1st Perfect Round

Hello classmates, this week I’m going to talk about a perfect round (something I’ve hadn’t had yet). A perfect round is when you hit 25 out of 25 targets. There is a ritual when a new shooter gets his or hers first perfect round called “the hat shoot”. At our club they make an announcement that someone shot their first perfect round and everyone should line up on the skeet field. The person that just had their 1^st perfect round surrenders their hat and fills it up with broken clay targets then flings it out across the field. All the shooters lined up will shoot at that hat all at once. It’s a really cool thing to experience and it’s kind of a “Rite of Passage”. I’m getting close to my first perfect round and will start carrying a sacrificial hat. Wish me luck!    

Cleaning your shotgun

Something I’ve been slacking on lately is cleaning my shotgun. As much as I shoot it, I need to focus more on cleaning it. When cleaning my over/under I like to use this thing called a bore snake. I think it’s one of the greatest firearm accessories ever invented. A bore snake essentially is a long cloth tube that has a built-in wire brush and a string with a weight at the end. To clean the barrel, spray solvent on the “Fluffy” part of the snake then insert the weighted string through the breach (back of the barrel) then pull the rest of the bore snake through. Do that a couple of times and you’re done.

   

Reloading Video

This weeks I made a little reloading video, briefly going over some steps. It seems like I’m hitting reloading a lot in my weekly blogs, but it’s very important. Good reloading gets good results out on the range.  Also I’ve figured out last week’s blog about stations 3, 4 and 5. Using the illustration I showed you guys last week I shot much better. I was constantly hitting low twenty’s. With my best being 22 clay targets hit out of 25

Also at the end of the video I said 12 gauge when it I should of said 20 gauge. 

Leading the target.

This week I’m going to talk about my problem children, pertaining to skeet that is. I have the most difficulty with stations 3, 4 and 5. At these stations the clay pidgins fly from right to left in 63 feet front you. The thing I’m having an issue about is the amount lead I need to give the clay target. Because the bird is moving so fast and you’re so far away, you need to shoot in front of it. Some say you need to shoot 3 feet in front of the target so by the time the lead shot gets 63 feet out it meets the clay target.    

Reloading

This week was kind of a slow week. I didn’t do any trap or skeet shooting and mostly focused on reloading some 20 gauge shotgun shells. I find myself really concentrating and getting into a zone while reloading. Every once in a while I might forget to add a wad (a plastic spacer that keeps the powder and shot separated. See photo below), when that happens it’s easy to see I’d messed up. The load shot drops into the powder and I have to dump the shell and start over. After I get into a rhythm it takes me about 10 minutes to make a box of 25.  

I might save about $1.00 per box I reload. I know that it doesn’t sound like much, but when you shoot as much as I do, every little bit helps. Also with the ammo shortage it’s becoming very hard to find the right load in the stores. What I mean by right loads is; I like to shoot #9 shot (smaller sized lead shot gives you more shot per round) and the right amount of powder. I like to shoot 7/8 oz of powder and that gives me a lighter kick so you can find the second clay pidgin quicker by not having to recover as much from the harder recoil.