Imagine, you have shoe size 13 but you have to wear size 12 shoes. This analogy is a little bit out of context but is important to understand that all of us have different measurements and matching these measurements is very important for our clay target shooting. If you just bought a gun without recommended advice you have better chances that the gun will fit you if you are a medium size guy/gal. If you are 6'2" or 5'4" you need to adjust the gun stock to your measurements.

Why is gun fitting important? The sport shotguns by excellence are used for clay target shooting. These targets are flying fast and there is no time to line up the gun while you are chasing them.

The gun line up must be done by mounting correctly a fitted gun. If the mounting is done right, the gun will be locked between your shoulder, hands and cheek. The head position on the stock must be so that your dominant eye will line up with the gun's rib. Based on what clay target game you want to shoot you have to fit the gun for that purpose. If you shoot skeet, the gun must shoot flat (you don't see gun rib). If you shoot trap your gun must shoot higher (you see the gun rib) and if you shoot Sporting Clays, your gun fit will be something between skeet and trap (you will see gun rib but less than for trap).

The best advice I can give you is to contact a professional gun fitter once you signed up for some instruction. If your gun doesn't fit you it will be very hard for you to master the shooting technique. And one more thing, if you buy your first gun check the cast of the gun! For right handed people the cast is "on" and for left handed people the cast is "off". Unfortunately too many people shoot unfitted guns and the scores are not at their expectations. I'm wonder why!