Practical shotgun

With our shotgun match coming up this weekend I've been thinking shotgun shooting. Shooting shotgun is not much different than shooting pistol with one big exception: reloading is going to make or break you with a shotgun. Reloading is an important skill with pistol, but it has nowhere near the impact that it does in practical shotgun.

For instance, a close simple 12 round pistol stage may take the average C class production shooter 6 seconds to complete, even with a 2 second reload. A 12 round close simple shotgun stage will take that same shooter about the same amount of time to shoot, but when the time of the reload doubles if it's good and triples or more if not, that 6 second stage becomes 12 seconds or maybe 16 or more with a shotgun.

Essential to the reload is a good place to store your spare ammo. Figure that out well ahead of time. There are a variety of products available that put shells on the gun in different places, your arms, or your belt. Watch what the big dogs are using and research them. Find something that works for your technique.

Practice the reload. A lot. It is really hard to gain seconds shooting. It is easy to gain seconds reloading. I shoot few rounds practicing shotgun, but I reload at real speed a lot. This is where shotgun stages and matches are won and lost.

One last tip: Avoid reloads whenever posssible. You can do this by missing less and by finding the places you can get multiple targets with one shot. Use your pattern wisely.