Reading a Trapshooting book at the moment and here is what I thought an interesting take on rib and beads on trap guns.
27-B. What is the center sight bead for and should I use this bead when shooting?
The centre sight bead serves three purposes, 1) To insure you have a perfect eye alignment down the rib when the gun is static (not moving) and, 2) to maintain this alignment when the gun is in motion. Not when shooting! When dry-firing at practice during the swing to see if any deflective deviations are taking place (side-to-side misalignment) and to insure you are not vertically lifting your head from the comb (un-stacking the beads). If the beads do not stack up to the figure-8 (centre bead on bottom of muzzle bead) the gun does not fit you or you need to rework your mounting process. You'll see some shooters with no centre bead on their gun (mostly the losers) and others with the centre bead and don't know how to use the bead (again mostly the losers) and, 3)
The centre sight bead measures cheek pressure applied. Too much pressure and the eye sinks below the rib and the target begins to fade out as much as 50% of vision lost! Think about that one! It also leaves no cushion between the muscle and bone and recoil face slap starts more head-lifting, eye shock blurring focus, etc.
With the rib too close to the eye you'll always see the target too late and that will destroy timing and certainly the target break zone too. Too little pressure and you're going to shoot over the top of the target or start dusting the domes or chipping which will lead to a clean miss if not corrected. You have to, you must, practice shouldering the gun to insure your mount is perfect. It only takes a itsy-bitsy amount of deviation - often too small to be recognized by many shooters - to create a eye / rib misalignment and that means a missed target. Not all the time though! That's what is so sinister about the mounting process and the swing dynamic... you can do it wrong and hit many targets, but those missed targets will always be present to sink your scores. It is so important that most shooters have come to believe it is not so important and most shooters who think this way have scores that are pretty bad in the trapshooting game.
You can still have some lucky days and pop a good score but I doubt you'll be dead-centring the targets and this means you're shooting on luck alone. Chippy target breaks are dangerous and must be avoided at all costs as they lead directly to a lost target... it's the highway of failure with toll booths soaking up your money along the way. You have to keep in mind that your eye centred along the rib is the gun's rear sight and if this rear sight is cocked out of alignment to the rib and muzzle sight bead, no matter how well and precise you see the target, the gun is not going to send its shot to break it. This is just another example how dangerous it can be to shoot with your eyes only, especially if the eye is not in alignment with the muzzle. Look at the target all you want and wave it goodbye as the scorekeeper yells, "Lost." You have to use the sight beads on a shotgun in trap shooting!
27-B. What is the center sight bead for and should I use this bead when shooting?
The centre sight bead serves three purposes, 1) To insure you have a perfect eye alignment down the rib when the gun is static (not moving) and, 2) to maintain this alignment when the gun is in motion. Not when shooting! When dry-firing at practice during the swing to see if any deflective deviations are taking place (side-to-side misalignment) and to insure you are not vertically lifting your head from the comb (un-stacking the beads). If the beads do not stack up to the figure-8 (centre bead on bottom of muzzle bead) the gun does not fit you or you need to rework your mounting process. You'll see some shooters with no centre bead on their gun (mostly the losers) and others with the centre bead and don't know how to use the bead (again mostly the losers) and, 3)
The centre sight bead measures cheek pressure applied. Too much pressure and the eye sinks below the rib and the target begins to fade out as much as 50% of vision lost! Think about that one! It also leaves no cushion between the muscle and bone and recoil face slap starts more head-lifting, eye shock blurring focus, etc.
With the rib too close to the eye you'll always see the target too late and that will destroy timing and certainly the target break zone too. Too little pressure and you're going to shoot over the top of the target or start dusting the domes or chipping which will lead to a clean miss if not corrected. You have to, you must, practice shouldering the gun to insure your mount is perfect. It only takes a itsy-bitsy amount of deviation - often too small to be recognized by many shooters - to create a eye / rib misalignment and that means a missed target. Not all the time though! That's what is so sinister about the mounting process and the swing dynamic... you can do it wrong and hit many targets, but those missed targets will always be present to sink your scores. It is so important that most shooters have come to believe it is not so important and most shooters who think this way have scores that are pretty bad in the trapshooting game.
You can still have some lucky days and pop a good score but I doubt you'll be dead-centring the targets and this means you're shooting on luck alone. Chippy target breaks are dangerous and must be avoided at all costs as they lead directly to a lost target... it's the highway of failure with toll booths soaking up your money along the way. You have to keep in mind that your eye centred along the rib is the gun's rear sight and if this rear sight is cocked out of alignment to the rib and muzzle sight bead, no matter how well and precise you see the target, the gun is not going to send its shot to break it. This is just another example how dangerous it can be to shoot with your eyes only, especially if the eye is not in alignment with the muzzle. Look at the target all you want and wave it goodbye as the scorekeeper yells, "Lost." You have to use the sight beads on a shotgun in trap shooting!