Shooting Trap - First Time

Our resident range officer John decided we had done enough pistol shooting and thought we might like to try shooting trap. In trap shooting, the targets  clay discs are launched from a machine away from the shooter in random directions. It's then the moving target you must shoot.

John graciously allowed each of us to borrow one of his shotguns and for the 20$ range fee they provided the shotgun shells and the clay targets. There would be two rounds with 25 shots each round 5 at each position.

I was given a Mossberg International Silver Reserve Over Under 12-Guage shotgun. It was certainly a heavy gun. Genti used a Stevens and Genti used a Remington 870.

I started at position 1 and as the first clay pigeon launched I did as I was told and shot as quickly as I could once the target was in my sights. While I tried my best to connect with it I missed. After a five shots at position 1 we shifted to the right. Having only connected with one clay pigeon at positions 1 and 2  I asked John for some advice and he instructed me to keep the clay pigeon in my sight even after firing. Essentially don't stop the guy to shoot. Immediately I saw an improvement in my shooting and picked of the first 2 clay pigeons at position 3. At position 4 I connected with another 2 and at position 5 I picked off just one. I guess I got too excited and wasn't aiming as well as I should have.

We took a break after the first round of 25 shots to have a bit of John's homemade soup which was delicious. After the meal break we took our starting positions for round two. John reminded all of us to follow the target even after firing. I didn't do much better this round in positions 1,2 and 3 but by position 4 I had started to figure out what I needed to do. I was waiting too long to shoot and letting the clay pigeon get to far away from me. For the next two position I vowed to fire more quickly and it paid off I  picked off 3 out of 5 clay pigeons in position 4 and 4 our of 5 in position 5.

Having triumphed in beating the competition I should have won a free lunch but since I had won during the last competition shooting the SW Model 41 22 caliber I was excluded from taking the prize today. Fliden took second place and scored the free lunch. It was a great time and I am looking forward to trying it again with a different shotgun. The Mossberg Over/Under sure did get heavy by the end of the evening.