Shooting clays is about pointing, not aiming. So, in principle, one can say that there is no need for aiming devices on shotgun. Do a 10 sec google and you will see the endless debate and opinions about this subject (cf. neutral vs. bright beads, the middle bead debate, etc).

I shoot a Winchester Sporting Select II, it has a white front and middle bead. I have found this middle bead convenient for practising my mount. Middle and front bead alignment give me a quick check for mount. If you can’t get the mount right, there is no point is wasting a shell by putting a whole in the sky. Once I start swinging that gun, I noticed that I’m in general not aware of those beads (and when I am, the orange substitute pigeon often escapes a horrible death).

I’m happy with my gun and its white neutral beads, but I’ve always been intrigued by the bright fiber beads you find on many sporting guns. Do they distract (and make you wrongly aim)? Or do they subconsciously assist your brain in crushing those orange disks?

When I saw the “Browning HiViz Bird Buster” – magnetic clip-on sights with bright fiber pipes – that seemed a cheap way to try the “bright bead” and cool my curiosity.

Mounting the Bird Buster is easy (they snap on with strong magnets, and stay in place when a shot is fired), visibility is good, but I’ve noticed that they sit quite high. So the “new” front bead sits much higher than the fixed bead. Clearly, this was going to affect POA/POI (Point of Aim / Point of Impact). So, I went out to pattern my gun (note it’s a sporter so shoots about 60/40). The figure below shows the results.

As expected the shotgun pattern shifts downwards with the Bird Busters, ending up in a 50/50 to 40/60 configuration. Which seems very inconvenient to me, because this requires you to completely cover up the clay when shooting. Note that if I could raise my stock (comb), I could get the gun with the raised sight, back on the same pattern. My Winchester however has a fixed comb.

With this result, my enthusiasm has faded and I didn’t try the “Browning HiViz Bird Buster” with “live” clays yet. I should, because probably mounting this sight will probably not even matter, because I’m not really conscious of the beads when swinging… which at the same time makes this whole “bright bead” thing pointless 🙂