Interesting thoughts, buzz. Stopping my swing is something we have all done. Looking at the bead/rib will certainly cause it, no question about that. However, there are other reasons people check their swing, too. One of the main other reasons is poor foot placement, or, said another way, how one faces the target. If you have a right to left crosser, for example, and you are facing too far right, your muscles will "wind up" (my poor terminology) and check the swing and cause your left shoulder to dip and pull your gun below the line of the bird at the same time. All this, including looking at the bead/rib, is poor technique that can be corrected.
As to why I shoot worse with a swamped rib .......... you first have to accept that the eye sees the rib/barrels in your unfocused sight. You are not looking AT the bead/rib, but it is there in your field of vision. It has to be for your mind to be able to establish a lead between the muzzles and the bird. Even when shooting from the hip, which I play around with from time to time, the barrels are in your field of vision, allowing you to determine "where you are" in relation to the bird. Now, to get to the point, a raised flat rib, I believe, allows me to do that with greater consistency than a swamped rib. Maybe there is just a slightly more precise line there for the brain to perceive , I'm not entirely sure why, but I do believe strongly that on long birds and very fast crossers, for example, some degree of precision is necessary. That is why it is so much harder to kill 4 targets in a row crossing at 60 yards than it is at 25 ........... putting 7 ft. of lead on a bird four times in a row is much tougher to do than putting 2 ft. on that close crosser. Precision matters to a degree, even with a shotgun that is delivering a pattern as opposed to a single projectile. Ever missed a straight away clay bird, I mean a true straightaway that all you have to do is put the bead up his butt and kill him? Amazing that you can miss a bird like that at 20 yds. isn't it? We can talk about pattern size all day long, but the best shooters strive to center that bird in their pattern, kill it with the core, not the periphery. Precision matters.
That is why I believe I shoot the level, flat rib better than the swamped rib. Is it a matter of going from a 80% average down to a 40%? No. But I truly think my hit/miss ratio drops by at least 10% if I shoot a swamped rib gun. I have some, and I shoot them occasionally, when that 10% is not as important to me as enjoying the gun I'm using. But, when I go on a clays course, my objective is to shoot the best possible score I can, not try to convince myself I enjoyed missing birds I shouldn't have missed, just because I wanted to shoot a particular gun. Again, I could enjoy shooting a swamped rib gun immensely if it was all I had. But, it's not and, in my mind, I know there's better courses for me.
Glad you shoot the swamped ribs well, buzz. I hope we get to shoot together someday, either feathers or clays, or both!
SRH
