Ever since I’ve started shooting clay targets, I’ve shot swing-through – starting behind the target and pulling the trigger as or soon after you pass through it. I’ve never advocated another method, nor used one, but people who I’ve never met insist that I don’t shoot that way.

For years, I’ve let my results do the talking, but by writing this article I want to put the rumor to rest for good, and explain why I use swing-through and am firmly convinced that it is the most efficient way to shoot. You may not choose to do things my way, but perhaps you’ll understand why my method has worked so well for me over the past 40-plus years.

If you look at it logically, there are four places you can miss a target – above, below, in front, and behind. By coming through the bird, I’ve got its line well determined and eliminated the chances that I will miss high or below. In essence, I’ve cut down the ways I can miss the target by 50 percent, and to my mind that makes the shot a lot easier.

Let’s say I’m coming through the bird from behind and the target goes up in the air. I can move right along with it. If it dips in the wind, I can go with it. But if I’m starting out in front of the target as you would in pull-away or maintained, I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m swinging, but I’ve lost the target line.

Please understand, I’m not in any way, shape, or form knocking pull away, maintained lead, or any other method. They all have their place, and all of them have some great champions who plump for them as being the best way of shooting. But I believe that my method of swing through, rightly or wrongly, is the most efficient method of doing what I want to get done. And if you’re that confident in something, why change it?

What most people don’t understand is that my method differs from what most people think of as swing-through. In most books on wing shooting, you’re taught to swing quickly through the target and pull the trigger just as you pass it, and the inertia of your swing automatically generates the proper lead. That method works, particularly if you’re hunting, but it relies on good reflexes and timing. I don’t think it’s especially consistent. If you use that method in competition, you had better be on song or you’ll struggle.

I’m not a believer in ripping through the bird. I move fast enough to get in front of it, but then I use my eyes and hands to finish the shot as it approaches the break point. Sometimes I’m accelerating the gun as I pull the trigger, but it’s more likely that I’m matching the speed of the target or letting my eyes finish the shot.

That’s probably why some people who have watched me shoot think that I’m not swinging through every target. If see only the last few moments of my shot, you might think I’m shooting maintained lead or even diminishing lead. Trust me, I’m not. I’m coming from behind the bird almost all the time. If my gun slows down, it’s because I’ve locked onto the target with hard focus and I’m moving with it.

This was driven home when I recently worked with my friend Anthony I. Matarese Jr. on a series of shooting videos. Anthony’s well known as a pull-away shooter, though he does use other methods. We set up gun cameras and laser trackers, and we learned that at the end of the shot, our methods really aren’t so different. We use our eyes and hands to sync up with the target and fire when our subconscious tells us that the lead feels right.

The difference is how we get in front of the bird. Anthony’s likely to mount his gun on or slightly in front of the target, and I start behind it. Anthony plans where he’s going to insert his gun relative to the target, and I do not – I’m coming from behind.

Once we get out in front, though, we do virtually the same thing. A bit of history can help us explain the difference.

When Anthony was coming along 25 years ago, he was taught that the target never should get in front of the barrel. There’s a certain amount of sense to that – the gun must get out front, so why not start there? In addition, he was warned that starting behind the target would make it extremely difficult to control. That may be true if you’re shooting “traditional” swing through, but not if you do it my way.

Remember too that many of your early top shooters in the US came from a skeet background. Skeet is mostly a maintained lead game, particularly at the international level, so those shooters logically brought that technique with them when they switched to sporting.

I never had a shooting coach, so I learned to shoot by watching the best shooters in England. AJ “Smoker” Smith, Brian Hebditch, Barry Simpson, Duncan Lawton all started on the back of the bird and moved through it, so I emulated them. I even found that coming from behind worked a treat in skeet, and ever since I’ve shot 95 percent of my targets using my method of swing-through.

What constitutes the other five percent? On a true pair of outgoing targets as you might see in double trap, I take the first bird quickly – almost a spot shot. On the second bird I’ll move over and swing up to the bird and through it as I normally would.

If I’m forced to take a teal target on the drop, I’ll usually use a maintained lead or a slight pull-away, as it would be nearly impossible to get a line by inserting above a falling bird. I have to see the bird, so I mount beneath it. I’ll also take a teal or crow at the very top, getting hard focus on the bird just as it reaches its peak and almost rifle shooting it.

The final scenario where I don’t swing through is a flat, fast chandelle. Those targets are cutting through the air and it is difficult to generate enough lead and keep control of your swing while coming from behind. In that case I use what I call an “invisible box” – the target enters at the top corner of the box and I shoot it at the opposite bottom corner with a slight maintained lead. It’s almost as if the target is falling into my shot string.

Above all, I’m looking for smoothness in my move to the target, and that begins with proper foot position and set up. I’ll save the particulars on that for another article, but for now let’s just say that I want to be relaxed and comfortable at my break point, even that means being slightly uncomfortable as I call for the bird. I want my body to rotate smoothly as I mount the gun and come up behind the bird.

Unlike some of the move-mount-shoot and other methods that put an emphasis on a perfect, repetitive gun mount, my method is a touch more forgiving. Say you use too much back hand to mount your gun (a fault of my own, but that’s another story). If you come from the back of the target and move through the front, you’re on the line and that less-than-stellar mount doesn’t really matter much.

I want to start looking hard at the bird just before I pass through its back edge. I’ll hold that hard focus for as long as necessary to feel as if I’m in control of the bird, then I fire. Sometimes that is just as I pass through – particularly on quartering shots – but on long crossers I may well run with the bird a little bit.

So that’s how I do it, and why. I know that some of you might be thinking that I can do this because I have some superhuman abilities. Let me assure you, I do not. I simply believe that this is the most efficient way of shooting and I am not about to change now.

I’m not going to advocate that you should switch to my way if you have another base method that works for you. Rather, I’d like you to think about this as another approach that might help you on some specific targets that bedevil you – say, a quartering target or a rabbit. If your base method isn’t working, try this and see what you think.

Nor should you be afraid of shooting this way if you’re just starting out in the game. I don’t teach clay target shooting very often, but I do a lot of tuition for game shooting. I frequently work with people who have been coached in maintained lead or pull-away, and they basically know how far they need to be in front of a target to hit it.

Yet they have no idea of how to naturally establish a relationship between their eyes, the target, and their natural speed. Our high pheasants and fast partridges flummox those people regularly.

So I coach them on starting behind the bird and moving through it. Normally, within two lessons, they’ve had that “light bulb” moment and they’re starting to take their birds in grand style. I almost never ask them where they missed the bird or tell them where they missed. Even so, within two lessons they’re telling me exactly where they’ve missed the bird.

By that point they’re understanding the correlation between inserting behind, focusing on the target, coming through the target to get to the leading edge, and pulling the trigger while keeping the gun going. They know if they’ve missed behind, and they know if they’ve come off the line, and they get back on song without much help from me.

And I never talk about lead. Instead, it’s focus, feel, and being smooth – and that’s important no matter how you shoot.