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Life of Riley

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I'm wondering what kind of sight picture you see when using a gun with a mid bead in addition to the muzzle bead. I've always lined them up on the barrel, where the mid bead is partially covering the end bead. I was reading a trap book last night and it said the ivory bead should be aligned on top of the mid bead for proper sight picture. I'm sure there is variance here, but curious as to what others do. Thank you.
 
Purpose of two beads is to show you that you have your gun mounted correctly for your shooting style. For some that style causes them to see a figure 8, some the center bead blocking the end bead, others see a section of rib between the beads. When you gun is shooting where your looking, the bead alignment helps correct shot placement where you are focused.
 
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Two things affect how high your gun shoots - how far the center of the pattern impacts above the gun's point of aim (if you were shooting it like a rifle looking along the surface of the rib).

One is the slope of the rib. Guns designed for trap shooting slope down toward the muzzle, which causes the gun to shoot a few inches high at 35 yards.

The other thing is your eye's distance above the surface of the rib. The higher your eye is above the rib, the higher your gun will shoot. When a shooter sees space between the beads, the gun will shoot higher than if the beads were stacked in a figure-8 pattern. (The eye is slightly above the level of the rib.)

Shooters want their guns to shoot high so the pattern will impact above the gun's point if aim. This allows shooting with the target always remaining visible and avoid having to cover the target with the muzzle to provide the vertical lead required to break it.

The choice of how high shooters want their guns to shoot involves their swing speed to the target and the distance to the target when it's shot; some shooters shoot targets much nearer the house when they are rising faster and want higher shooting guns for that reason.

You will need to experiment to find what works best for you. The way to alter your gun's vertical point of impact (POI) is to vary the height of your comb . The higher the comb (your eye) the higher will be the gun's POI.

To have the same POI from one shot to the next, a consistent gun mount if required. This is achieved only with practice mounting with an empty gun 10 -20 times a day for a couple of weeks. There is no other way to achieve it, and it's IMPORTANT.
 
Here's what mine looks like...........

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Lot's of space. But then again I never see them (unless I happen to glance at them), so I guess it really doesn't matter.
And the barrel bead is normally pointing off to the right. I really need to glue that sucker down.
 
Now "if" I was to use Kim's advise , with her being a champion shooter , she recommends stacking TWO (2) quarters on your rib in back of the back bead and if you can see more than the top half
of the front bead , you need a stock adjustment !

Who in their right mind would argue with that ? Knowing most Trap shooters , like to argue , some ?
 
Well my BT99 had a mid bead......till it came off this weekend.... sometime in my last 25 of my 100 bird handicap event. My last 25, mid way through I happen to notice it was missing, I don't know when it came off.....and then when I had to deal with my mind wondering when did the bead fall off as I finished the event.

When it was on there I had a small gap of rib between the front and mid bead. I only used it to help make sure I had a good mount on the gun.
 
Beads are there to check correct alignment in the vertical plane. The separation depends on shooter and the gun. I don't get the space between the beads method because then you have to guess if the space is right amount. Once your mount is consistent then mid bead kind of become meaningless. I personally like the mid bead overlapping on the front.
 
I have my mid bead blacked out now that I have a consistent gun mount. I used them to check my gun alignment/mount but I did not like the "look" of the gap between the beads and got to worrying about the spacing. By blackening the mid bead the "gap" isn't so noticeable to me. I run the meadows sight up front with the plain white tube and can still use them to check left/right alignment but the vertical is mostly by feel and that has become consistent. Once in a while something does not "feel right" and I will make a visual check and remount if necessary. No magic it just didn't look right to me, like some golf clubs, so it doesn't stand out so much now.
 
Front bead is a rather small bead & its blacked out-just used to check my mount-also if I can't see the black out line of the bead clearly I blink a couple of times and shift my focus to the field

Phil Berkowitz
 
If you can imagine the height of two sticks of gum stacked on top of each other, that's the amount of space I put between my beads. That works out to about an 80/20 pattern split on my gun. With that sight picture I hold the front bead just below the clay on a straight away shot. At least that's what it looked like when I first started shooting. Now, I don't even see the beads while shooting, only while mounting and sighting the gun.
 
Purpose of two beads is to show you that you have your gun mounted correctly for your shooting style.
I think the initial purpose of the mid-bead was put in play by gun manufacturers to sell more guns to shooters, "fitting themselves" to that stock with the proverbial figure 8 business!

I've watched shooters pick up a gun and adjust their head till they saw the figure 8 then say, this one fits!! Nothing could be further from the truth! One of the reasons it took many thousands of targets shot to become somewhat consistent with a new gun!

There's nothing like a stock that fits a shooter for his personal timing to the shot on a moving target! Even if it has only a single front bead! The mid-bead more than likely has hindered and further confused more shooters than it's helped them become a consistent shot.

HAP
 
Back when old live bird shooters only had ONE bead , you'd see some chalking-up the rib . I noticed as some stopped this chalking 3" from the end of the barrel , while others , only chalked to last 14"......?
Makes one think it was the beginning of the 2 beaded guns ?
 
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