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L.P. Brezny is the gold standard for field testing ammo and guns. This month he tested BACKRIDGE ITX non-toxic shotshells. Sounds like these are an excellent alternative to tungsten-based ammo. The shot is soft unlike traditional steel shot and has the Saturn-like ring around each pellet which makes them deadly on impact. Mr. Brezny found these cartridges very effective at up to 55 yards. He did not speak about any problems at close range, so this may be one of the few non-toxic cartridges that patterns well at all distances up to the 55 yards he acknowledged. ______________________________________
CLAYTARGET NATION – June 2018 Today’s shooting articles are dominated by the research of Anders Erickson and Joan Vickers. Dr. Vickers research is on the “Quiet Eye” effect in sports. Paul Giambrone, III reminds us this month on the importance of the “Quiet Eye” in skeet. I recently gave a lesson to a student on this exact principle. Set your eyes at your look point then mount the gun to your hold point. When done correctly your eyes do not look back at the barrel/bead. They stay in soft focus at your look point and you are ready for the appearance of the target. Mounting and checking your beads, then going into soft focus at your look point is less efficient. You tend to forget the look point and stay with the barrel/bead. There’s no need to check your beads. You’ve mounted the gun enough times to know if everything is correct. Also, too
many shooters never experiment with their look and hold points. Do it. Try new ones. This is especially true if you tend to swing over targets. _________________________________ Draw length is the distance the gun travels to the shooter’s face from the ready position. The general rule, the longer you wait for a target to get in range, the larger the draw length. Close targets have short draw lengths, distant targets have longer draw lengths. Clayton M. Rue believes fast crossing targets require a long draw length. This allows the shooter to build momentum and gun speed. Slow crossing targets means less draw length. It makes sense. You can test this for yourself on a skeet field. Use Station 4 as your close, fast, crossing target, then use the low house on Station 3 or the high house on 6 as your slow, crossing target. I’ll try it and let you know. 7