doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel length and perceived lead

I know this is a question that may possibly be better suited for another forum, but here I am, and here goes.

It is generally accepted that the longer the barrel(s) on a shotgun the less the perceived lead will be on a specific target presentation. I do not argue this and, in fact believe this may be the reason so many of the best sporting clay competitors in the world are using 32" barrels now ......... it's just easier to replicate a shorter perceived lead on repetitive targets than it is a longer lead. So, I do not question the premise.

But, my question is why. Why do 32" barrels make the perceived lead look less that that of a shorter barrel(s)? I'm looking for an answer that is based on the physics ............. plain and simple (numbers, if necessary ).

Anybody here understand the mechanics of it well enough to explain it to me?

Thanks, SRH

It's my opinion that longer barrels swing better and are harder to stop. I shoot skeet and it looks the same 26 or 32 inch

bill

Is the center of balance farther forward on 32 inch barreled guns?

I dont accept the premise regarding longer barrels and perceived lead. Where is this written?

Physics tells us that it is only a misguided perception.

The shooter's line of sight, presuming he has mounted the gun correctly and has his cheek firmly on the comb, resembles a ray. A ray is perfectly straight but is not a line. A line has a beginning and an end while a ray has neither. The line of sight follows a ray along the rib, through the bead or beads and continues in a predetermined direction through a point at a specific distance ahead of the moving target.

No barrel length will change this.

True, but if you think in terms of minutes of angle (MOA), it is ever so slightly easier to estimate lead on a crossing target if the barrel is longer. Enough to be significant? Probably not.

Think about a dove crossing at 40 yards (120 feet), flying at 60mph. 60mph is 88 ft/sec. A load at 1200fps will take 1/10 of a second to travel from the shooter's position to the point at which the dove will cross the line of the shot. 1/10 of 88 feet is 8.8 feet, so there's your lead. If the barrel (or ray) is 40 yards long, it would be (theoretically) easier to maintain the correct lead with a 40 yard barrel than with a 28" barrel. So, theoretically, a longer barrel helps with lead. In practice, I think it's hooey. Advantage is probably swing weight and gun balance on that kind of target.

40 plus years ago, when I was shooting Skeet seriously, 26" was the norm and 28" was considered long barrels. Four barrel sets were the ultimate and sets of pumps or semi autos were what poor people had to shoot. Then along came Claude Purbaugh and later Jess Briley, Skeet Masters and Kolar tubes. Combined they changes Skeet for ever. Tighter choke and heavy guns became the norm. We accepted that barrel heavy guns were better because we did not stop our swing. We accepted that 28" was better than 26", in turn we accepted that 30" was better than 28" because the longer sighting plane and more forward weight was smoother. Later it became 32" and even 34" made a decent following. It is the Indian not the bow or the arrow.

Truth is that if you mount the gun and look right down the barrels the length becomes impossible to know. I perceive that same lead for short or long barrels. It all looks like it is half an inch long to me. MOI is another matter but you could get the same MOI by changing the weight distribution so that 26" barrels weighted the same as 32" barrels. It would cost money but it can be done if you desire. Most of my longer barreled guns I shoot better because they are heavier and my swing is smoother.

What really has changed is the chokes we use and the quality of our ammo, especially in the smaller gauges. Today's ammo is vastly better than anything we had back then. If I had today's Winchester AAHS or the Remington equivalent several of my 395-397 would have been 399-400's unless that lump in my through caused me to choke.

It may or may not have been "written" somewhere, but I've been around many excellent sporting clays shooters and some hellacious dove shots over the last 50+ years, and it is a perception among many of the better shooters that this is so.

I won't sit here and say that I can tell the difference between the lead on a 30" barrel and a 32", I can't. But, I have shot clays with a 36" barreled Valmet O/U (they were sold as waterfowlers), and there sure is a difference, to me, between what I must see to break the bird with it and with a similar 26" barreled gun. Don't disparage the notion until you have tried vastly different lengths yourself .............. 10" of barrel length makes a difference. BTW, the 36" Valmet is a ribless wonder of a gun. It handles beautifully for all it's cumbersome length. Absolutely amazing, I'd love for Don to spin one. The barrels are very lightweight for their length.

Maybe it's impossible to quantify this with physics, like so much of the rest of the mental side of shotgunning. Perception can be reality ........... if you believe it affects your shooting it probably will.

This will probably drive Wonko bonkers.

SRH

What if part of the way the brain processes perceived lead is based upon the width of the muzzle in comparison to the size of the target? IOW, what if your brain "uses" the muzzle width as a reference? Not saying it does, just wondering aloud.

Billy Perdue, one of the most successful American live pigeon shooters in modern times, shot a S x S. He said that the reason he did was because shooting box birds is mostly a game of elevation, and the greater width of the S x Ss barrels gives a better reference for the mind to process elevation lead. If that's the case, couldn't a difference in perceived width affect the brain's ability to calculate lead on crossers? If so, it could also help explain the difficulty many have with a .410 when they first begin to shoot one at doves or targets.

Food for thought.

SRH

No, not necessarily.

SRH

Robert Churchill would say 25" barrels are what you need and he would sell you some. I like longer barrels. A friend shoots nothing but 34" barrels but he could shoot anything well. It's about balance and personal preference IMO.

eeb, I was just about to bring up Churchill. Thanks! He played mind games with perception, short barrels, and the Churchill rib.

Stan, an outdoor writer named L.P. Brezny used to live in the Twin Cities. There were places where it was legal to hunt waterfowl fairly close to "civilization", but Brezny often had to deal with guys in uniform checking to see what all the shooting was about so early in the morning. So he developed something called the "Metro Barrel" (eventually Hastings made them) that was REALLY long and screwed onto a regular shotgun barrel. Then Federal developed some sub-sonic steel loads to go with it. The darned thing sounded about like a .22.

Anyhow, Federal hosted a bunch of outdoor writers, and we got to try it out. The Metro Barrel, surprisingly, did not add a lot of weight. Straightaways were OK, but swinging the thing really felt odd. But as long as that barrel was, perceived lead on a crosser would have been reduced to about nothing, assuming that theory is correct . . . although there is the issue of the greatly reduced velocity of those sub-sonic loads.

good thread...

+1

There is no physics or geometry that will explain that unless you are a one-eyed shooter and shoot the gun like a rifle. Two-eyed shooters do not to my knowledge see the gun and set leads. For them the concept of "sighting plane" does not exist.
It all looks the same to me whether I shoot 27", 28", 30", 32". or 34" barrels. I just shoot the target. For fast target games like OT setting a lead is just not within the time realm of a human and I doubt that anyone does that.
YMMV

I'm with Stan. The tracks are the same distance apart.

Avoiding the bird-target-bead relationship debate, the perceived lead does change with a longer barrel ie. that thingie on the end of the barrel that we are NOT looking at is farther from our eye

The above pic also demonstrates why the top of the rib appears more "U" shaped as the barrel length increases.

It's all because the eye itself is round. It the eye were rectangular then there would be no perceived difference at all.

I'd like to hunt rabbits along the brushy sides of that railroad right of way!...Geo

Sorry Stan, but as a victim of a K through post-grad education in the great State of Missouri I learn best with pictures

Here's the physics
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/202251/why-railroad-tracks-seem-to-converge

That pic is an excellent analogy that demonstrates what I meant, Drew. Thanks. And that also is the written explanation I was seeking.

Charles, I am a two-eyed shooter and I most definitely see the gun when I shoot at anything moving/flying. I also see lead, every time. I do not think of it in terms of feet, or inches, but my brain has stored up thousands of mental pictures of that gap that exists between the bead, which is in my subconscious vision, and the bird I just killed. It remembers those distances, or gaps, and when it sees the same presentation again it tells the muscles where to put the bead in relation to the bird. To make a couple of points clear, I never look at the muzzle or bead, and the bead is not essential for good shooting, but in absence of a bead there needs to be something at the muzzle for reference, if only a rib.

I do believe the brain learns to use the apparent width of the muzzle as a reference to lead, especially when, for some reason or another, it is harder to determine distance to a bird by triangulation, which is how I understand that the brain determines distance. That is why it is so hard for a one-eyed shooter to dominate sporting clays or FITASC, distances vary so greatly, which in turn so greatly affects lead.

SRH

I can't tell anyone what I perceive as lead and whatever it is, it doesn't seem to change with any change of barrel length. I see the bird on the flush and shoot him.

I know that sounds over simplified, but it is that simple for me and as so, I have no perception of any lead, though there unquestionably is. I think Stan's explanation may be mine as well,except I honestly do not see the gun. At last I do not see the barrels in focus, with no awareness to either length, or width.

I can tell you, 90% of the time, where I missed when I do. I.e., I can tell you if I was too far ahead, too far behind, etc. It's harder if I shot too high, as that is usually caused by lifting your head off the stock to get a better look, and is hard to diagnose in yourself. But, without an awareness of lead there is no way to do this.

When you shoot sporting clays seriously it becomes very important to be able to diagnose your mistakes that made you miss, and make corrections. If you miss a bird on the first pair, and you cannot remember what your lead looked like, you have no idea if you need more or less lead, or if you were off line above or below. I learned to remember the sight picture when I was an iron sight rifle and pistol competitor, and it has carried over into sporting clays. So important to be able to remember where your muzzle was when the gun went off. If you hit the bird you know to do the exact same thing again. If you missed it, you know that you need to change something. How can you do either if you can't remember what the lead looked like?

I am a serious dove shooter, too, often going to the field all alone. I hate to miss, and analyze my misses critically. It's really the only way to improve very much. Lest anyone get the idea that all this takes the fun out of it for me, let me assure you that is not the case, as anyone who has shot with me will attest.

SRH

There are at least 4 ways to hit a moving target with a shotgun.

1. 'Swing Through'. ATA Trap is a swing through game. Except at distant handicap, there is no perceived lead. The speed of the gun puts the lead on. A high shooting gun is preferred, it builds in vertical lead. The targets are rising.

2. 'Sustained' Preached by many top notch skeet shooters. One paces the target, and is never actually behind it. Lack of follow through is common and results in poor scores using this technique. Some have good success with it.

3. 'Pull away'. Point at the target, accelerate away, shoot, follow through. Sporting clays, ducks. Useful on incoming targets with some angle on them, and for those looong pokes.

4. 'Spot' or collapsing lead. Pick a spot in front of the target, and swing through that spot. Useful for falling targets. Avoid a 'dead gun'. Swing to and through your chosen spot and don't stop the gun.

Most of us use combinations thereof.

How anyone accomplishes any of the above without knowing the 'sight picture' simply amazes me.

The hardest head I ever shot with was a good friend of mine. He always shot skeet with a snap shot technique. I guess he must have read Churchill or something. His whole family shot that way. I shot with this man for the last 7 years of his life and he never once scored a 25. I offered. I told him if he would just adopt a a sensible technique he could shoot a 100 in just a few weeks. No dice.

As far as lead vs barrel length, I never really thought about it before this thread. Guess I'm in the non believer camp.... for now. Thanks for getting that in my head though Stan. There go my scores.

Examples of use:

Consider the following 5-stand target presentation.

A left to right rabbit thrown as a true pair with a chandelle from the right that lands about where the rabbit 'window' is. The wabbit is a quickie so it has to be taken first. It has the typical ramp, which may or not cause it to hop.

Option 1. Premount and aggressively swing through the rabbit before it has a chance to change path, then shoot the chandelle at it's peak either sustained or swing through.

Disadvantage, it's risky on the rabbit due to angle and distance. You gotta be really quick. Advantage, it's fun and it looks cool when you pull it off.

Option 2. Move with the rabbit until it either hops or doesn't then mount and shoot with speed of swing through dictated by target path and velocity. This is the higher percentage shot on the rabbit. The chandelle will be falling by now and virtually demands a 'spot' swing from below. Once you've done it a few times there is no percentage loss on this target vs shooting it up high before it develops downward arc.

The key point is that this presentation does not reward 'poke and pray' shooting. You need to think out how to approach something like this and it's most of the appeal of Sporting Clays at least to me.

SRH

I'd rather carry a short barreled shotgun. My target scores and numbers on doves go up with longer barrels. The more I think about my shooting the worse I shoot. I'm trying very hard to ignore this whole thread...Geo

Good for you! I can't say that you're unique but you certainly are not like anyone else that I know of. I for one certainly envy your ability. I'd be curious to see where you miss as recorded by a shot cam compared to where you think you miss. Mr. Winston did a great study of people calling misses, shooters and observers alike. They were all mostly wrong.

Never used a shot cam to do so, but when I shoot with Bill McGuire, with whom I get coaching occasionally, he's looking over my shoulder and confirms where I think I miss, most of the time. Sometimes I must pause and replay the previous shot in my mind to do so, but I'm usually right.

When not with him I make the correction I think I need to not miss the same bird again, it usually works. Not always, because just because we know where we missed does not mean we know why. That's why coaching is invaluable ............. correcting the mistake that caused the miss is much more important than just knowing where we missed. When we correct those mistakes we can hopefully put things in place that prevents us from making that same mistake again. That is how we really improve.

SRH

Good for you! I can't say that you're unique but you certainly are not like anyone else that I know of. I for one certainly envy your ability. I'd be curious to see where you miss as recorded by a shot cam compared to where you think you miss. Mr. Winston did a great study of people calling misses, shooters and observers alike. They were all mostly wrong.

Now Dr Wonko. If Neil Winston's work on "reading breaks" is that to which you refer, you are well aware that the point was we are "mostly wrong" calling our lead/pattern POI based on how a target has broken, NOT distant crossing shots behind, below, over or ahead.

This is the most recent thread
http://www.trapshooters.com/threads/reading-breaks.212119/

And at the bottom of p. 1 there are links to older threads, but I couldn't find Neil's original.

I shoot a 32 inch generally in Competition and I like it better than my 30 inch because it seems to swing more uniformly and methodically. That is not a statistical observation, but it "feels" better

Those trap shooters may be crazier than you guys. What would tip the scale is if there is a weirdo sub-set of them that shoots in Edwardian clothes.


_____________________________
Damn Albert Gore and his Global Warming. (It�s bloody hot)

Come on down to thee Rocky Mountain Vintagers annual Polar Bear trap shoot in January. I pretty much always skip it. If it is nice enough to shoot trap then I would rather be chasing roosters in NE.

I could never be a serious trap shooter. I do not belittle those who find it entrancing, but not I. I've shot two rounds of trap in my life, on the same afternoon. We shot a round of 100 sporting, then they asked me to shoot trap with them. I used a S x S and shot a 22 with it. They said "Let's make two, two man, teams and shoot for a little money". I went and got my MX8 that I use for sporting, with two .020" fixed chokes, and ran the round straight. They shot my cap all to pieces, and I said "To hell with this".

Any game at which you can shoot a perfect round on your second try is not for me.

SRH

I witnessed a fellow show up at a skeet range with an old crappy double barrel with 20" (maybe even shorter) barrels. He was about 6' 4" and 240 pounds. I thought this is gonna be hilarious. He quickly shot a 25 straight smoking everything. Then he left. Hmm. And this at a very small town / small potatoes range. True story.

saw a guy down in south alabama break 20 plus birds with a short barrelled gun...cept he was shootin from the hip...

Try some 27 yard trap, then go to 3-hole trap doubles, Stan. I'm guessing you will find that a bit more challenging than 16 yard trap...and more humbling too. There are lots of trap-like shots in sporting. I think shooting a little trap might even help a guys sporting game and likely won't hurt it.

How many 100 straights are shot at 27 yard trap, compared to how many are shot in sporting clay tournaments, buzz? I really don't know the answer to that, but until I know different, I think I have a good idea.

Shooting at the same exact target every time is boring as crap. It becomes a question of how many times can I do the same exact thing without screwing up. I'd rather have to try to figure out 30 different presentations than 5.

But, to each his own. I'm sure it is tough to break 100 straight 27 yard trap targets, 'cause it's got to be hard as heck to concentrate on the five presentations that many times. I heard a trap shooter this evening say that you can't shoot trap well if you don't have four other buddies who shoot in the same rhythm as you .................Huh??????

SRH

To each his own, but 27 yard trap is not an easy game. I'm a sporting clays shooter too and in general I would have to say sporting is a tougher game, but I would never venture to say 27 yard trap is easy, or terribly boring. RE 100 straights in sporting, I was on a squad with a guy that did it the other day. It was an easier course but still impressive. But, not as hard as a 100 from the 27. Depends on the sporting course, but I've noticed scores going up in sporting.

Yep, there have been a few 100s shot in sporting, even a few in competition. But, darn few. I have shot one myself, but two other shooters did too, on that "crip" charity event course. I was not referring to shooting a home course with the buds, I'm talking about tournament grade targets at a big sporting event.

That's the difference .............. trap targets are always the same, whether you're at the home club or at the Grand. Not so with sporting.

But, to get back to the original topic somewhat ...............I guess when there are no crossers and the only lead necessary is above, barrel length wouldn't affect perceived lead as much.

SRH

One club I was a member for years decided to put in a new trap field concrete. It was decided to extend the concrete to 35 yards. From that back row 18-20 was a very respectable score with the trap machine set in the number three hole. Fun shoot was to shoot first round at 27.5, second at 30 third at 32.5 and last at 35. There were no hundreds there.

Competitive trap or skeet shooting is all about getting into and staying into a groove. Same rhythm, same everything as much as you can. Many shooters will miss if they get the slightest thing to throw them off. Slow pull, broken bird, loud noises, odd behavior of other shooters, like me.

Some of us could care less about minor things and will do them to tweak our friends. I ran a hundred in the 20 and ended up shooting with a friend who was a groove shooter. Same thing every time. Little things would bug him. I beat him in a shoot off doubles 3-4-5. He was a great double shooter and after the first box I knew he would wear me down. So I decided to shoot station four from the left side. Station three and five from the right. It drove him nuts. After the second box I just went left handed for all the stations. When he missed he said he could not figure out why I was suddenly shooting left handed again. Told him that was why he missed, wondering about me and thinking about what I was doing instead of what he was doing. Little things drive some people nuts.