After reading your endorsement (numerous times) of the book by Bob Brister, Shotgunning, the Art and the Science, I decided to find a copy and read it. Being cheap I tried a variety of places and found one on ebay. I got it for $10 and found it was in excellent condition, hardbound, and even signed by the author. Anyway, after reading about half, I have to agree it is a book I should have read before I ever picked up a shotgun. But that was 50 years ago so before the book by quite a bit.
The question: This book emphasizes that shotguns are to be pointed instinctively rather than aimed. His initial training method is to practice with a BB gun with no sights. That is an instinctive method I learned in the Army back in the 60's and found it works well. So why do you not only have a bead to draw your attention but sometimes, on higher grade guns, there are even two? I won't even go into the huge multicolored worms that perch on the end of some barrels, glowing in the sun and distracting you from the birds. My father traded an old remington pump for a M-37. He immediately went from hitting everything to missing everything. A year later he traded for a Hi-Standard pump and filed the front sight nearly off. From then on, if he shot at it, it was going down. The glow worm sight on the front of that M-37 just got in the way.
The question: This book emphasizes that shotguns are to be pointed instinctively rather than aimed. His initial training method is to practice with a BB gun with no sights. That is an instinctive method I learned in the Army back in the 60's and found it works well. So why do you not only have a bead to draw your attention but sometimes, on higher grade guns, there are even two? I won't even go into the huge multicolored worms that perch on the end of some barrels, glowing in the sun and distracting you from the birds. My father traded an old remington pump for a M-37. He immediately went from hitting everything to missing everything. A year later he traded for a Hi-Standard pump and filed the front sight nearly off. From then on, if he shot at it, it was going down. The glow worm sight on the front of that M-37 just got in the way.