Went skeet shooting today

[gr8fl4porsche]

Sporting clays. 11 stations. 92 rounds. 1 sore shoulder.

We did it as part of a customer appreciation day. Everyone had a blast. A great idea for those of you wanting to take your customers or employees out for a good time.

[imcarthur]

Agreed. I have only gone once - but it was also a company event. A manufacturer took 15 of us to rural England when we there on a factory tour in 1982. My shoulder was black & blue for days. 25-30 shots or so. 92 shots I can only imagine. He had a caterer serve us a mountain of great seafood in the ratty garage for lunch.

Btw . . . I won the contest.

Ian

[dhoward]

Black hawk Valley?

[gr8fl4porsche]

Black hawk Valley?

St Louis Skeet and Trap

[fred cook]

You go to shoot skeet, trap, sporting clays, etc., ask for a 20 gauge shotgun. Throws almost as much shot and the recoil is much more manageable! Also, if weather permits, wear a thick or padded vest or jacket. With the right gun and attire, you can shoot for hours without discomfort!

[Lothar]

If you were shooting 12g target load, in other words: bird shot, they must not have given you sufficient instruction on stance and how to shoulder the gun. Try shooting slugs or magnum loads. That will leave a mark :-)

[legion]

When I shoot trap, I shoot a minimum of four games (100 rounds). Having a nice, heavy over/under helps a lot.

I signed up for my company's skeet league. I've never shot skeet before. We'll see how I do.

[Eric 951]

Nice. Love to do sporting clays. I have been on the organizing committee for United Cerebral Palsy of Southwestern PA sporting clay event since we founded it 15 some yars ago.
It is a great alternative for guys who don't do any golfing.

As other suggested, maybe use a vest with pad or just a pad to take some of the ache out of the shooting shoulder.

12 ga are the norm on the course, and some of the guys get competetive(changing chokes at each station, using high-dollar Benellis, etc.).

I am low-rent when it comes to clays and like to shoot with my old fixed-choke 20 GA Ithaca/SKB O/U or 20 GA CZ dinner prize.

[foxpaws]

Over/unders are the way to go - and get one with a shock absorber pad with gel inserts. I have a Franchi Renaissance 26" and it is under 6 lbs - the recoil would be a bit wicked because of the light weight of the gun without the specially designed pad, but I really like the lighter weight, especially with long periods of shooting at the range.

[72doug2,2S]

Don't forget a good scotch while out there. You've got to keep warm.

Oh, and dress the part.

[Jim Bremner]

AA-12 Fully Automatic Shotgun!!! - YouTube

[5String43]

Oh, man, talk about a slippery slope! Over/under, automatic (or "gas gun"), and more - 26-inch barrels or 32-inchers, 1-dram load, or 1 1/8, 7.5 shot, 8, or 9, chokes that range from cylinder to full-plus and more - but it sure is fun. I caught the bug a few years back and before I knew it, I found a great sale on a Browning o/u. I wound up buying that, along with a full set of chokes that I mostly, now, do't change much - improved modified in the bottom barrel, full in the top.

And the games are all really different. Skeet is really fast, and works well with a shorter barrelled gun; trap has its own complexities, especially when you start shooting handicap and doubles, which I don't. Yet. And sporting clays can be especially infuriating, especially when the range changes the presentation every week so you can never really learned the dag-nabbed place.

I shot clays in Scotland a few years back and found that it's a different deal, there in the UK, than it is here. It's all good, though. A really great sport that plays right into the affection for tools and hardware that we all seem to have.

For much more on all this, you might want to go to shotgunreport.com, I think it is. The guy who writes that blog there is Bruce Buck. He really knows his stuff, and is a very entertaining writer.

[intakexhaust]

Originally Posted by legion

When I shoot trap, I shoot a minimum of four games (100 rounds). Having a nice, heavy over/under helps a lot.

I signed up for my company's skeet league. I've never shot skeet before. We'll see how I do.

Heavy weight?? Nope.

Leichtgewichtler 20 ga. over / under like a fine Merkel

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by 72doug2,2S

Don't forget a good scotch while out there. You've got to keep warm.

Oh, and dress the part.

I think the Brits own that:

[Hugh R]

As you get to the middle stations, lead the bird more. Remember, you want to put the shot where the bird will be, not where it was when you pulled the trigger.

[craigster59]

We'll have to hit up Oaktree sometime Hugh!

[Hugh R]

Craig, sounds good. If the wind is right, I can just barely hear popping from their range in my backyard.

[targa911S]

O/U's huh.....tsk tisk.... I'll take my SKB 200E anywhere and shoot anything. Sometimes the 12, sometimes the 20. I have shot trap with my .410 sxs too.

[Henry Schmidt]

[targa911S]

those barrels are sideways.