doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Handicapping for sporting clays

You talk about guys using 3/4 oz. of shot. I used to shoot with a guy who had a Model 12 with a cutts. He'd fill half of his reloads up with popcorn which would probably only amount to about 1/2 oz. and run 25 straight darn near every time shooting skeet with us. I'd run 25 straight on occasion with a 12 gauge. Heck of a shooter. 😄

If you give me a 20 birds per hundred spot with a .410, I'll play for real money. Handicaps need some basis. How hard is the course? I shoot almost all my Sporting Clays with a .410. On a real serious setup I bump it up to 28 gauge. But understand I shoot tight chokes and rather quickly, so if I can take the bird within a decent range, in my window I want to shoot it in, I am not very handicapped at all. With my Sporting Clays .410, I broke 47X50 at 16 yard trap a month ago so a .410 works for me. I use 1/2 ounce number 8 or 8 1/2 at 1250 fps. Load has been tested and patterns really well in a couple 42's I like to shoot which are tight full choked .410s. Most shooters I see would do better with an ounce number 8's, 1150-1200fps with a improved cylinder choke with a 12. But people fall in love with either speed or heavy loads out of tighter chokes. The smoke looks good, when they hit the bird,s but I'll take a few chips as a bonus. I see so many people shoot over top of dropping or sinking birds, which a few they would hit with a slightly more open choke. Over the top and behind are 90% of the misses I see.

Most Sporting Clays setups are simple, close range setups, with decent windows to kill targets. If you make targets too hard, people wont come back to shoot. Reading the flight line and figuring your windows is the real challenge as you know. But for some, a five bird per 25 spot will not be enough and with some you might be giving them too much. On a hard setup most decent shooters struggle to get into the low 80's. I shot the Blue course at Elk Creek a couple months ago that had been setup for a registered shoot, with some difficult to very difficult targets. Same setup, just a few days later. There were some challenging targets but they all had a window which they could be broken in. It was often a narrow window, a fairly long shot or a bird which was doing three things at once, like canted to slide right to left slightly and curl, falling flight path and moving in and out of small windows for good shots in the trees. I scored 39 out of 50. If you want to give me 10 targets handicap I'll play for real money. Now if those same birds were just 10 more yards away I would struggle to break 25-30 out of 50. So easy courses maybe 1 for 20, 2 for 28 and 3 for .410 handicap but for real monster courses it wont matter that much to most.

I have shot events with the gauge handicap shown above, and really enjoyed it. When I have a chance to get a 20 bird per 100 handicap (with the .410) I jump at it. Last time I had the opportunity was at the Bray's Island exposition a few years ago. This is mostly a fun shoot, not a money shoot, but there is always a prize for HOA. That year I took my FAIR .410 Verona and ended up HOA, very easily. I knew the course wouldn't be too challenging because the purpose of the shoot each year is to have people experience the Bray's Island course and hospitality. They came to me afterwards and said I had won and would receive a flat of shells as a prize, and asked what gauge I wanted. Without hesitation I replied ".410", of course.

I'm with Jon, I'll take a 20 bird per hundred handicap with the .410 all day long.

I'm curious to know how many of those twenty spotted targets you actually needed to win that case of lead-filled prank cigarillos. But at any rate, well done, sir.

Thanks for everyone's view. I usually hold a friendly SxS event and had a handicap last year, not nearly as generous as described here and the few 410 shooters dominated. Partly this is the course nature of fairly close targets but the 410 shooters are excellent shots regardless of the gun they choose.

Thank you, sir. I can't remember the score exactly, but with the 20 handicap birds I was probably in the high nineties. I have to shoot my light .410s a bit differently than my big 12 ga. MX8. Somedays it clicks immediately and some days it takes a few birds to hit the groove.

47 out of 50 at singles trap with 1/2 ounce of 8 1/2 shot with a .410. And you can do that consistently? That's better than most guys shoot with a 12 gauge. So, that's pretty good shooting. 👍 Do you shoot at the Grand American?

I don’t know how many tournaments you shoot with a SxS, but in the Great Lakes region there is very robust competition in the small gauges.
Some of the .410 guys vie for HOA without handicap.
A guy from Indiana comes to mind.
Just a brilliant shot.
I think he won 3-4 tournaments last summer around the circuit.

CZ, we are thinking of the same guy. Some around here call him Mr. 410.

Jimmy, I do not do that with a .410 every time. I do not shoot much Skeet or Trap anymore. But when I am in a groove I am able to. I'd bet 41-42 out of 50 for money. People get hung up on the .410 and just fail to understand that the center of my .410 pattern hits bird well and is that same as the center of a 12, just slightly less dense there is no edges beyond it. The center of a 12 gauge pattern is overkill. I have a 20-22" pattern when I shoot trap at 16 yards, the way I shoot. Your 30" pattern is not even 30" if you shoot quickly but can still kill birds long after I can, at ranges a .410 runs out of pattern. I shoot fast and when in the groove as we use to say can break birds. What I can not do is ride birds out or shoot deliberately with a .410. It runs out of gas past 30-33 yards. My sweet spot is about 25-27 yards, and on straight away birds that is no problem. But angle birds are a real issue, so I am very aggressive with them. Most angled birds are like Skeet low six or high two type angles if you shoot faster. At Skeet I shoot low five and low six before it is half way to the center stake. A hit at 25-30 yards, on angled bird is more likely with a .410 than one at 30-35 yards. Past that it is a hail mary. Put another way I struggle with angled birds past 25-27 yards and past 30 yards any hits are miracles as much as skill.

If you shot a .410 a lot you would see some of what I am saying. I suspect Stan does. Can you get within 20" of the bird? If so you can break birds with a .410. You can do it with 30" pattern with a 12, and if you shoot 7/8 or 3/4 ounce your pattern is nearer 25" than 30". So your 25" 3/4 ounce load will break birds at 16 yards. I am just a step or two lower at 1/2 ounce and 20".

What you can not do with a .410 is think too much. Never cut open a shell and see how few pellets are in 1/2 ounce load. Never pattern a .410 and count pellets. If you must pattern one, then see where the POI is and see how nicely is covers the target, or how wide the pattern is. I look for a pattern which has no "holes" in it for a target to fly through edge ways. A good one will cover about 22" at the ranges I want to shoot. A bad one gets spotty and is really just a 16-18" pattern, best only used closer. And much as I have tried I have never found a 40 yard .410 load but I might if I could afford Tungsten shot. Some guys kill geese at stupid ranges with that stuff.