Is skeet the least popular?

Our club is dominated by the trap leagues.
Skeet ranges are used, but not as overflowing.
5-stand is newer and growing.

Shot my second round of skeet last week. Some old timers were present to walk me and my other trap squad members through the stations. Very helpful.

Swanee

>>I consider skeet to be a fundamental area that a shooter needs to learn to be able to shoot sporting clays with any expectation of doing well.<<

I would agree with this.

Where I shoot . skeet is not as popular as trap for Sporting Clays. I can tell some people do shoot skeet by the shells left behind but, it's nowhere near as much as trap.

Sporting Clays rules the roost in my area. And it is quite fun. But, I do love me some skeet. Day in and day out, I'd rather shoot skeet. I tend to look at Sporting Clays as more of and occasional treat than an out right passion. I think most people disagree with me. Last weekend I counted 36 Sporting Clays shooters on the course and no one on the skeet range.

At my range the trap field is informal and people just show up alone or with another person and shoot with whoever is there. The group of 5 shooters changes with each round. Skeet on the other hand seems to be shot by groups of people who are friends and came together. They don't want to shoot with strangers.

Both skeet and trap are games of perfection so you can get into the shootoff with 25 other guys. Sporting clays is about trying to hit as many as you can; perfection is very rare and the targets are NEVER the same anywhere. Skeet is ALWAYS the exact same thing; many folks find that very boring.

Skeet is something I grew up on in the late 60's. I have never shot sporting clays, trap is boring, and skeet will teach you much about shooting birds in the field: to me that is fundamental for any manner of upland bird hunting.

Skeet is not boring. Try shooting one-handed at station 4 or doubles at station 8, if the puller will let you. It will open your eyes. Skeet will teach you to keep the gun moving whereas trap will not. If you want to kill real birds, this is the only game IMO.

Jim

Just my $.02 worth.

It must be a regional thing because Ive always heard that trap was crap. Skeet and sporting clays are all the peeps I know shoot. I myself, am not a big shotgun guy but loved shooting skeet and was bored shooting trap.

-Robb

expat_alaska said:

Skeet is something I grew up on in the late 60's. I have never shot sporting clays, trap is boring, and skeet will teach you much about shooting birds in the field: to me that is fundamental for any manner of upland bird hunting.

Skeet is not boring. Try shooting one-handed at station 4 or doubles at station 8, if the puller will let you. It will open your eyes. Skeet will teach you to keep the gun moving whereas trap will not. If you want to kill real birds, this is the only game IMO.

Jim

Just my $.02 worth.

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Sorry, skeet targets NEVER change, EVER. THAT is boring to a lot of folks. I like battues, rabbits, teals, chandelles, minis, midis, and 70s in addition to standards in a variety of colors flying a wide variety of directions. Get a slight breeze and skeeters refuse to shoot..............
If you want to make skeet challenging, shoot ISSF style.

There is a private skeet club in my area and has been for many years. Skeet and trap are available at the Remington plant range and there are skeet and trap ranges at the Jacksonville, AR public shooting complex. I'm not sure where to go find a sporting clay range 'round here.

A few rounds of Skeet are fundamental in wingshooting training. I never liked it myself, my Dad made me shoot it with him one summer after he made a bad shot on a fleeing felon's car. I think my best Skeet score was around 15. I think the thing I hated about Skeet was the bird coming right at your head at Station 7. There was no such thing as Sporting Clays when I was young, I shot my first Round when I worked at a gun shop, the Beretta rep invited us down to Horse and Hunt to shoot their guns, it's where I fell in love with the 686 Onyx. I worked at a trap range as a teenager, so that's why I favor Trap. I do like to Shoot a round of Sporting Clays around this time of year to get ready for upland bird and small game.

entropy said:

A few rounds of Skeet are fundamental in wingshooting training. I never liked it myself, my Dad made me shoot it with him one summer after he made a bad shot on a fleeing felon's car. I think my best Skeet score was around 15. I think the thing I hated about Skeet was the bird coming right at your head at Station 7. There was no such thing as Sporting Clays when I was young, I shot my first Round when I worked at a gun shop, the Beretta rep invited us down to Horse and Hunt to shoot their guns, it's where I fell in love with the 686 Onyx. I worked at a trap range as a teenager, so that's why I favor Trap. I do like to Shoot a round of Sporting Clays around this time of year to get ready for upland bird and small game.

Click to expand...

Skeet is good for a brand new shooter as all angles are known and the targets are close. But after that, most folks like the challenge and variety of sporting clays as seen in the numbers of folks participating. Skeet is heading downward while sporting is soaring upward. If you do not have sporting near you, then skeet is better than nothing for warming up for bird season, especially the quartering/crossing targets from stations 2-6.

At our public range, Sporting and Skeet are typically busy. 5 stand, not so much. Wobble and American Trap,,, Hardly ever
'Throw your own' is typically ~busy~.

entropy said:

A few rounds of Skeet are fundamental in wingshooting training. I never liked it myself, my Dad made me shoot it with him one summer after he made a bad shot on a fleeing felon's car. I think my best Skeet score was around 15. I think the thing I hated about Skeet was the bird coming right at your head at Station 7. There was no such thing as Sporting Clays when I was young. I worked at a trap range as a teenager, so that's why I favor Trap. I do like to Shoot a round of Sporting Clays around this time of year to get ready for upland bird and small game.

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I really think you mean Station 8 low house. Station 7 low house was all about your elbow out of the way of the clay coming out. If you got hit with a clay in the elbow (as I did once) you would go home nursing at least a severe bruise. I worked at Roberts Shooting Park Elkhorn NE in 1969-1970 for $1.50/hr after school and on weekends setting trap (including doubles) and pulling trap and skeet. It no longer exists and the site is a community college 40+ years later. I always loved skeet for the different angles that trap did not offer, but the leads were always different. Yeah, they may be the same angles but how many angles does trap entail? Maybe 30 degrees out of the house either side of the trap? And those angles never change. And I never shot 25 straight.

I guess if you like shooting birds pretty much straight ahead of you, trap is the game. If you get a chance at a pheasant flying horizontally to you at whatever range, trap won't do you a bit of good because you will probably stop the gun and shoot behind it.

That is where skeet training excels. One never stops the gun to excel. I have broken clays consistently using only one hand on the gun at station 4, and shot doubles on station 8. Do not stop the gun!

I came home on leave from the USAF in 1972 and my Dad invited me to a pheasant hunt, and since I did not bring my 870, he lent me his Win Model 12 16 gauge full choke field model. I am not bragging but I killed the only two pheasants that day among 4 hunters. The last one was at a paced 60 yards and trapshooters would have all shot behind it, and I will almost guarantee it. It was a perfect station 4 low house crossing shot with at least a 6 foot lead.

I pulled for trapshooters in my youth and they aim for a spot and stop the gun. If you stand behind them you can see where the shot cloud goes, no matter trap or skeet. Whether If one is bird hunting or not, one never stops the gun.

Period.

I have never shot sporting clays and, at my age and eyes, I never will. I will have take your folks word for it.

Jim

You're denying yourself a fun and challenging experience by not even trying it.

Trap started out with live pigeons and morphed from there; and it still isn't a bad practice for hunting pheasant where you have no dog and they jump up early, always flying away from you.

Skeet (originally called "Around the Clock"), was developed by grouse hunters as a way to practice the close shots typically found in the grouse coverts. The original name came from the fact that the original field was a full circle, not just a half circle as it is today.

Sporting, (more correctly English Sporting), has been around a while and first came to the US in the 1980s. This was a whole new concept using a wide range of varying terrain, different sizes, types and speeds of targets in order to simulate a huge variety of hunting scenarios. Back then, station had fun names to describe the targets, like "fur and feather", (rabbit and standard) or "decoying geese" or similar. as the game has progressed, and the targets have become more "technical" (talking about the serious competitions), some of the presentations no longer represent anything remotely found in the field - but are fun and challenging nonetheless.

FITASC, (a french acronym), is also called "European Sporting" and while similar in many aspects to English, has a few notable differences, with the main one being the requirement to shoot "low gun". The target presentations are also different in that you do not shoot 3-4 pairs of the exact same thing at a station, but rather 4-5 singles, then 2 pairs made up from those singles.

All can be fun, challenging and fun practice; it just depends on whether you like repetition or a wide variety.

The hardest game doesn't even involve clay targets, but plastic propeller ones. It is called Helice or also commonly known as ZZ Birds. It was developed in the 60s by a Belgian as a mechanical version to live box pigeon shooting and involves erratically flying targets from an unknown launcher.
A brief idea can be found here:


(BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE VOLUME AS IT HAS A TECHNO MUSIC BACKGROUND)

Where I am, non-member sporting prices are closer to $50/100 with $40/100 for members being about the norm. And you are correct about ZZs; typical price is $2/per TARGET; but they are the ultimate challenge and a lot of fun.......... The ones in the video are the newer styles that are self-loading; saves on labor and time costs.

All this talk about shooting is making me think that it's time to break out the 410 sxs for a couple of rounds of skeet tomorrow.

Now if a good wind will gust here and there I'll truly be happy.

I guess it has been quite a while since I shot skeet at $2.25 per 25 target round.

Skeet...I am good at shooting holes in the sky. Trap is more fun, especially wobble trap. I hit target there; Sporting Clays is the most fun.

To shoot skeet, I would have to shoot a box for each position to learn (I'm a slow learner). No special gun, only what I have and have hunted with.

PWC said:

Skeet...I am good at shooting holes in the sky. Trap is more fun I hit target there; Sporting Clays is the most fun.

To shoot skeet, I would have to shoot a box for each position to learn (I'm a slow learner). No special gun, only what I have and have hunted with.

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Multi-world and Olympic champion, Kim Rhode, does exactly that - she shoots a box (or more) at each station. Her rule is simple, she breaks 25 straight or she starts over until She does - on EACH station.......

George P said:

Multi-world and Olympic champion, Kim Rhode, does exactly that - she shoots a box (or more) at each station. Her rule is simple, she breaks 25 straight or she starts over until She does - on EACH station.......

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Yeah, but I'm retired on fixed income, not sponsored like her. Besides I'm in my 70s...to do that I would probably be shooting off my walker. LOL

George P said:

Multi-world and Olympic champion, Kim Rhode, does exactly that -

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Wow, I knew she was good, but how many worlds is she champion on?
I might have to try her approach to my Trap shooting-that's only 5 stations.

entropy said:

I might have to try her approach to my Trap shooting-that's only 5 stations.

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I could not afford Kim's volume of shooting but when I had trouble with a particular skeet station, I'd shoot a full box at that station. It would help alot.