Like the title says, I got to shoot trap for the first time yesterday, and it was awesome! I'm a pistol/rifle shooter about 99% of the time, so this was definitely out of the ordinary for me. My boss's dad loves to shoot, and found out that I like to as well, and invited me to shoot at his club with his friends. So it was basically me (28 years old) shooting with a bunch of retirement aged gentlemen, and one younger lady. Everyone was super nice and very helpful, even if it didn't seem like the help did much good at first, more on that in a bit.
We shot 4 rounds of 25 birds. My first 3 rounds I hit around 17-20 out of 25, even managed to hit my first 10 on my second round. Then on my last round I only hit 1, which came after some coaching from the group haha. My shoulder is a little sore after putting 125 rounds of 12 gauge down range, but I love it.
After my first three rounds, they inquired about how I aim, so I said that I close my non-dominate eye (right eye) and line up the sights, squeeze the trigger. Exactly how I was taught. They said that it's better to keep both eyes open so that you can pick up the bird faster and have a wider range of view, which make complete sense. So I tried that on my last round and proceeded to smoke the first bird, then miss the last 24 haha. After the 4th round one of the gentlemen grabbed a box of shells and he coached me through it and I got better, not as good as before, but ended up hitting about a third or maybe half towards the end of the box.
Some observations:
1. My Mossberg 590A1 is EXTREMELY poorly suited for this game. I missed horribly on my first two birds, then one of the gentlemen was nice enough to let me use a spare trap gun of his and I quickly improved.
2. Trying to aim with both eyes open is much harder than I expected. I had a pretty hard time focusing enough to pick up the bead and try to line it up with the bird, but got better.
3. Apparently you don't "aim" a shotgun, you "point" it. Still trying to wrap my head around this one. When I rabbit or deer hunt I definitely aim, as in line up my sights, and do not point it.
4. I need to work on leading my targets. When I was trained on the rifle, we were taught to kinda ambush moving targets. This didn't work so well for me in trap shooting.
5. Swinging through the target. Still having trouble with this one, most likely due to number 4.
Overall I had a great time and will definitely be going back for more!
We shot 4 rounds of 25 birds. My first 3 rounds I hit around 17-20 out of 25, even managed to hit my first 10 on my second round. Then on my last round I only hit 1, which came after some coaching from the group haha. My shoulder is a little sore after putting 125 rounds of 12 gauge down range, but I love it.
After my first three rounds, they inquired about how I aim, so I said that I close my non-dominate eye (right eye) and line up the sights, squeeze the trigger. Exactly how I was taught. They said that it's better to keep both eyes open so that you can pick up the bird faster and have a wider range of view, which make complete sense. So I tried that on my last round and proceeded to smoke the first bird, then miss the last 24 haha. After the 4th round one of the gentlemen grabbed a box of shells and he coached me through it and I got better, not as good as before, but ended up hitting about a third or maybe half towards the end of the box.
Some observations:
1. My Mossberg 590A1 is EXTREMELY poorly suited for this game. I missed horribly on my first two birds, then one of the gentlemen was nice enough to let me use a spare trap gun of his and I quickly improved.
2. Trying to aim with both eyes open is much harder than I expected. I had a pretty hard time focusing enough to pick up the bead and try to line it up with the bird, but got better.
3. Apparently you don't "aim" a shotgun, you "point" it. Still trying to wrap my head around this one. When I rabbit or deer hunt I definitely aim, as in line up my sights, and do not point it.
4. I need to work on leading my targets. When I was trained on the rifle, we were taught to kinda ambush moving targets. This didn't work so well for me in trap shooting.
5. Swinging through the target. Still having trouble with this one, most likely due to number 4.
Overall I had a great time and will definitely be going back for more!