Noob Again - Lead

[Charliedog]

OK, I’ll bite. I’m in the measurement and logic camp in terms of explaining / seeing lead. The laws of physics alone are at play here, not witchcraft. However, people are different so there are plenty of caveats around what people see as lead. Sometimes this is down to an erratic shooting style (such as fast swing through, which masks it) but also it’s down to what some people think 6 feet looks like. My mate once told me a car was 10 feet wide, when it is more like 6. So proving the maths is all very well but you have to be a shooter that is calibrated to do so and who also isn’t adding in yet another variable by stopping or flicking the gun unwittingly (which are habits to try and eradicate of course). It’s definitely multi dimensional in all human reality.

Thats pretty much sums up the problem with trying to explain/agree lead, we all see it differently, I am not an instructor but can generally tell if someone is in front or behind, to try and get someone to adjust my go to is to double or half what they were giving it, usually helps a bit, doubtful whether they really do adjust that much but probably ends up giving it a bit more or less.

 

[bordergun]

Will. What you say here is EXACTLY why the Unit Lead system works so well. Because of the phenomenon of perspective, applying lead in feet out there at the target is difficult for most of us because judging spatial relationships at a distance isn't easy. In other words, if you put two orange traffic cones in the middle of a field about six feet apart and ask half a dozen shooters to tell you how far apart they are, you will get wildly conflicting answers, 6 feet, eight feet, ten feet etc........... because there is nothing for them to relate to. Teach a shooter the Unit Lead system of seeing lead at the muzzle, show him a full crossing shot at 40 yards and tell him to give it a 6 unit lead AT THE MUZZLE and he will be right in the middle of it, every time. Simple. If you ask those same shooters to see a measurement at the muzzle, they will ALL be very close in their interpretation. But there are some other huge advantages with the system and am happy to explain in logical terms why it works so well. Many Masterclass shooters and coaches here in the US use it, but some prefer not to mention it.

As I said previously, the book is not available over there in the UK and I have already answered a lot of enquiries about this. I am happy to continue to answer ALL of them. Please keep them coming, you can contact me here:- www.peteblakeley.com

 

[Martinj]

Must admit it's an interesting concept, a standard Unit Lead system if we can get everyone to use it at least we would all be talking the same language.
I'm in the "six feet" in front of the clay camp and have no idea what people are talking about when they hold their fingers apart and say I gave it that much.
Yes I know we in the UK went metric in 1965? but it doesn't seem to have found its way into the shooting world

 

[bordergun]

Martinj Regardless of what some may tell you, this absolutely is a game of measuring, without looking at the gun of course. You will find that it is much easier to apply some sort of measurement at the muzzle because it is so close to your eyes, than it is to apply lead in feet out there at the target because of the phenomenon of perspective. The measurement is just a brief visual impression. Substitute a finger for the "unit" and you will be close enough. Before you ask, fat finger, thin finger, it doesn't matter, the width of your pattern is easily wide enough to compensate.

I have already e mailed scans of the relevant pages to a lot of shooters and I am happy to continue doing that. Please keep the questions coming. Thank you.

 

[Luke_(NL)]

Seeing the correct sight picture is what motivates any of us to pull the trigger. Anyone who would like advice on how this system works please e mail me here:- www.peteblakeley.com I'm not trying to sell anything and the advice is FREE

While I appreciate any offer of tuition, especially free, I am confused. Here you say: "Email me here", whereas in an earlier post you state:

There are shooters that use this sysyem in the UK but unfortunately, the cost of mailing the book there now is nearly prohibitive. If you e mail the author here:- www.peteblakeley.com I'm sure he will help if he can.

Are you "the author" of 'You're behind it'? I'd like to know more. Maybe an e-book or pdf can be made available?

 

[bordergun]

Luke Yes, I am the author. I have been shooting shotguns since I was nine years old, I am now 76 years old and I still coach regularly in the Dallas area. Over here in the US the books sell well on Amazon (please read the reviews) and also from my web. site. Many Masterclass shooters learned with the system, plus several World and US champions. As I said in an earlier post, at one time Richard Rawlingson who wrote George Digweeds book "It's got to be perfect" was distributing them in the UK. I will explore the possibility of an e book. Meanwhile, if you have any questions please e mail me here:- I will answer them as soon as possible. Thank you.

 

[bordergun]

pigginspadger I guess you already have the book?

 

[Freddypip]

In a pure math sense it is trigonometry but that ignores the shooters perception of space and speed, both in terms of what they see and how they move.

I recently was 'invited' to 'coach' an (ex) army rifle instructor and it took a while for me to realize his perception of lead was based (solely) on gun speed and thus the hold point was key. In math terms - the two trains were always traveling very fast when calculating their arrival times. Equally, someone with a very analytical mind will see the triangles and distances more clearly and lead can be explained in that context. A good question is what other sports someone does - I expect a snooker player to 'see' things differently to a tennis player.

I also agree with Will. Peoples idea of distance - particularly at the target - is very different. It is daft to start immediately talking about lead until you see how they shoot - hold point, gun speed, kill point (late, early, etc) all affect how lead is seen at the point the trigger is pulled.

I totally agree with VMax - the technique is key. until that is sorted lead doesn't matter. Once you know how a person shoots, its a lot easier to say 'more' or 'less' to help them build up their bank of lead pictures.

 

[bordergun]

Freddypip As remarkable as it seems, by applying lead at the muzzle, the effects of target speed and range is completely inconsequential on all the ANGULAR shots because the important thing is the percieved lead, not the actual lead. I explain this in more detail in one of my other books, Successful Shotgunning. Because of this, building a repertoire of sight pictures becomes very, very easy. Weeks instead of years. I explain the science to back this up in the book.

I can get a new shooter to break every target on a skeet field in less than two hours and give them a logical way to read every target on a SC course in about 5-6 hours, but of course nobody actually believes that. During Covid I was coaching many clients over the phone with good success and if you take the time to e mail me here:- www.peteblakeley.com I will give you some detailed instructions so you can try it for yourself. Absolutely FREE.

 

[paul b]

Theres many different ways/methods/styles to achieve remarkable results.One may say my way works ,just look at the results and another will say the same thing using a completely different method.Whos right? Both obviously the results tell us that.
If your lucky enough to connect with and fund time with someone you gell with chances are you will end up using there style method in the end.Tinternet will fill youre head with so much contradictory info ,you will end up brain fried,as i say above all are right for them you have to find which one feels right for you.
Btw search through shotgun world forum and youl see pages and pages on unit lead etc.

 

[Luke_(NL)]

Luke Yes, I am the author. I have been shooting shotguns since I was nine years old, I am now 76 years old and I still coach regularly in the Dallas area. Over here in the US the books sell well on Amazon (please read the reviews) and also from my web. site. Many Masterclass shooters learned with the system, plus several World and US champions. As I said in an earlier post, at one time Richard Rawlingson who wrote George Digweeds book "It's got to be perfect" was distributing them in the UK. I will explore the possibility of an e book. Meanwhile, if you have any questions please e mail me here:- I will answer them as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thanks Pete - with autumn approaching fast here, Dallas sounds like a much better place to break clays. I'd be interested in the e-book. Will drop you a line as per your post on skeet above.

 

[Martinj]

I didn't know that George Digweed "wrote" a book, it seems to be popular going by the prices!

 

[bordergun]

Martinj. Richard Rawlingson wrote the book and Richard and his wife often stayed with us when my wife and I managed Clifford Farm in Devon. That info is on my web. site. I have done clinics with George at the Dallas Gun Club when I was the pro there. Of course, George honed his SC skills for many years on a skeet field because he realized very quickly that skeet teaches a shooter two very important things:- How to decipher the angles of targets and how to calcuate range.

Many years ago George came up with a method for shooting looping targets/chandels ( this was featured in a UK magazine at that time) where he said (on a right to left target) "Imagine a "box" out there at the target and when the target is in the top right hand corner, shoot at the bottom left corner of the box." Of course it worked very well....... but George didn't tell shooters how big to make the box. So I "enhanced" his method with the Unit Lead methodology and you might like to try this at home?

It works on any target that has a trajectory which is approximately 45 degrees to the horizontal and I show diagrams in the book. The ONLY important thing is what the target is doing in the area you want to shoot it.

If the target is 20 yards away, give it a 1/2 inch box at your muzzle. If it is 30 yards away give it a 3/4 inch box, 40 yards a 1 inch box, 50 yards 1 1/2 inch box and 60 yards a 2 inch box. Do this by finding a target with that 45 degree trajectory and walk back 10 yards at a time. You will find it works.

Please keep the questions coming.

 

[bordergun]

Paul B What you say re the Internet is sooooo correct!!! Unfortunately, when someone comes up with something new in the Shotgun World, initially, shooters view it with suspicion. "Oh, that's absolute rubbish, that can't possibly work."

The early reviews of the book were very good and many realized quickly that it actually did what it said. But that reduced the number of shooting lessons they needed and for some coaches that didn't go down too well. Now many top US shooters, World champions and coaches are using it to their advantage. The system relies on trigonometry and ballistic sense, not meditation, witchcraft and burning candles.
I will be more than happy to explain it to anyone that e mails me here:- www.peteblakeley.com

 

[RussP]

thanks pete, have emailed you. It is amazing how the human brain can predict where something will be in time and space on the fly!

 

[bordergun]

Russ. The human brain can predict that but only when it has "learned" how to do it. In other words, successfully intercepting a 50 yard crossing shots isn't a "natural instinct" that we are all born with.

To all those that have responded via my web. site. Thank you. The most amazing thing about applying lead at the muzzle is that on ALL the angular shots, for example if the target is a narrow angle requiring a 1 Unit Lead, that same one unit will work at 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards, 50yards and 60 yards. That sounds like complete bull and almost too good to be true doesn't it? The scientific reason WHY it works is something called parrallax. It is the same phenomenon why if we stand on a 20 foot wide road the road appears to get narrower as it disapears into the distance.

Please think of it this way. If we see a 1 unit lead at 20 yards and the target gets further away, the line of sight of the shooters eye down the rib and the line of sight to the target DIVERGE (ie get further apart as the range increases) so the actual lead DOES increase, but the perception of lead at the muzzle doesn't and 1 Unit will still work. I am happy to e mail anyone a section of the book to show this.

 

[bordergun]

Major break through from my web. designer and computer expert this morning. Apparently, the book can be converted to a PDF based e book which can then be downloaded from my web site for a modest fee. I will consider doing that for both the Unit Lead book and Reading Targets. The Reading Targets book if filled with actual bird/barrel relationship pictures that were taken with a camera positioned on the gun exactly where the shooters eye would be.

Some of you have already received scans of book pages via e mail and as you could see they do help.

 

[bordergun]

Good response, that was quick! Financial gain is no longer the prime concern for me, I enjoy helping shooters and the downloads of the two books will be very modest. These are the only two books you will ever need to help you to build up a library of sight pictures, very quickly. And to answer some of your questions about coaching during Covid. Yes, I actually did some of this over the phone. The reason it worked is because I know the leads. If the only advice your coach can give you if you miss is "look harder at the leading edge of the target and the magic of your subconscious will tell you where to put the gun." it won't work.

 

[Westward]

Correct me if I'm wrong but skeet targets are a known speed and known trajectory meaning the lead is almost identical from every position. Therefore it's only the angle and the perceived lead that changes.

That makes skeet leads all about geometry, but with sporting, as Will pointed out, there's the problem of physics which means for example that, due to the shot slowing down, a 50 yard crosser needs more than double the lead of the same crosser at 25 yards. For the record I've proved this empirically.

I can see how the unit lead concept is handy for novices but it's hard to believe that it can teach the lead on every target on the sporting course with so many different distances, speeds, angles etc.

 

[bordergun]

Westward What you say here re. the leads on the 50 yard crosser and the 25 yard crosser is correct and it is EXACTLY what I say in the UL book........and I have published all the figures in the book to back up my findings. What you describe is due to the exponential effect of the shot slowing down.

Quote directly from the book:- "From the calculations above we can see that because the shot is rapidly slowing down as the range increases, the 40 yard target doesn't need twice the lead assumed for a 20 yard charge but more than this. The 60 yard shot would need not 10.5 feet ( approx. three times the lead for the 20 yard target) but approximately 14 feet 10 inches of lead which is over 4 times the lead for the 20 yard shot.

I go on to say:-_ "As range increases and this exponential effect comes into play the familiar constant angle we can apply to those angular shots is no longer adequate. This is why on the full crossing shots, our ability to judge range is more important." So we are actually saying the same thing.

Of course, many will try to dismiss this as they have done over many the years (the book was published in 2007) but now they are realizing that as a medium for building up a repertoire of sight pictures, there is absolutely no better way and no other book in existence that will help except this one. Every target on a SC course (in the area you intend to shoot it) will be rising or falling and it will be a narrow angle, intermediate, wide angle or full crosser.

The book breaks ALL the targets on a SC course into manageable, bite sized pieces. Impossible? No, and that's where some made the mistake when this book was first published in 2007. I do mean everything, standards, rabbits, chandels etc. at every angle and range. By reading the book, the light comes on very quickly. If for example the target is a narrow angle target at 20 yards, the sight picture needed to break that target will be a 1 UNIT LEAD. If the same target is a narrow angle in transition at 40 yards the same I UNIT LEAD will work but now you will need to shoot 1 inch under. This may sound complicated but in reality, it is very, very easy to apply, hours instead of years to become a proficient shot. That's why many coaches/shooters over here in the US now use the methodology because it works.

And Westward, if I didn't answer your question logically here please don't hesitate to say that and I will try to be more specific? I would like all shotgunners to understand the methodology here. And I completely understand that you are skeptical. For years, many have dismissed the methodology as hype, but it isn't. There is very little that is new in the shooting World and this is a new concept that has helped multitudes of shooters get to the top very quickly. I would like that to continue. Thank you.