Question I have a 8 month old male Ram kicker
Line amarican lab that does fine when were training with bumpers and dummies
He will heel fine and hold till I send him but when I do live birds last weekend
He was breaking as I raised my gun to shoot ?
What can I do ? Should I e-collar him at this point

Have someone else shoot the birds you hold a lead with about 6-8 feet of slack...when he breaks let him get going and jerk when he gets to the end

A good pinch collar, tie him off and give him a good jerk when he breaks. I personally get better results out of scolding my dog rather than shocking him

Yea I'm not heavy on the E collar I think it's necessary at times but I'm seen guys ruin dogs not knowing what their doing

I figured he's so excited and this is my first high energy lab
A personality type
Thanks guys

2nd or 3rd the short rope and choke (not pinch in my opinion). if you a helper you don't need a post/tree as they can do the same thing. You can also use the e collar but you have to know when to lay off (quit!) if he tries to fight through it especially if he does not have a lot of drive.
If you do the above enough and shoot enough birds over him he will settle in. He's only 8 months old so he is going to make mistakes but that is just the opportunity to make a correction.

Use to tie mine to the hitch of my truck, they'll only break a couple times

Well, I'm guessing this will not go over very well, but my steady retrievers
don't experience anything like a sudden awakening with a "short rope process".
There's no sudden discovery of who is really in charge. When they are finally
ready to hunt....they are steady.

Ready is often a challenging concept to grasp.

Then again, maybe I have too much time on my hands.

I'm not saying its the right way by no means lol but it works for me, I start off with a 6ft rope and tie it shorter every time till its just long enough for the dog to stay by my side. Works everytime, im sure there is other means of training out there such as others have said, it just works for me. My dog is a marsh dog, not no field trials by no means, she does her job and does it very well.

Hope this helps