@bordergun As the owner of a few of your books, I'm happy to provide a full review Peter.
Background
Although I’d done some ‘small bore’ rifle shooting as a youngster, my journey into the world of clay shooting only began a year ago. My son (14 at the time) was expressing an interest in rifle target shooting but in the UK, due a a mixture of strict firearms licensing and typical club rules, it takes a real commitment to enter that sport. Since I wasn’t sure if his interest was genuine, or how he’d react around guns, I decided a ‘have a go’ clay pigeon session would be a good starting point. We were both immediately hooked, in truth me probably more so than him!
It took around 6 months for our SGC grants (long story) so our shooting for that time was limited due to cost to a couple of 1 hour lessons per month. Although my son quickly progressed, initially I couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo (I now know there were many reasons for this … chiefly my natural instinct was to try to maintain lead with my line of sight down the rib, this in turn led to a tendency to focus on the bead and consequentially apparent eye dominance issues). Our limited practice time, combined with my desire to improve, led me to viewing many videos and reading many books on the subject. Ironically I initially bought one of Peter’s books due to the controversy often seen in discussions on this site.
The books
Successful Shotgunning
At the time, Peter’s books were only available in hard copy and hence relatively expensive to buy in the UK. My first purchase was “Successful Shotgunning”, a 320 page book aimed at novices covering all the fundamental aspects of the sport. The book is well written with an interesting mix of history, personal backstory and information, and although its age is somewhat apparent in the nature and quality of the illustrations, the information presented is as relevant now as it was at the time of publication (2003 I believe).
My only criticism of “Successful Shotgunning” would be that, although the history and backstory adds interest to the read, it also adds to the word count and means that important nuggets of information can be lost in the noise. An example here is where the shooter should actually be looking, barrel vs. bird, and although this is touched upon it’s more an aside in a section discussing lead. To me, this is a fundamental concept that should be clearly called out. Credit to Peter for including it - it amazes me that many authors don’t, possibly in an attempt to avoid what can be a contentious topic - but I think Chris Batha is one of the few that firmly grasp this particular nettle in “Breaking Clays”.
Reading Targets
My next purchase was “Reading Targets”, again in hardcopy. At 57 pages of largish text I initially felt a little short changed but that was because I was missing the point of the book - it’s intended more as a ‘pocket reference’ guide showing sight pictures for various target presentations. This time, reference to sighting the target and using peripheral vision for barrel awareness is called out up front but the very nature of the pictures (using a camera looking down the rib) gives the impression that this is how the target should be sighted. I’m not sure what could be done to address this but possibly some consideration to cropping and recentering, or some other way of adjusting the images, would be of help.
You're Behind it!
Having felt that “Reading Targets” was the epilogue rather than the main story, I bought “You're Behind it!”, but this time in the more affordable ebook format. Now we get to the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the Unit Lead system.
Essentially, Peter advocates - for beginners at least - envisioning lead gaps in absolute terms at the muzzle rather than at the target. This requires using maintained lead as the method of obtaining the required lead but has the benefit of allowing information and adjustments to be presented in an objective, measured way rather than ‘a bit more/less lead’. The logic here is to allow beginners to rapidly build an inventory of sight pictures which can then be adjusted once barrel speed dependent methods are introduced and in a way I guess it represents the antithesis of the Churchill style. Peter recommends to initially learn the method on skeet before moving onto sporting but does also cover some specific target presentations later in the book where target reading is a little more complex than simple units of lead.
There is a fair degree of space dedicated to explaining why certain leads are required, often at length, and I felt this distracts a little from the core concept.
The Unit Lead System - did it work (for me)?
The logic is sound and I’m sure that the system does work. If I’d had the information at the beginning of my journey then it would have provided a useful map but unfortunately by the time I’d read it, after struggling with maintained lead, I’d already moved on to using different lead methods to find what works best, for me. I do think there is a danger of promoting barrel fixation and the overall concept could have been presented more concisely, ideally with “You're Behind it!” and “Reading Targets” consolidated into a single book.
So, is it the ‘killer app’ equivalent of coaching methods? Maybe, I don’t know, but certainly anything that shortens the learning curve must be a good thing.
Is it applicable to all sporting targets? I would say ‘no’, the potential variations is presentation are too numerous to be captured prescriptively in a book of sight pictures but, equally, anything that provides a starting point together with an indication of how to analyse a target and adjust must be a good thing.
Is the concept well described? Hmm, sorry Peter, I’d say not as well as it could be and possibly this leads to misunderstandings and is the source of much of the heated debate on this site.
Am I happy with my purchase? Yes. When a topic interests me then I’m more than happy to read any amount of information on it, analysing what’s said, comparing and contrasting different points of view, and ultimately taking away points that I believe or can show to be valid whilst discarding others. It’s how we learn and better our knowledge.
Certainly my copy of “Reading Targets” will stay with me as a reference point for when I’m struggling but my quest right now is to develop more of an instinctive, Gil Ash style 'feel' for lead.
A note to Peter (and others) on the ebook format.
Unfortunately rendering of the page layout when diagrams are involved is poor and in some cases diagrams are missing. For this reason I’d recommend hard copy for ‘You're Behind it!’ and ebook for ‘Reading Targets’ (to allow easy reference when in the field) but, as above, this does mean that some pictures will be missing.
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