When Should You Use Low Gun?

These days, it seems like target setters are giving shooters less time to hit the first target to make the second target consistently broken.

This evolution has changed the game from a low gun to a high gun game. With distance comes a slower muzzle movement but with less time to keep the muzzle movement slow to match speed. This means we have had to eliminate the mounting of the gun.

So, our coaching has shifted to a more gun up ready position with our face off the stock and nose pointed to our pickup point to optimize what little time we have to break the first target to get to the second target with enough time to break it consistently.

As you know, in the game of FITASC, shooters have a line on their vest or shirt and the heel of the stock must be on or under the line until the target is seen by the shooter. There are, however, some targets in sporting clays where you approach them with a down gun or a “cheat mount” with a short draw length.

Any target that is in the air for a long time could better be shot from a low mount start position. These types of shots where the breakpoint is more toward the end of the target’s flight path will tend to make the shooter get too involved with the muzzle! This makes the muzzle slow down and the target while it is going very slow will eventually get inside the lead and the target will be missed.

Approaching these types with a low gun will keep the gun out of the shooter’s face until the bird begins to merge into the breakpoint, allowing for an ultra-slow smooth mount into the lead and matching the speed as the shot is taken.