I need a little guidance so I can begin to see what it's supposed to look like...and I'm getting there.
 
#64 ·
Diyelker
Really don't measure, you will never get out of that rut once you start.
salopian and Sera both have good idea's and if you start close and move back it will become clear
as to what you need to do. The whole picture will slow down if you slow it down and take notice when you pull the trigger, keep the gun up there and watch after the shot you will see it. Then start to move back at 10 yards at a time. Tight choke so you know if you are in front, right on or behind.
Over or under you should see that. I see many newer shooters pull the trigger and the gun is half way down after the shot, slow it down in practice you will see it, barrel and bird and where they need to be to smash it. When I say slow it down I mean so you really see it.
If you start at 40 yards and start plunking well yes that might be a long day and many flats if someone is standing behind you telling you where you are at.
Good luck {hs#
 
#65 ·
Salopian,
your method undoubtely is good and it works but you need to:
- have a good memory
- shoot a bunch of shells before you understand the correct sight pictures
- do the same process at 10,20,30,40,50,60 yds for every common presentation at the various angles,i.e. for : - crossers
- deep quartering
- medium quartering
- shallow quartering
and for all the variations in altitude for the clays, i.e. for:- low targets
- medium height
- teal type medium height
- vertical teal type

and you must repeat it for :
- incoming clays
- outgoing clays.

As you can see the combinations for all the presentations are very very high :|
Anyway this is the common method that coaches use to teach, because the more time a student need to learn, the more money they put into their wallet, the more cartridges are sold, the more clays are thrown (I can understand them and the range owners, they make it for living... :) but we are not a bunch of chickens waiting to be plucked 8) ).
Substantially this method is the same that the ancient cathedral constructors used in the Middle Ages: "try and pray". If the sections of the columns and the thickness of the domes were correct then the cathedral was erected, otherwise at a a certain point there was a big crash and they started again from the foundations, until they found the correct proportions.
From 1700-1800 with the introduction of the "scientific method" and with the aid of calculus the engineers began to rationally "calculate" the sections needed, and the collapsed structures were a little minorance in respect to the past.
To make a long story short, when you are learning to shoot you can choose an empirical "try and see" method or a rational method to determine what you need to break a clay at a certain distance, angle and speed.
The "U.L." method of P.Blakeley (and the "hand lead" method for an easier visualization :) ) are very effective in solving this kind of problem: you don't need to have an elephantiac memory to remember all the possible sight pictures, you must simply evaluate the angle of the clay (and the distance for crossers) and choose the correct one between only 6 possible sight pictures.
Every method can work, each one operates his choices as he prefers.
 
#66 ·
Pock, your argument falls on it's face, when you state you only need a few different "knuckle" leads for all targets. The same it true for learning proper lead. An out going quartering target uses the same lead "sight picture" as an in coming quartering target of the same angle. You need not "remember" any more sight pictures than you would need to remember how many "units/knuckles/pennies/squirrel tails" of lead a particular target would take!

There is a BUNCH of over thinking measurement going on here!
 
#67 ·
Unplugged,
when you already know how to do something you have no difficulty in doing it.
How many of the new shooters can explain and apply the logic of lead?
If you have a better method to let them figure out, this could be a good occasion to share it with us :wink:
 
#68 ·
I didn't realise that I had to stop the posts running!
I would have assumed that any post good or bad will stop once people get bored with it.
I have no issues with it carrying on, all very interesting thoughts and comments I reckon.
It was a very simple question at the start but has developed from there, I suppose if it bores you or you think NOT AGAIN, may I respectively suggest read something you like.
 
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