I am very excited to bring you this post by guest author: Carolinn Pocher Woody
Champion shooter, Shari Legate’s passion for shooting sports is infectious. At the beginning of Women’s Guide to Shotgunning she declares, “ I’m a shooter. I love to shoot, and so will you, once you get involved in it.” WGS is designed to prepare women for what they’ll encounter on the course and what to expect when shooting a shotgun for the first time.
"Getting involved in the shooting sports can be really scary for a woman," states LeGate. "They don’t know where to go, what to do, who to ask, what kind of guns to buy what kind of games to play, what ammunition to get. This video will help them get started."
Though the camera work is a little rough, Legate’s warm enthusiastic presence shines through as she takes the viewer through over an hour of shotgun basics—a thorough discussion of the components of a shotgun from barrel to buttplate, how a proper shooting stance can actually reduce felt recoil, the right way to mount the gun, eye dominance and gun fit.
Legate also discusses the types of shotguns you might shoot, demonstrations of the way they work and the types of targets you’ll see at the range. She also takes a brand new shooter who has never even held a gun before and gets her breaking targets by the end of the video. Nice to see! Gun safety is stressed and re-enforced throughout all chapters of the video.
"I’ve included information on this DVD that would have been a great help to me when I first started. I hope it helps women discover how easy it is to be involved in the shotgun sports," LeGate says. She’s right. This information will be a great help to new shooters. I was lucky. My police chief is world champion shooter, Diane Sorantino, so it was simple for me to find a coach when I decided I wanted to learn to shoot. Most women don’t know how to start or where to begin.
Two caveats: Legate only discusses Trap, Skeet and 5 Stand in the shotgun “games” section. I can understand not mentioning FITASC in an intro video, but there is absolutely no discussion of Sporting Clays? What the hell?!
She also states that she’s shot for over 20 years and she’s never seen the rings on a target and if you just look at the target as a whole, you’ll break it. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
But that being said, Women’s Guide to Shotgunning is a useful video for someone who has never picked up a gun before. In fact, instructors may wish to use WGS as a kind of pre-lesson warm up for new shooters. It would help them know what to expect and give them a little more confidence when they get out there and take those first shots.
Women’s Guide to Shotgunning Hosted by Shari LeGate
FMG Video Productions (68 minutes)
Women’s Guide to Shotgunning is available for $24.95. at http://www.gunsmagazine.com/womens_shotgunning.html.
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