Johnny Walker, Clive Bramley and Natalie Davis
Skeet
a little with them. You should be buying years of knowledge, understanding and experience to help you accelerate your development. The CPSA website can be a good place to start when looking for a coach but if you can add to that some personal recommendation as well it should be money well spent. It’s very easy (and costly) to keep on pushing lead down range and not learning much about why you’re not advancing your scores when a good coach can help you through what are sometimes simple problems to overcome once you are aware of them.
A few myths exploded
Gun choice Many people think they will need another gun to shoot Skeet effectively. Not so, back in the 1970s and 80s Skeet was usually shot with short barrelled open choked guns that were fast moving. Check out the guns in use today at any major Skeet championship and you will find a wide variety of guns used very successfully. The most commonly used will be a multi choked sporter but it does not end there by any stretch of the imagination, semi autos, trap guns, all sorts will be found. Some with little or no modification while others will be highly personalised to suit the individual. The
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majority will be off the shelf and often having been bought as an all around shooting companion, the key thing for most is that it is advantageous to have open chokes as most of your Skeet targets are going to be shot at 20 to 25 yards. Barrel length is another issue that concerns us. Most of today’s guns tend to be 30” or 32”. What matters for Skeet is that the gun suits you and if you shoot reasonably with it at one discipline, there is every probability that it will serve you well on the Skeet field. The point at which it could become much more critical is if you decide to take on the ultimate challenge and tackle some Olympic Skeet where the requirement for a very consistent gun mount from a very low start position will find out any problems that exist in your gun fit. For the most part you should get along fine with the gun you use for other disciplines at least to get you started.
Cartridges Cartridge choice will often be 8s or 9s for the regular Skeet shooters that take the game seriously, that does not mean that the pocket full of 7s or 7½s that you
have will not be just fine for the job. The smaller pellet size is the optimum choice as down range energy loss is not an issue with the majority of targets shot within 25 yards and the additional pellets in the load with the small sizes will help to give a slightly wider pattern. If you only have 7½s then use them, you’re not at any great disadvantage, and they will still work well on the Skeet range.
Gun up/gun down The start position for your gun in Skeet can be whatever you are most comfortable with (unless you are looking at Olympic Skeet that is). Among the top Skeet shooters you will find some that favour the gun being ready mounted (gun up) before calling for the target while others prefer to call for and see the target before mounting the gun. If you’re trying Skeet out just stick with what you are most comfortable with – it’s only when you get to the Olympic version of the discipline that the rules have anything to say about it. Those that prefer the gun up start point do so because they eliminate the possibility of a poor gun mount costing them a target, it comes though at a price as the pre mounted gun does narrow down the visual field when initially looking for the target. Next month: useful hints and tips
PULL! September 2010 | 27
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