How to Shoot Clays

Sporting clays is perhaps the most challenging of the shooting sports in that it requires the shooter to weigh the advantages of taking a quality shot within a tightly controlled time limit. Designed to most closely approximate the shooting situations likely to be encountered in the field, shooting sporting clays demands an ability to think quickly on your feet and a knack for assigning priority to multiple targets.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Forget what you have learned concerning predictable flight patterns in skeet, and to a lesser extent, in trap. Sporting clay targets tend to be far faster and travel at more challenging angles, requiring a more intuitive use of your firearm.
2. When you call for the target bring the stock of your firearm as crisply as possible, ensuring you position your shotgun in exactly the same position against your shoulder so that you establish a predictable rhythm and sight picture.
3. Swing your shotgun freely on all targets, remembering that trajectory and velocity will vary from one station to the next and that you have a limited amount of time before the target is out of range or beyond the acceptable limits for safe or sporting firing.
4. Take advantage of the walk between stations to collect yourself for the next shooting opportunity. Because of the nature of sporting clays, the course tends to be far larger than anything the shooter will encounter in skeet or trap.
5. Choose a proper shotgun for the course. While many shooters prefer the challenge offered by a 20-gage, a 12-gage is far more effective at some of the more rapid and further flying targets. Choke selection should also be carefully considered for the optimum performance of your firearm.