Skeet adventures

[BozemanMT]

So, I first shot a shotgun in September when a buddy said "hey, let's go shoot some skeet". I was hooked from station 1. I think my best skeet score that day was a 7. But who cares.
so, since then (about 3000 rounds, 1 Browning O/U and lots of gas 1 3 hour lesson later) I've been shooting a lot of trap and a bunch of sporting clays. But the range I usually go to doesn't have a skeet field yet. So no skeet since.
But thanksgiving week I had to go down to San Antonion for the whole family thing. By wednesday I had to get out. My uncle found me a really nice place very close in and led me over there. (San Antonio Gun Club, in Olmos park, in the middle of town You guys are very lucky in San Antonio)

Real nice place if a little expensive, but hey, I have got to get away from the family. it's just me, so they send a guy out to pull for me.
1st round pretty bad, we won't talk about that.
2nd round 14
3rd round: 15
4th round: 16
5th round: 17
Hmmmmm, getting better
This time an old timer joins us. You know the type, smooth as silk, probably been shooting his whole life. I don't think he used his spare til like station 7 and he was shooting from low ready. dang. I suppose all i need is a couple hundred thousand more rounds to get that good.
Anyway, I just started shooting great. Didn't shoot my spare til station 3. Didn't miss a point til station 5.
Missed high 8 (heck, i missed high 8 all day, i never did hit high 8, i hit low 8 every time, but never high 8)
But shot a 21
on maybe my 10th round of skeet EVER.
I'm still happy about it a week later.

 

[sm]

BozemanMT,

Congrats! I am happy to hear you are having fun while you learn.

Don't forget about Misseldine's books I keep mentioning.

he, he , can't help but admire and respect a fellow with a old worn gun, shooting effortless and painting them out of the sky- can one? Reminds me of a LOT of folks that I learned and shot with. Low gun - yep I shoot low gun.

High 8 :

Foot position : cut that square diagonal, then split that again so we are talking ~ 20*, belly button will be pointing at the outer edge of high house.

Hold point: Mount gun to face and point at the lower right corner of trap house opening. Move the muzzle from that corner , straight in line out about 3ft, this is your hold point.

You never want the muzzle to get over the bird, You can't hit what you can't see, as you recall. This hold point allows one to see the bird, keep muzzle from getting above bird.

Focus on that hold point and call the bird, it will take that path, swing like hell from behind, keep swinging and when you block out the front edge - slap that trigger and keep following through.

Now that you have powdered High 8 , turn around load two and nail the low birds, #24 and #25. You just shot a straight.

By proxy someone shoot BozemanMT's hat for me will you?

Oh ...Larry said he would - thanks Larry.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Sure, I'll shoot that hat. As soon as you get that 25, just come to my house (you remember, right?) and we'll throw it out into the field and blast it. No, I would rather you drive the three hours.

Seriously, I am not a trap shooter, shot maybe five rounds my whole life. But, I took my son out when he was about 14 just to warm up for dove season. I explained it to him and told him to just pretend he was shooting doves. Now, Jimmy is either a natural or just shoots a lot, but he got an 18 that first time.

Old McCoy, a regular, just watched all this and then asked me if he could take the boy through a round. I listened as McCoy coached and he sounded a whole lot like Steve does above, just little tricks and knowledge of the game. Jimmy shot a 22 his second round. McCoy said to me "Give me that boy for thirty days, and I'll make a champion out of him".

Jimmy wasn't all that interested in becoming a skeet champion, and I'm wasn't sure I could afford to make him one. Jimmy has always been good at any shooting sport (he's 27 now) but most of that is because, from the time I bought him his first Chipmunk at age eight, I couldn't keep ammo for anything in the house, until he finally went out on his own.

Anyway, the point of all this is, there are some tricks and insights to skeet that you really have to learn from the old masters.

 

[BozemanMT]

Books?
Am i supposed to be buying books?
Why am I not paying attention here.

another fine day at the range today. First decently warm day in a while. Went and shot a couple rounds of trap first, did decent. Started great on teh 2nd round, then totally CHOKED :banghead: on the last station and blew it. bah. Oh well
Went and shot sporting clays the first time. THEY CHANGED THE COURSE since the last time i shot it. I think it's easier, but I knew the old course, so didn't do as well, but I felt I shot well.
Then we went to do the sporting clays course again.
Well, by station 5, where I zeroed a station for the 2ND TIME :banghead: I said, that's it. i'm done. Some days it isn't there. So i just pulled for my buddy for the rest of the course. I dunno why that happens. You are going along good, then everything just goes away and you couldn't hit if you threw shells at it (and I did actually physically throw a shell at it, figured I might get closer. I was not happy).
But, still I GOT TO BLOW STUFF UP.
So, that was cool.

 

[Mercury]

BozemanMT,

When I was learning, I was told that most new skeet shooters either don't lead the birds enough or they stop swinging the gun and don't follow through.

Lead is easy once you figure out what it should be. Follow-through is very important.

FT is something that I have to keep reminding myself to do. Once I made a conscious effort to do this, I broke them much more frequently.

Enjoy and keep at it.

 

[kudu]

BozemanMT, I'm going to step in here,In sm's voice, the next time you go shooting try out that 28ga that's probably sitting around somehwere at the club. he, he, he,...

 

[BozemanMT]

28ga???????????
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
ROTFLMAOPMP
Uh huh, i have a hard enough time with 12ga and LOTS of pellets.
I think I'll wait til I add a couple more zero's to my practice round count.

Ok, I'm kinda kidding, but it just occured to me while writing it, do you keep track of their rounds etc? ok, 102,000 to 102,200 on this date at this sport and shot this well?
or does that ruin the fun of it?

 

[kudu]

28ga?

Now when I shot registered skeet my 28ga average was always the highest out of the four gauges. Don't ask me why, other than it was the most comfortable to shoot and always seemed to crush targets.

It's something you have to experience for yourself.

 

[sm]

kudu-
I'm glad you have a voice, I awoke without one. I do that when I get all focused on stuff like Finals. Has nothing to do with not ...whatever "sleep" is.

I agree with kudu, my best scores were with the 28 ga. This is common if one looks at any skeet score board. Short shot string, payload to bore ratio, and the recoil is such one does not remember bad habits.

Counting, I have no ideas *ahem* whom the idiot was that shot 16 practice rds in one day, racked up over 2k rds in a week or an easy 25k rds in one year - with a 12 ga alone. Range Rat Club members step over this way please.

One thing I had to learn, more than once - was to NOT be so damn serious. OKay to have Serious Fun, just don't take myself or the shooting sports too serious.

Start the dirty joke, step on the pad ( and forget any and everything except the leading sliver edge of target) , powder the targets and step off the pad and finish the dirty joke.

I can remember the shooting part - forgot a lot of good jokes about 2 seconds after hearing them.