TrapperReady
Member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2003
- Messages
- 2,732
It's admission time...
As an avid shotgunner, the past three months have been almost utterly lacking in trigger time. Between family commitments and trying to get on track with my highpower shooting, I haven't gotten out to do any shotgunning.
That changed earlier this week. My wife was travelling to a conference in a neighboring state, so the kids and I tagged along. We happened to have some good friends who are avid trap and SC shooters in the area... so it was easy to set up some range time. There was only one day that would work, but we planned to get in as many rounds of sporting clays as daylight would allow.
I brought along my Beretta 391 and a bunch of value-pack Winchesters (1 1/8 oz of #7.5 at 2 3/4 dram). Normally, I would have been using my own reloads, but I was feeling particularly lazy and didn't want to have to pick up all the hulls. Since the value-pack ammo costs about what my reloads do, it's a wash. This was also to be my first extended test of these particular shells.
As it turned out, we were able to fit in three rounds of 50 targets each (on three different courses). The courses were mostly close-in, with the difficulty coming from some tricky little angles, a stiff wind and some short shooting windows. I was able to use IC for all but one station... and I only switched then because we had about a 5 minute wait while the group ahead of us finished up.
Happily, it appears that I remembered how to shoot, with all my scores in the 80% - 90% range. In fact, if it hadn't been for one station on the middle course (some Springing Teal in a wicked crosswind) that I just couldn't seem to figure out, I would have been a bit better. There were a lot of league shooters on the course that night, and judging from the talk in thre clubhouse after the rounds, my scores would certainly have been competetive, despite my not having shot them before.
In any event, I had a couple interesting observations. The first and most notable was that although I've always been a "swing-through" shooter, I found myself using a sustained lead on all of the long(er) crossing shots. Basically, as long as I had a good long look at the target as it flew, I was getting out in front and keeping the same lead until I pulled the trigger. It was VERY effective. With the shots involving short exposure windows or quartering shots, I was using the "swing-through" technique like normal. Since I've never really used sustained lead, I'm not sure why I started all of a sudden, but it worked beautifully.
The other thing is that I obviously "shoot like I train". On one station, I experienced the first failure to cycle I've ever had with my Beretta. The station was comprised of a report pair... the first being a hard left to right crosser that would end up in the trees if you didn't make your shot very rapidly, followed by a midi-sized springing teal, which curled hard to the left once it hit the wind above the tree tops. Anyway, on the second pair I was shooting, I hit the crosser and then swung onto the teal. As it approached the apex, I pulled the trigger again. Nothing happened.
Without even thinking about it, I kept my eyes on the target, grabbed the bolt-handle and racked it as quickly as I could. As the bolt was flying closed, I swung back down onto the target and broke it about 10 feet off the deck. My shooting buddy laughed and told me he'd have let me reshoot the pair due to the malfunction... but that had never crossed my mind. I'm proud of that shot, since it shows that I've not grown as soft and old as I sometimes feel.
Finally... aside from that one failure to cycle, the Winchester stuff performed nicely. I didn't get a chance to pattern it, but all of my misses were MY mistakes, not the ammo.
Now that my ramblings are over... it's time for me to BA/UU/R!
As an avid shotgunner, the past three months have been almost utterly lacking in trigger time. Between family commitments and trying to get on track with my highpower shooting, I haven't gotten out to do any shotgunning.
That changed earlier this week. My wife was travelling to a conference in a neighboring state, so the kids and I tagged along. We happened to have some good friends who are avid trap and SC shooters in the area... so it was easy to set up some range time. There was only one day that would work, but we planned to get in as many rounds of sporting clays as daylight would allow.
I brought along my Beretta 391 and a bunch of value-pack Winchesters (1 1/8 oz of #7.5 at 2 3/4 dram). Normally, I would have been using my own reloads, but I was feeling particularly lazy and didn't want to have to pick up all the hulls. Since the value-pack ammo costs about what my reloads do, it's a wash. This was also to be my first extended test of these particular shells.
As it turned out, we were able to fit in three rounds of 50 targets each (on three different courses). The courses were mostly close-in, with the difficulty coming from some tricky little angles, a stiff wind and some short shooting windows. I was able to use IC for all but one station... and I only switched then because we had about a 5 minute wait while the group ahead of us finished up.
Happily, it appears that I remembered how to shoot, with all my scores in the 80% - 90% range. In fact, if it hadn't been for one station on the middle course (some Springing Teal in a wicked crosswind) that I just couldn't seem to figure out, I would have been a bit better. There were a lot of league shooters on the course that night, and judging from the talk in thre clubhouse after the rounds, my scores would certainly have been competetive, despite my not having shot them before.
In any event, I had a couple interesting observations. The first and most notable was that although I've always been a "swing-through" shooter, I found myself using a sustained lead on all of the long(er) crossing shots. Basically, as long as I had a good long look at the target as it flew, I was getting out in front and keeping the same lead until I pulled the trigger. It was VERY effective. With the shots involving short exposure windows or quartering shots, I was using the "swing-through" technique like normal. Since I've never really used sustained lead, I'm not sure why I started all of a sudden, but it worked beautifully.
The other thing is that I obviously "shoot like I train". On one station, I experienced the first failure to cycle I've ever had with my Beretta. The station was comprised of a report pair... the first being a hard left to right crosser that would end up in the trees if you didn't make your shot very rapidly, followed by a midi-sized springing teal, which curled hard to the left once it hit the wind above the tree tops. Anyway, on the second pair I was shooting, I hit the crosser and then swung onto the teal. As it approached the apex, I pulled the trigger again. Nothing happened.
Without even thinking about it, I kept my eyes on the target, grabbed the bolt-handle and racked it as quickly as I could. As the bolt was flying closed, I swung back down onto the target and broke it about 10 feet off the deck. My shooting buddy laughed and told me he'd have let me reshoot the pair due to the malfunction... but that had never crossed my mind. I'm proud of that shot, since it shows that I've not grown as soft and old as I sometimes feel.
Finally... aside from that one failure to cycle, the Winchester stuff performed nicely. I didn't get a chance to pattern it, but all of my misses were MY mistakes, not the ammo.
Now that my ramblings are over... it's time for me to BA/UU/R!
