doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com ZZ Birds/Helice. Shot Today

Our club got a set of ZZ bird machines. They had some that they got and never worked. Today myself and 2 other friends went out and shot. I have only done this once, many years ago. It was a humbling experience today. I shot box birds pigeons some when I was in my 20s. In my opinion zzs are much harder. The flight pattern seems to me be more erratic. Harder to see. Smaller than pigeons. Could be my eyes were better in my 20s. Anyway I really had fun and will be doing it more often. I can see you can get get addicted to it.

Try it at least if you have the chance.

If you happen to come to Houston we can go out and shoot it. ( You have to pay your own way)

You will enjoy it.

John
Arrieta

Addictive? Hell yes it is. My club here in N.C. used to have the old ZZ Birds. The ones with metal propellers. After a while and many hits they would get slightly bent, that would make them fly very eractic. I used to stay up at night thinking of what I needed to make me better at it.
Recently here in NC a club, Hunters Pointe installed a Helice ring. I traveled down last fall and shot some. It just rekindled an old flame inside.

I love shooting ZZ birds. In my opinion, it is the most difficult shotgun game, but very addicting. Unfortunately, I have not found a single ring in all of Colorado.

Fun to shoot! Most complain that they can shoot a rounc of trap or skeet for what a single Helice target costs-so.............

Rick Mein set up a ring at one of our club shoots.
My first attempt was about 50%. Rick an accomplished shooter to say the least said “don’t lead them, shoot right at them.” Bingo!

Helice is really all I shoot anymore, the most challenging, most fun game I have shot.
We have a group that shoots every Saturday at Selwood in central Alabama.
We "slide" back one meter on straight 5's, there have only been 5 perfect 30's shot in 10 years.

I’ve shot at Hunters Pointe twice. It’s an instinctive point and shoot game. Lots of fun. It takes sharp reflexes to be competitive. On YouTube there’s a club in Italy that uses 410s. What a hoot that would be

The only place I've ever shot them was in Colorado, but it was over thirty years ago at the old Winchester built trap & skeet range east of Lafyette on hiwy 7. One of the pro shooters & gun fitters at the range had bought a set-up & I found them extremely challenging to shoot. I haven't seen another set-up in the state since then. The man that had the set-up still does gun fitting & instruction at Colorado Clays and I need to ask him about it the next time I run into him.

2024 National Helice Championship at the Dallas Gun Club May 2024

Cow pasture ZZ shoot near Bisbee, AZ. Chiricahua Mtns to the R

It is an interesting game. I didn't find them that hard to hit, hitting them and having them fall inside the ring is the hard part. I'm slowing down, I was out the other day and shot some skeet. High house 8 is getting harder especially after a year lay off.

Drew, I missed the past two years, looks like some nice improvements.

The new set-up Oskar with 7 boxes. Mike had to cancel this year's February shoot



Control house

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Cyril Adams always said ZZ was harder than box birds. If you could shot in the mid 20's you could make money in a pigeon ring. The master should know.

Our club [DGC] has two permanent regulation FITASC helice rings set up and running all the time. For smaller USHA shoots will have three running, shot down the line w/5 targets per ring and two cranks per 30 target race w/the 2nd starting on the 3rd ring, so the race ends in ring #1, visible from that end of the clubhouse. And usually another 'practice' ring set up and also running on another part of the property. For larger Nat'l. type events we've had as many as five rings running.

You can find all the dope online by going to: https://www.ushelice.com/

It is a decidedly fun game and more difficult than box birds. The timing is also different.

Going back quite a ways, when we first started shooting the more modern helice targets on single target traps, one the best flyer shooters ever got a 'load em' on the first ring's birds in a 20 bird race [30 bird races were yet to come]... and w/o missing a beat turned to the crowd and said, "Who hooped these things, anyway?!"

It's a great game/fine sport that deserves to grow and unlike some of the other target games, it is a relaxed pace and you do not have to endure the elements for lengthy times, be they hot or cold or shoot four or more boxes in an event waiting at each station w/the permanent pavilions we have for shooters and first hand up-close observers and clubhouse proximate w/its amenities. On any given day that the club is open, we can shoot helice, barring a scheduled helice shoot taking place. If it's raining, portable pavilions are set up for the shooter over the voice pull station.

Hunters Pointe is having the NC Helice Championship in August.

They aren't that hard to hit.......just easy to miss.

I've shot it once. Loved it

Shooting practice live pigeons will make you think you are a flyer shooter. Shooting ZZ Birds will convince you that you are not.

There should be a sign hanging over the entrance to every Helice ring that says "About to be humbled", and once hanging inside every exit saying "Having been humbled".

It's the big thing in Texas and growing. Generally hard to take off elsewhere. I was in Atlanta last weekend visiting family and drove to Cherokee Rose; they have one permanent ring and set up another for competitions. About 6 or so dedicated shooters. To try to shoot the game in the "circuit" it involves a bit of traveling. Look at the US Helice Association schedule for their registered shoots and that stands out pretty clear.
I'm addicted and try to get to as many as possible but they're all a pretty far travel from Arizona. Arrieta2, I owe you some rounds of Helice, skeet or sporting clays; I'll holler next time in the Houston area.

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I suppose the average cost is $3 a bird. Last time I shot live birds (pigeons) it was $7 a bird.

In my area, live pigeons are $15-$20 a bird.
At my club you can pre-pay for helice targets and get the price down to $1.87 a target, still expensive, but if anything is fun, it's expensive.

Helice at our club are sold on ten-target cards. The cost for members is $20 per card and for guests is $27.50 per card. That's routine practice that is going on 5 days a week. There are some ad hoc fun races held on some days with our core of shooters and on most Sundays a fun race of 20 to 30 targets, but anyone can still shoot practice targets w/o joining in the race and jump in and shoot in whatever rotation the trapper is given the cards.

For typical USHA sanctioned shoots, targets run in the neighborhood of $185 for a 30-target race but that includes daily fees getting extra traps when required, having FITASC certified referees that are paid, usually at least one nice spread of horse divers, other amenities, &c.

The least expensive helice I've ever shot were $1ea. They were targets made in Mexico and sold here at one time that took a LOT of killing. The plastics used were not quite right and getting those wings to release the witness cap was often not successful. The favored ammo then was standard Remington Shure Shot© in #7.5. Those were 32-gram loads and legal at the time and the thinking was that its typically soft shot would impart 100% of their energy to the target and not penetrate the tough plastics employed. Today, they have specs for target composition, &c. And they are much better than they used to be in not only in composition but erratic flight characteristics. Maximum loads for competition are 28 grams or 1 ounce.

If just shooting practice for your own amusement you could still shoot 32-gram loads, but I don't know of anyone doing that.

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Last time that I shot flyers the birds were $13.75 ea., and it was a small private affair. Don't recall exactly but probably seven or eight years back from now. They were $11 ea. the year before that at the same place. When I was first invited to shoot there, they were $4 apiece. And when I first shot flyers in the 60's, they were typically $3 apiece.

That's why they call pigeon shooting the "Sport of Kings"

Brother Drew, great pictures of the shoot in Arizona, the one picture looked out of place with shooters eating, that picture is from the Carlisle Spring Shoot that Pastor Charlie puts on every April.

Drews photos are AZMIKE's shoots in Double Adobe, AZ.

At my club its $20/card of 10. So, $2.00 for those of us not so good in math. At least that is what my calculator says. Not able to verify results.

John
Houston

Get to Houston, we can go shoot.

The working side of a Helice launcher.

Do you call for the bird? And do you start at low gun? Looks interesting, but I can't say that I've ever tried it or even seen it.

Yes, you call for the bird, at my club we have a speaker with a button on it, you push the button to spin them up, then you call for the bird.
You can start however you want, I had always shot low gun at clays, but when I started shooting helice I went pre-mounted.
I see very few shooters start low gun.