doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Most difficult sporting target

For me the most difficult sporting target is a long, low crosser. I shoot swing through at most targets but can do sustained lead and pull away when needed. One of the places I shoot throws a clay that starts about 40-45 yards away and crosses right to left, actually coming in a little, so it lands about 40 yards out. It never gets higher than 5 ft. I know the lead has to be both well in front and below, but can't seem to get there. I remember watching one of the top US sporting shooters years ago mount and wait for a target to come into his window. Is this how you need to take a target such as I have described?

Sustained lead, but, then, I miss one fairly regularly. A fellow on my squad hardly ever misses one, but I haven't asked him how he does it. I think he stays in the gun better than I do.

I shoot as you described on the vast majority of targets on a sporting course ........ decide where I want to kill it, mount, and back up just a little ways towards the trap. Lift my head ever so slightly from the gun and look back to the place where I can first see the bird after it leaves the trap. As the target gets close to my muzzles I begin a very controlled but short move that keeps my muzzles always ahead of the target. Then when it looks right, kill it. To many, this method looks like you're hardly moving the muzzles at all, but you are. Bill McGuire taught me this method and it has served me very well. I would definitely use it on the presentation you describe. Some of my competitive buddies call it a "controlled ambush". BTW, I never let a fast bird get ahead of my muzzles. If I had to name the style of lead I shoot on most stuff I'd call it pull away, but not started on the bird, rather started from a tiny bit ahead of it. When I kill the first bird in a true pair and make my move to the second one I intercept it's line ahead of it.

The best advice I could give anyone about shooting sporting would be to use the hands less, and the eyes more. Always let the eyes go to the bird before the hands. Where the eyes go the hands will follow. Another Bill McGuire truism.

30 yard ZZ

Do y'all throw ZZ birds on a sporting course, Mike? I've never seen that, but would welcome it. Love shooting Helice.

Slow long crossers are much more difficult than fast. It has to do with the fact a fast target has a more predictable line. You must stay on line. A 40-50-60 yard crosser needs lots of lead unless it’s a dying target where there’s less lead but you still have to be in front and on the line. I shoot pull away on the real long ones. Tough shot, but the slow bastards at distance are the roughest of the bunch. High incomers at distance, 50-60 yards and seem to stop at the peak are another very difficult shot and tougher than the long crosser, imho.

When I shot a lot of sporting, I would often move to a very different position to watch my partner shoot after I missed. I generally found that targets like this that are inexplicably harder were not flying exactly as they appeared from the stand. It would turn out that the trap was set at a slight cant so that the bird would fade to the side of it's flight path. This small lateral movement was enough to cause a miss to one side or the other, even though it wasn't obvious from the stand. If you moved to antother location, you could see it.

Thinking more about it I think the consistently toughest presentation for me has been those that present an ever changing line ......... curling, transitioning from one with the face to you to one on edge, and never establishing an easily discerned "line". Thinking back on misses I can say that this target, thrown from behind me and quartering away, curling and dying, may be the toughest of all. Give me a "straight" line any day, regardless how fast it is.

hey stan, heres a non linear thought for you...

what goes around, comes around...

I shot ZZ birds at Mikes ranch today all I can say its damn humbling. 😀