I'm sure Reverend Drew Hause would agree that various match shoots in the early days had rules agreed upon by the participants or sponsors. In Pennsylvania there were two regions with two very different sets of rules, even though the shoots may have been as little as twenty miles apart. The Northeast region shot one shot, low gun, at "handled birds" and short ranges, sometimes 17 yards. The Southern region shot what we know today as standard two shot European style shoots at largely unhandled birds with shooting positions changed on the "slide" as the shooter killed a set number of birds in a row. Remember, in the early days, at least in PA, match shoots were the norm, shoots participated in by the public were the exception. In other parts of the country, public shoots were more common.
