“To improve your shooting, change will be required.

How can you change what you don’t know?”

Breaking a clay target is easy.

Anyone can do it once.

The second target? The third? The fourth?

What happened to easy?

Like many experienced shooters, I’ve traveled that long road to breaking all eight on one station and then doing it again on the next. That kind of repeatability is not luck. It is a skill built through preparation, patience, and personal lessons learned the hard way.

Allow me to shorten your learning curve.

Lesson one: consistency doesn’t come from instinct. It comes from having a strategy. A strategy that minimizes swing errors—the same errors that quietly destroy precision without the shooter ever recognizing them.

Real X consistency demands organizing the shot, preparing the swing, and eliminating the variables instinct alone will never reveal. 

Here is how my “lesson” conversation usually begins.

A shooter calls me about instruction, and one of the first words I hear is: “inconsistent.”

“Why am I so inconsistent?”

My answer is rarely what the shooter expects. It is not the gun. It is not the choke. It is not the ammunition. Odds are, it’s not the shooting method. 

It is the set-up and the swing. They are inconsistent. And there’s the problem.

Not convinced?

Neither was Ted, a Master Class shooter from Texas who called me. His scores were high one day and down the next. Frustrated, he wanted to know why.

I gave him the answer above. He pushed back. “No, that’s not it. I use the XYZ method.”

I stood by my answer.

Still skeptical—he came anyway—for two half-days of training.

Clubhouse work completed, shooting began on the 5-Stand. Shell by shell, I shared his swing errors as they occurred—the same errors that were invisible to him and quietly sabotaging his consistency and his scores. The doubt remained written across his face.

Then came the sixth shell. He saw it. Not just the X—but why he should have missed and didn’t. He saw the swing errors that made the X an accident. A moment that reframed everything he believed about his own game. With his performance-inconsistency question now answered, how many targets had he broken by chance despite the errors? That a broken target can hide a flawed, inconsistent swing—thus making a shooter’s inconsistency a mystery.

The shooter sees an X and assumes all is good. Unfortunately, that X only reinforces movements that cannot be repeated reliably.

One X proves only that the target broke. It does not prove the set-up, swing or shot was organized correctly. It does not prove the X can be produced again.

True consistency begins before the shooter ever calls for the target.

Confirm the Eyes

What some shooters believe about their eye dominance issue and adjustment—what they have been told—is too often incorrect.

Before a single shell is loaded, each of my lessons begins in the clubhouse with an eye-dominance confirmation. If there is an issue, we confirm it more than once. At the table; with the gun mounted; and finally, with shells in the chamber.

When an eye issue is identified, two questions to be answered. Is the adjustment actually working? Is the adjustment actually needed? Emphasis on actually. Because a shooter cannot build a dependable shooting system around an eye issue that hasn’t been properly evaluated and handled correctly.

Check the Gun Fit

Next, we evaluate gun fit. We are only looking for major problems—the kinds of problems that cost targets.

Why only major? When missing occurs, minor “fit” discrepancies receive far more blame than they deserve. More times than I can count, my students have demonstrated that a reasonably well-fitted gun is fully capable of producing consistent X’s.

When a legitimate fit problem exists, it should be identified and addressed before a single target flies. 

Eliminating Random Gun Movement (RGM) 

My students arrive having already read Take Your Best Shot and studied the four set-up steps in Chapters 4 through 7. Those four steps exist for one primary reason: to eliminate RGM.

RGM can begin before the trap fires and creates problems throughout the swing. When the set-up steps are changing from shot to shot (RGM), the swing is already in repair mode and will have to compensate for swing errors. THE cause of performance inconsistency.

A swing cannot begin nor finish cleanly when the set-up is disorganized. A repeatable result requires a repeatable beginning.

Direct the Focus

Before leaving the clubhouse, we address the most important subject: Focus. Where is your attention, 1) before the gun comes up? And 2) during your swing? Are you trying to break the target - or - controlling your swing? The ONLY thing any of us can control is what takes place behind the muzzle of our gun. That control—or its absence—will decide what happens downrange. 

When attention is properly directed, the swing and shooting method occur as planned, as intended. XXXXXX. Get it right, and the result is not one lucky X. That X and each one that follows is created deliberately rather than accidentally.

That’s a process, not just an outcome. And a process, unlike luck, can be repeated.

In my third book, Beyond the Target, I explain this process step by step in plain language. 

My 3 books, Take Your Best Shot, To The Target and Beyond The Target, were written to help shooters replace accidental, sometimes success with a shooting process they can understand, trust, and repeat—from the first movement of the gun to the final X. 

The Mental Game Audio is a downloadable MP3 created for sporting clays, skeet, trap, and wingshooting enthusiasts who want to overcome frustration, inconsistency, and self-doubt. Dan helps shooters strengthen the most important shooting tool of all—the mind—so they can quiet distractions, build confidence, stay focused, and perform with greater consistency when every target counts.

Trust Must Be Earned

There is one more issue that deserves mentioning.

A shooter who has never been taught the specific skills required to break a target may be told “Just trust yourself.” The instructor (or helper) suggesting that trust alone will break the target. It may, but it won’t consistently. How can a shooter trust a skill that was never taught?

Building X Consistency on Purpose

Real, repeatable consistency comes down to three things:

Choosing a shooting method that matches the target presentation—and is 100% dependable. 

Using a four-step set-up that eliminates RGM before the gun ever begins to move. 

Deliberately building the swing that allows the chosen method to work—shot after shot after shot. Not one X. XXXXXX. A single X only tells you the target broke. A string of X’s tells you your strategy, your process is working.

Your improvement goal is to understand what specifically caused a miss so you can correct it. And to know what created the last X—so the correct swing can purposely be repeated.   

Be safe. Shoot well. And thank you sincerely for spending time with us.

XXXX

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Trusted by Shooters Worldwide for More Than Three Decades.

Many shooters start their Paragon journey with Dan Schindler's books and audio programs before working with Dan personally. These trusted resources have helped shooters in more than 30 countries better understand their shooting, solve problems, and build greater consistency.