One little trick I have picked up from another video to practice gun mounting, is to stick a drinking strawer (using blutack) to the top of the rib line on the barrel, from the cartridge chamber towards the end of the barrel. If you think you have mounted your gun correctly then you should be able to look with the centre of your aiming eye straight through the hole in the strawer, uninterrupted. But if you can't then you need to realign your gun /head so that you can. This will help to ensure that your eyes are always aligned with the rib looking down the barrel. Thought this was a brilliantly simple idea for practicing gun mounting.
Just remember bring the gun to the face not the face to the gun. Keep your eyes parallel with the ground. And remember the figure 8. Top of the mid bead under bottom of the front bead. Then concentrate on the target not the gun. Your hands will naturally follow where your eyes are looking.
3 fingers means absolutely nothing, it makes no consideration for the individual or simple body mechanics. You cannot expect a fixed measurement to be equally applicable to a 6 foot tall, long limbed skinny man with high cheekbones and a long neck, versus a 5.5ft chubby faced man with a short neck. Absolutely pointless. Gun fit (and mount) will always be specific to an individual.
This was my exact problem, people telling me i mount inconsistently and wrong, i'm 6'3 long limbed, long neck and skinny, when my local club and gunsmiths measured my stock it was an Inch and a quarter too short for my arm length. Funnily enough it was all the short chubby lads that said I was just doing it wrong !
This is a good basic illustration of a good mount. However, over the years I have developed a couple additional body mechanics to help new shooters feel the proper mount. 1. Not everyone has the same cheek bone structure. I ask the shooter to place a pencil or even their index finger on the cheek point bone and notice where the pencil or finger is pointing. Most times it points somewhere across their face towards their nose. This means they will need to turn their nose towards the comb to get the proper cheek mount. This also help to set the dominate eye on top of the comb. 2. Upon push the gun forward and bringing the comb to the cheek, there is a slight to moderate shrugging of the shoulders to make the final mount. Watching this video, I can see the last bit of your mount has that slight shoulder shrug to finish the mount. Your thoughts.
Your #1 recomendation fixed 10 years of wrong mounting for me!! I have always tried to mount the gun almost paralell to my head, and then had to tilt my head to reach the rib. I was just about to start removing wood from my stock, and I tried the finger pressed to the cheekbone. And yes, it pointed straight to my nose. Tried mounting my A5 again, and it was perfect. Thank you!!!
This video helps a lot, especially the part at 1:56. One of the biggest problems I have is figuring out how square my body needs to be with the gun. I think I have been trying to get my shotgun to fit when mounting by squaring up more with the gun. That isn’t an ideal process with a pump, where squaring up more makes the pump harder to operate. I have been watching your other videos about fit (Drop in comb/heal and stock length), but correct mount is vital to establishing the correct fit. I really appreciate everything you and your team do,
This may be a strange question but I can’t be the only one one. My eyes are not level, the left being lower. Should I tilt my head to have them level ?
Great video, some of us have to adapt to the gun we have been given, ie from your parents, I could not afford lessons, dad showed me how to do that, I started with a baikal, never owned a gun worth more than 500 quid, but I shot well either at clays or game,
* This all well and good, but if the gun stock doesn't fit you, you will never establish a consistent sight picture. This really will become more apparent when bird hunting, where the hunter will be subjected to the sudden appearance of birds at varying degrees of angles, distances, the speed of the bird, and not to forget the difficulties that the terrain may impose.
Wood to metal every time I close my gun, with barrels pointed down and fingers clear of the trigger/triggers as the trigger hand controls the stock. It's a far safer habit to adopt and better to shoot the ground if the gun misfires due to a e.g. protruding striker, than swing barrels to close the gun mid-air, with loaded barrels arching vertically through the horizontal plane.
Wonderful video - I never knew about proper shotgun mounting in 20 minutes my son & I will give this a go. I also learned that I am left eye dominant but right handed so I am learning to shoot left handed.
