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Grant48

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hey yall, I'm new to shooting. I'm coming to the sport relatively late, as I'm 22 years old, because my family has no background whatsoever in shooting or hunting. I have a question that yall probably think is very basic. Whats the difference between skeet, trap, and sporting clays? A few guys I know use the terms interchangeably. They say that its all the same, which I'm guessing is incorrect.

Also I plan on taking some shooting lessons at the local range (Alpine Range, Fort Worth, TX). Any comments/recommendations about that? Good idea/bad idea?

Thanks in advance.
Grant
 
Hi Grant, since when is 22 late. I started at 49 last year.
There is a thread on this site where I explained the difference between the three. Or you can go to the Remington site and they have a section wherethey explain how to shoot the games.
Otherwise it's all shooting shotguns at clay targets to me so it's all good!
 
Discussion starter · #4 ·
jwints1100 said:
Hi Grant, since when is 22 late. I started at 49 last year.
There is a thread on this site where I explained the difference between the three. Or you can go to the Remington site and they have a section wherethey explain how to shoot the games.
Otherwise it's all shooting shotguns at clay targets to me so it's all good!
Awesome, thanks. I couldnt find your thread, but I did find the explanations on the Remington site quite helpful. And yes, I guess 22 isnt really "late". I just meant that its later than alot of people, since it seems like alot of people on here started shooting as kids. :D
 
Lots of good general books out there too - that have separate sections on trap, skeet and sporting. They'll give you a lot of good info on stance, etc that will probably help your learning curve. Welcome to our hobby - it's great fun. Make a few friends at your local gun club - you'll probably find a lot of guys willing to help you out.
 
Grant48

Welcome to shooting and welcome to this site. There aren't many stupid or dumb questions. Really there aren't any stupid questions when it comes to new shooters. Just ask away. The guys here will answer them all or direct you to the proper source.

Shotgun Red
 
ysr_racer,

You know, they are all good games that are quite enjoyable. Why do you have to make Trap and Skeet sound so bad? You would think that you are scared of Trap and Skeet the way you denigrate them.

Maybe you needed a a game were you could miss 20 percent of the shots and still win your class.

You should support all three games, not just Sporting Clays. We are all shooters after all.

Scott
 
Suggest you bypass Alpine and try Ft. Worth Trap & Skeet Club. Alpine skeet targets are always very poor, but worst is the totally unsafe environment - shooters and pullers who know nothing of gun safety and seem to have no common sense especially as to where to point guns.

The membership fee at Ft. Worth T&S is fairly nominal at around $ 180 annual. Member rounds are pretty cheap...
Really good folks, and as a non-member, go into the club house and introduce yourself and ask to shoot with a member: you can do this several times before you become a member or have a member vouch for you (your safe habits primarily).
 
Hmmm! Trap and Skeet IS a game of the same target over and over. But, you must move from station to station and with trap you don't know which of any of 5 different directions from any of 5 different posts the rock is going to go. If you think it's easy, come on down and show us how to run a couple hundreds straight. Love those hard rights at #5 and the straightaways on #3! Oh, yes, when you do do pretty well, they start backing you up, just for a little different perspective on the game!

Skeet, which actually is rapidly becoming MY favorite, is very boreing too!! You always know from whence the rock cometh and whither it goeth, you do this from some 8 different locations on the course and then just for teasers, toss in pairs on 1/2 of the stations. When you think you have it "dicked" lets talk about small gauge a bit. There is a whole 'nother perspective on that when you trade your 12 ga for a .410! Add in to all this a 20 to 30 mile per hour gusting wind and watch the difference in the way a rock flies from the high and low houses and the difference in swing required to break them!

Yup, same old thing over and over again BOREING!!! Let me know when you start running them over and over, BOREING! To each his own! Oh yes! I almost forgot about the Boreing game of Five Stand! Running a 5-stand is almost a Gimmie!, same old thing over and over, gimmie a 1, a 2 and a 3, a 4 and a 5. Now lets move like we do in Trap to a different location and watch those same presentations over and over again. Throw the rock, break the rock, over and over again, again and again!

The places I shoot Sporting clays usually have no less than 4 and many times 10 shots per station of which you get the exact same presentation in the last pair as you did with the first pair. You ought to learn something by watching the free "lookers" on every station?? Don't get me wrong, I like Sporting clays just as well as the next guy. Best I've ever done is 80 out of 100. Trap? Never did better than 49 out of 50 and skeet a 23 followed with a 24 is my best. I don't shoot tournaments, usually, just serious fun and summer leauges. Don't nock the other diciplines just because it isn't YOUR favorite, go over there and join in on the fun. Rare is the day I go to the range and shoot just Trap or just Skeet or just Sporting Clays! Probably why I'm not very good at any of them? Too many guns, too many different games to master! I sure have a good time though! :wink:

BP
 
BP,
Is there something someone said to cause you to expound in such a fashion?I can't find a reference to BOREING(sic) or having it dicked or thinking it's easy anywhere but in your post?
 
Guest,

ysr_racer clearly meant to suggest that Trap and Skeet are boring repetitious games. He has said as much on this forum before. It is easy to see what he was saying.

Trap and Skeet may indeed be boring repetitious games to ysr_racer. But projecting his bias onto a new shooter does the new shooter no good. Let the new shooter figure what games he likes. He may be like me and love Skeet. Or he might be like ysr_racer and love Sporting Clays. Heck, he might like all the games.

Scott
 
Scott,

I think the denigration of Trap and Skeet is in the eye of the beholder.

If the skeet targets do not pass through the hoop they are called no-birds - thus making them the same over and over.

American Trap limits the range of the thrower to keep the targets within a predefined arc, plus they have resisted opening up the size of the arc for many years. So factually Brad is correct.

Now the fact that the targets are the same, or nearly so does not make either the Trap or the Skeet game easy. In fact it is very hard to keep your focus and concentration and body skills consistent for 100 targets and that is what makes the game challenging and a delight to some folks.

I think BP said it right - you may hit high scores ie 100% or close at Trap or Skeet but that translates to 80% or much less :shock: at sporting clays.

Sporting does not have the same rules about rejecting a target as Trap or Skeet, if it is not broken, and is similar in trajectory to the last one it is a good bird. :lol:

I remember a referee at the World Sporting a few years ago with a rabbit and incoming bird as a true pair. The bird traveled about 80-90 yards before it came into sight - it varied a lot!

The ref said "it may land on the right of that bush, in the bush or the left of the bush, but all of those are good targets to be shot at" - the 'bush' was about 20 yards wide !

The whole idea of throwing the target from so far away was to create variation.

Different strokes guys.

Now back to the original question,

Grant if you can get over to Elm Fork Park on Lunar Road in Dallas they have all the games you have mentioned and you can go see them in operation. They also have coaches there as well

Roger
 
Roger Gascoigne said:
I think BP said it right - you may hit high scores ie 100% or close at Trap or Skeet but that translates to 80% or much less :shock: at sporting clays.

Roger
It just can't be done, you cannot simply adjust a score from one to the other, sporting is too variable and the reason I like it so well.

This summer with the advent of 5 stand to the club, I finally talked some trap shooters (no way the skeet guys would go) into making the long trip to a sporting range. One particular AA trap shooter that generally is a 99-100 scorer in trap, shoots a 59 on the first course, after dinner he shoots the second course and breaks a 90. To the general Sporting crowd the scores weren't that much different, but the second course offered alot of trap type targets and he shined.

On the other hand, Scott probably knows Paul Newman from Albequerque, I've shot sporting with Paul several times and it-----just isn't his game, but that kid is tough in skeet. Paul is an Okie native, Ray Newman is his dad and has held several Vet/Super Vet championships, at least one world I know of-----in sporting/FITASC.

TT
 
Roger,

I agree that "beauty (like or dislike) is in the eye of the beholder". But ysr-racer didn't say Trap and Skeet were not his games. His intent was to portray the games as boring. They may be to him, but not to a lot of other people. Trap and Skeet together have far more shooters than Sporting Clays does. And frankly, the Sporting Clays crowd is getting awful uppity. The Trap guys are nicer these days.

I don't understand the need to pick on the clay target games you don't like or shoot. I am not a big fan of Trap or Sporting Clays. Yet I know that those are funs games that lots of people like to shoot. I would encourage a new shooter to try all three.

By the way, you don't see many targets rejected in registered Skeet shoots. If you reject a target, you had better hope it was grossly illegal and not because the wind was blowing either. You should have seen the targets at the Zone 7 shoot this year. We had 25 MPH winds with 45 to 50 MPH gusts. I shot several targets just a few feet off the ground.

Folks seem to forget that Skeet is a four gun game. I like to see some of you Sporting Clays shooters shoot Skeet with a .410. Talking about tough.

Scott
 
Guest:

If you have something to say, show your face!

If you didn't get the drift of ysr-racers post, I'd say you are dumber than you sound, er, ah, look! Tell'ya what, Guest, just don't read any posts that are authored by Burnt Powder, you will be far happier and he couldn't care less what your anonymous opinion is!

BP
 
TT,

Paul Newman is one of the best Skeet shooters around. He won the HAA at the World Shoot this year. You are right, being one of the best at one game means nothing for another.

Look at Phil Kiner, one of the best Trap shooters ever. In Skeet, he shot mostly D class scores at the Mini-World Shoot.

What bugs me is the Sporting Clays shooters who think they can waltz onto a Skeet field and run 'em. Good luck! I like watching them try.

We should all respect the games other shooters choose to shoot. Skeet, Trap, and Sporting Clays are all hard to win at and perform well in.

Scott
 
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