Ask The Instructor: Chippy, Chippy

Question: What should I do when I see a chip off of a certain place on the target? Sometimes, when I chip a target, I tend to miss that target on the next pair. 

Answer: Rarely does a lesson go by that I don’t hear a student “autopsy” a target. “I chipped that!”, “I took the front off that target” or “I chipped the back edge of that target”. What does a “chippy break” on a target tell you as a shooter? Many novice shooters will immediately resort to measuring lead, and focus on adjusting the bird-barrel relationship for the next pair. As a result, the shooter diffuses his or her focus on the target in order to make the adjustment. If the shooter’s visual focus softens just prior to shot execution, it makes a miss much more likely. A chippy break on a target inside of 35-40 yards is rarely caused exclusively by lead. Lead is often the symptom, but rarely the sole cause. The cause is most often an insufficient lack of acute visual focus on the target just prior to and through shot execution. For a very close target, the shooter will sometimes tend to focus on the whole target, instead of a small portion of the target (the focal point). The solution to the chippy break is quite simply to focus more acutely on the target and maintain that visual intensity through shot execution. The quality of focus on a target will, in many cases, determine the quality of the break. Our subconscious tendency to soften our focus in the last second prior to shot execution is a symptom of our effort to “check” the bird-barrel relationship. So, next time you experience a chippy break, focus harder through shot execution. For the very seasoned shooter, the manner in which pieces come off a broken target may provide some insight as to lead. One needs to be very cautious, however, about sacrificing visual intensity on the target in order to correct the lead picture based on a chip. Visual follow-through is a key fundamental of shooting moving targets with a shotgun.