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Nitrah,
I make it work with plenty of practice and a long developed muscle memory. My 76 year old shoulders thank me!
Karl

A couple of observances:
I know of zero competition SC shooters using a gun heavier than 9.5 lbs., with most using a gun weighing 9 lbs. or a hair less, max. I also don't think an SKB o/u can weigh 10 1/2 lbs. unless its crammed with extra weights front and back.

Clayshooting games like Skeet, Trap, and Sporting Clays, and variations on each, require a proper gun IF you are a serious competitive shooter. Casual shooters who say they are just out for fun and don't keep score are free to shoot whatever they want or need to use to remain proficient in the field with a particular gun(s). And that is just fine. But please don't tell me score doesn't matter, because it's way more fun to break the little orange bastards than to miss them. The guy who walks out of an SC station having missed 8 out of 8 targets with his 6 1/4 lb. Churchill and is laughing and yucking it up like "so what, I'm just shooting for fun", ain't havin' fun...
JR

Yes it’s always more fun to break targets than to miss them.

This is why I so much like the superposed. For me, a nice compromise between field and target. I don't feel much handicapped or burdened in skeet, SC, upland, ducks, or whatever. Decent at almost everything. However, when I'm shooting well, any gun will work pretty well, add when I'm not, switching it up does not help.

Mr. Roberts: It sure feels like 10 1/2 pounds at the end of the day. I looked up the specifications for my 90TSS LH gun and it says 9lbs4. Loaded it'd be more like 9lbs6 but you're right, it's unlikely to be 10 lbs plus. I guess I'll need to drag out a digital scale to confirm all of that, but what I've noticed is that with a gun that really fits me (left-hand palm swell, adjustable comb, adjustable for LOP and rotate-able pad) when I mount it...everything is right where it should be. Those long and heavy barrels force me to swing through my shots and the substantial weight of the gun really sops up the recoil.

As much as I love them, my game guns don't always fit me that well and their light weight, which is so-lovely in the field, does not translate well to the clay games I've been attempting. As the old saying goes...different horses for different courses.

I say different chokes for different "fokes".

My 1946 Webley 600 Special A&D boxlock features 30" barrels and a semi-pistol grip. With a weight of 6 lbs 13 oz it is easy to carry in the field all day yet continues to swing beautifully, making up for the deficiencies of its owner.

Here the fashion for new shotguns is for 20 bore o/u with 30" barrels weighing 6 lbs 12 oz or so and firing one ounce of shot. Does that sound familiar?

Swings and roundabouts...

HB

When a gun feels heavier than it is, the gun has poor balance. A friend of mine has a Purdey pigeon gun that is dead nuts at 91/2 lbs. when you pick it up you would swear it was 1.5 lbs lighter. That’s balance. Perazzi have this and that’s why they point so well and move to the target.

I am going to add a little side note. Using the light bird guns is fun but I think a little more dependent on good timing/rhythm. I shot a couple weeks ago with a 6 lb 3 oz 20 ga. and could hardly miss. I shot yesterday with a friend and my wife and their gabbing got me off balance and I missed all the targets I couldn't miss a week ago.

Through the years shooting doves and sporting clays, I have become enamored of little .410 doubles. When I first began trying to use a sub-5 lb. S X S it was humbling, and at times frustrating. I missed birds that I could not understand the reason why I did. Only through trial and error did I find a way to switch from a 9+ lb. Perazzi to a S X S half that weight. I found that my shooting technique had to be drastically different. For the record, I shoot sporting clays pre-mounted.

I found that, for me to shoot what I consider light weight guns well at doves, or clays, I must begin my mount by having the muzzles closely on line with the bird. As the butt nears my shoulder pocket the muzzles stay in line with the moving bird and begin to slightly pull ahead of it. Almost instantaneously, after my mount is completed, the gun is triggered. Shooting these little guns in this way enabled my hit ratio to go way up.

It is my belief that the reason .410s have the poor reputation they do in the field on gamebirds is not because of a lack of killing ability, it's because the little waifs require such a different method of shooting.