Accepting The Chaos: The Secrets Of Sporting Clays

Here’s what will happen: Gil Ash is going to poke fun at you, then you’ll go home and hardly recognize your new abilities with a sporting shotgun. There are a few steps in between, of course, but sporting clays can be easy when you learn to shoot the correct way.

The Ash family, including Gil, Vicki and their son, Brian, have been refining the Optimum Shotgun Performance (OSP) shooting school for more than 35 years. In the firearms training I’ve experienced, I’ve never had such a quick arrival to the “light bulb” moment or seen it in others as fast.

The problem many do not understand is that the sporting shotgun cannot be fired in the same manner as a rifle or pistol. As centerfire guns shoot a single projectile, it’s important the sights align over the intended target. With the shotgun, putting the front and middle bead over a moving clay ensures a miss. “Over it is behind it,” Gil often repeated. If the sights are over or covering the target, you’re going to shoot behind the clay. Hits that do occur can be attributed to luck or stray pellets from the shot cloud.

There are many things that need to come together to break clays with intent, but I left the OSP shotgun training event with three significant takeaways: 1. Keep your barrel on the correct side of the target. 2. Stop looking at your sights. 3. Understand that there is only one thing you have direct conscious control of in sporting clays. Continue reading to learn what that “one thing” is.

Two Birds, One Shot

I was assigned to participate in an OSP travel clinic at the Rock Ridge Sportsmens Club near Rockford, Illinois. The opportunity afforded me time to evaluate two new-­for-­2025 products at the range, as well. When multiple ­pro shooters examined my Browning Citori 825 Sporting with an appreciative eye, it confirmed my initial positive thoughts about the gun. Two days shooting the OSP travel clinic cemented that first impression.

Sporting 32-­inch barrels set into a silver-­nitride-­finished receiver with Grade III or IV black walnut, the 825 is quite pleasing to the eye. The shotgun features two functional improvements of note. First, the grip is better designed for sporting clays. It does not force the wrist into a hard right angle, which greatly improves controlling the recoil impulse. Second, the cast was also optimized for sporting clays. By narrowing the stock, Browning better aligned the eye with the rib. For at least the last decade, most shotguns with wood furniture left a factory with too much width in the buttstock. Excessive width increases the effects of cast, also affecting the point of impact. More wood ensures a stock doesn’t crack, so a lot of gun companies use thicker stocks with lesser grades of wood to prevent cracking. Browning’s design means that the 825 Sporting is not too thick and should never develop a crack in its wrist.

The 825 also received Browning’s Fire Lite 2 trigger, which was outstanding. It has three user-­interchangeable trigger shoes. The narrowest was best for abundant true-­pair courses. It’s a mechanical design that doesn’t rely upon recoil inertia to set the next shot. It shoots fast, which is necessary for a true pair with a short window of opportunity.

A natural pairing to a sporting shotgun is a shotshell designed specifically for sporting clays. Federal’s Master Class line worked exactly as advertised. I tested the faster 1-­ounce 7.5-­ and 8-­shot loads at OSP’s clinic, which reach 1,300 feet per second (fps). Thirteen-­hundred fps is fast when compared to typical trap and sporting shotshells. Faster loads such as these highlight the importance of correct length of pull. My only issue with the 825 Sporting was the 14¾-­inch length of pull — no fault of Browning. At 6 feet, 4 inches, no shotgun manufacturer makes a length of pull long enough for me. The length of pull of the 825 is appropriate for the average shooter's body size, but I need a full 16 inches to get the right sight picture and to mitigate recoil.

To compensate for length of pull, I added a Galco Recoil Pad, and a few spacers. Short of a custom stock, this setup worked well enough for me. For anyone on the other side of 6 feet, odds are that you are shooting shotguns with too little length of pull. Once I learned how to achieve the right length of pull, I experienced no discomfort through two days of extensive shooting with Federal’s 1,300-­fps Master Class load.

Master Class shotshells feature a modified version of Federal’s popular Podium wad. The one-­piece wad was designed to support the shot and prevent deformation when fired. Gil noted the significance of shotshell development in his 40 years of shooting, explaining one of the key evolutions was the level of antimony used in the shot. It increased from approximately 3 percent to as high as 6 percent in loads such as the Master Class. Antimony essentially makes lead shot harder. Harder shot breaks clay targets more easily.

The Browning Citori 825 Sporting and Federal Master Class shotshells proved to be an excellent combination. You can’t buy performance in sporting clays, but it’s important to have the right tools.

Three Cup Drill

I wrote that I had “three significant takeaways” from the travel clinic. The first and second stemmed from a unique drill created by the OSP team. Like most shotgun shooters, I’ve always shot a shotgun as I do a rifle — which makes sense. When shouldering a long gun, we think about aligning sights over a target. However, if your sights appear over a moving clay, then the shot will be sent behind the target. To break clays, the barrel needs to be on the correct side of the bird.

The solution is what Gil has named the “Three Cup Drill.” It’s so easy that it felt like a waste of time. However, I cannot overstate how important the Three Cup Drill was. Place three cups on a flat surface with approximately 8 inches between each. Step back about 10 feet, then point and lock your nose on the center cup. To reiterate, you should only be looking at the center cup. Mount your shotgun, pointing it at either the left or right cup. This is what your sight picture should look like on a moving bird.

The Three Cup Drill teaches your brain how to aim. What I never understood before the clinic was that the sights and rib on a shotgun were not put there for the conscious brain. They are reference points for the subconscious parts of the brain. Think about what the sight picture looks like in the Three Cup Drill. For right-­handed shooters, if your focus is on the center cup then you’re looking across the barrel when pointing at the left cup, which simulates a right-­to-­left crossing target. Lined up against the right cup, the sights and rib are only in your peripheral vision, as with a left-­to-­right crosser. The opposite is true for lefties.

Stop looking at your sights! To be more precise, stop looking directly at your sights. The sights should be in our peripheral vision. Gil provided a great analogy.

“Where is a professional baseball player looking while swinging at a 95-­mile-­per-­hour fastball?” he asked. “He’s not looking at the bat!”

The baseball player’s brain knows where the bat is, but to hit the ball he needs to see the ball. The same is true for shooting at clay birds. To hit the clay, we need to see the clay. We can’t be looking at the sights. In my ignorance, I’ve regularly instructed others to get their head down on the stock of a shotgun when shooting. Why did they always lift their head to look at the target? Instinct, and their instinct was correct. To hit the bird, our brain needs to see the bird. To see the bird, our nose needs to be pointed directly at the bird. We need to get our heads off the stock to do that.

That was a major “Aha!” moment for me as I watched other shooters train during the clinic. Often, they would point their eyes at the target thinking their nose was also aligned with the target. It can’t be if your cheek is on the stock. When I mount my shotgun today, I do so with my head fully off the stock. This is where the Three Cup Drill brings the first two takeaways together. First, “keep the barrel on the correct side of the target” and, second, “stop looking at the sights.” By keeping the barrel on the correct side of the target and keeping your complete focus on the bird, your subconscious will take care of the rest. 

The human brain is a targeting computer, and it wants to hit the target. Give it something to hit and get out of the way.

Match The Speed

If you can keep focus on the target instead of looking at the sights, and keep the barrel on the correct side, you’re going to break more clays. That brings us to the third and most important point I took away from the clinic. In sporting clays, there is only one thing that we have conscious control of: matching barrel speed to the target.

Historically, instruction on shooting sporting clays revolved around the right lead. Here’s the problem. I can’t see through your eyes! Gil can’t see through your eyes! Only you can see through your eyes! How is anyone else supposed to understand what lead looks like to you if we can’t see it through your eyes? Once you match speed to the target, the lead will look almost the same regardless of target distance.

It sounds crazy. Surely a 50-­yard crosser will have more lead than a crosser at 20, but it doesn’t. Once you figure out how to match target speed, clays will look as if they are in slow motion. Then you can decide where to break them. That isn’t to say the lead is unimportant. You need the right lead to hit the target. However, accept that you won’t be the one to figure it out. Your targeting-­computer brain will determine the lead.

Sporting Clays is Fun!

The first time you put the three shooting points together will produce one of the biggest light bulb moments you’ll ever experience in sporting clays. The Ashes didn’t learn these lessons by accident. Everything they teach originated from neuroscience, the study of how the brain sees. In fact, they are not too proud to learn new techniques and update their curriculum. OSP Shooting School has had eight fundamental changes to its teaching approach in order to maintain the most advanced sporting shotgun techniques. I loathe to declare any form of instruction as “irrefutable,” but I have no doubt that the OSP approach is an exception.

Allow me to encourage you to practice OSP’s Three Cup Drill. Undoubtedly, it will feel chaotic at first. Learning this method may feel uncomfortable because the brain wants to work from memory. Push yourself to feel uncomfortable and build new memories.

An appeal to those who have never shot sporting clays: It’s a discipline of shooting dedicated to having fun. Rifle and pistol training — including competition — involve training to fight. Sporting clays was created simply to have a good time. 

Browning Citori 825 Sporting

• Type: Over/under, automatic ejectors
• Chamber: 12 ga., 3 in.
• Capacity: 2 rds.
• Barrel: 32 in., chrome-lined
• Length: 50 in.
• Weight: 7 lbs., 12 oz.
• Stock: Black walnut, Grade III/IV
• Length of Pull: 14¾ in.
• Drop at Comb: 1 9/16 in.
• Drop at Heel: 23/8 in.
• Grip: Pistol w/ palm swell
• Finish: Silver nitride (receiver); gloss, oil (stock), matte blue (barrels)
• Sights: HiViz Pro-­Comp fiber-­optic bead (front), brass bead (mid)
• Trigger: Browning Fire Lite 2
• Safety: Selector switch, tang
• Chokes: Invector-­DS Extended, Full (F), Improved Modfied (IM), Modified (M), Improved Cylinder (IC), Skeet (S)
• Accessories: Choke wrench, fiber optics
• MSRP: $3,870
• Manufacturer: Miroku Firearms Mfg. Co., Nankoku, Japan
• Importer: Browning, 800-­333-­3288, browning.com

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