First Time Shooting Sporting Clays.

**soberbyker** · April 6th, 2012, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by Skullz

You have most of it down. It's actually a lot to try an remeber in the few seconds you have to hit the bird.

The only other things I would recommend are: keep 80% of your weight on your front foot. Point your front foot where you think you'll break the target. You point a shotgun, you aim a rifle

Have fun. And a word of warning, shotgun sports are addictive. Between trap, sporting clays, skeet, and live birds, I fired a little more than 13,000 shells last year (my chiropractor thinks everyone should shoot shotguns, he'd be a billionaire).

Most folks agree with this philosophy, as did I when I first started shooting (*table) trap. I have since started working with a guy who has me keeping my weight balanced and my feet at an angle that I can swivel my body without moving my feet to follow the bird(s) whichever way it goes. (you move the body not just the arms) and I have to say it's a much more comfortable stance. In trap and table trap the bird direction can vary.

After years of rifle and pistol bullseye type shooting the hardest thing for me has been keeping two eyes open. It does make a huge difference since you're dealing with a moving object and you lose your depth perception with one eye closed.

(*table trap vid example of shooting HERE This was during a competitive shoot, normally you only get one or two birds at a time, the object at the station in this video was to load two rounds and to hit only the two green targets, quickly load one more and hit the incoming bird, while sitting in a bathtub. Here's another angle of that station HERE)

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**SauerGrapes** · April 9th, 2012, 09:31 PM

Hey,
First time shooting sporting clays with a 20'' barrel? You did ok! We all had to start somewhere.......

I've been shooting shotguns for 40yrs, let me know when it gets easy! I still have some really bad days from time to time. I never considered quitting, it's just too much fun.