I have shot quite a bit of skeet in the past,including some 100 straights, and have seen a lot more straights shot, and most of the time the target was centered in the pattern, and resulted in a cloud of smoke. I have seen several 500 straight runs also, and the guys that can do that don't depend on single pellet breaks to do the job. The chokes used are normally tighter than skeet, and the targets are centered, or hit more toward the front edge. At skeet, only targets shot at station 1 high house, station 7 low house and station 8 are normally hit on the top or bottom. All other shots are edge on to the target. I have seldom seen a hole through the rim of an unbroken target, most have been bottom to top, and I have seen a lot that were chipped on the top or edge by a pellet that didn't break the target.
The rim is the most vulnerable part of the target. It is strong enough to usually not hole and, therefore, absorb the entire energy of the hit. In which case the target fractures more or less across to the opposite side and falls in half. We have all seen such breaks. At the other end of the envelope we have the dome which usually holes and is much less likely to result in a break. Jones is working to quantify probability of single pellet breaks based on the number of "zones" on a target, and the probability of a break depending on the angle at which the target is struck. It is a tough problem!!!
Watch for that two-three piece break and the single chip. Those I believe are the single pellet breaks.
