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[Serious Hunter]

This year I started using a magnetic fiber optic sight on my waterfowl/pheasant gun (and similar on my upland bird gun). The sight I purchased rides on top of the vented rib barrel. If you look at the resulting line of sight (back of ribbed barrel and glowing bead) you'll see that if you `draw a bead' you'll be pointing/shooting low. I am gunning pretty much `instinctive' so any thought of thus `aiming high' vanishes. But I'm still getting birds. Now in a couple situations I have been able to actually observe the shot pattern at point of contant, and the pattern is indeed low (but, with modified choke, still grabs target with top of the pattern). I can imagine that with deliberate `bead' shooting and a full choke, one could miss under.

Weigh in!

Note: the `extra' bead in the pic is a steel shot that leaked out of one of the critters on the way home and stuck via the magnets. We think. Anyway, I removed it before the next time out.

[bnow0707]

Very possible to miss with raised bead. You could have the steel bead removed and a fiber-optic post put in it's place by a gunsmith. Relatively cheap fix. :thumbsup1:

[Serious Hunter]

Good idea ...

[Serious Hunter]

Something wicked ... I took the mag fiber optic sight off the front of my 12 ga ... and put it on the rear of my 20 ga (chukar-quail gun). Now that gun has fiber optic beads front and back and they are in line with the barrel.

I wonder if when I pull up I'll actually align the beads, or just shoot 100 percent instinctively. As much as I think about aiming when I'm not shooting, in real life, in the field, once the safety goes off it's all automatic. Sometime after it's all over, the last feathers are settling to earth, and I have reloaded, I re-gain awareness.

[bnow0707]

My Rem 870 Super Mag has a white bead with a mid-bead that is real easy to line up. You might look at that also.

[Serious Hunter]

hmmmm ... we're definitely on the `same page' ... you posted your response even before I cued you.

[bnow0707]

Wierd. Have you seen the little rectangle wire that fits on the rib in the middle of the barrel. It's supposed to help speed target acquisition in skeet and bird/duck shooting. Just wondering if you had ever tried it?

[Serious Hunter]

...not that I'm aware. I'll be honest ... I have done more shot-gunning this year than many, many previous years (added together). I'm old school. I shot a lot while being a high school and poor college student, then went off to make some money, career, etc., ... now life is simpler, more time to hunt, and I'm back to more gunning, but also again functioning on a `shoestring'. So I often am out of the loop on all the new stuff.

[hunter777]

I got a package of various fiber optic type pins at walmart for a few dollars. In the package there were 2 "pins" like the one that is mounted to your magnet.
I used some fletch tite glue and glued the pin right to the barrel. It has the same profile (sit's in the same place) as the original beed. I see no difference at all in shot pattern but it is much easier to line up on target than the standard beed.

[Serious Hunter]

sounds good

[Serious Hunter]

Shot naked today ... well, by that I mean I took off the F.O. sight and shot with just factory rib and small metal bead. Shot pattern definitely came up, though wasn't as `exciting' as using the glowing F.O. bead. (I have had to finish off a cripple each day on ice - so the ice gives me a real picture of how my shot was actually delivered at target. I learned earlier this year to just go ahead and `finish it' with regard to cripples. Earlier one beautiful greenie managed to get UNDER the ice and I never saw him again - that I know of.)

[bnow0707]

Yeah I've learned the "Finish It" lesson the hard way #4 shot tends to knocke the birds out of the air but not outright kill because of extended range shots. My hunting experience so far has been limited to jump shooting on the rivers near my house. I haven't had the chance to hunt over decoys. Well it always seems that we knock birds down and then the blind get caught in a tree so we have to get unstuck to move then the ducks have dove under before we can get to them. So the last one I shot until it dropped its head and spread its wings.

[Serious Hunter]

Quacks are tough creatures. Well, I'm almost out of season, and ammo. Friday the season ends. I'm trying to get out a bit each day before it's over.

[bnow0707]

Our season runs out January 29th. I've been out of ammo and restocked already. I'm just torn between deer and ducks. Since I started back to work and college after the holidays. I only have Tues morinings, all day Sat, and Sun afternoons to hunt. I've totaled up three wood duck drakes and that weird duck-type thing so far this season, but no buck(except a button head I thought was a meat doe). So it looks like mostly deer woods 'til next year. Maybe I can squeeze a water trip in before the end.

[147 Grain]

Concerning the magnetic fiber optic sight, moving it towards the center or rear of the shotgun's barrel will raise your pattern's point of impact.