Call 911 our sport is in trouble!

Sporting clays is eating our lunch. Is our game to easy? What the hell happened?

 

Not that easy when shooting 410! I got bored with the repetition. The clubs around me change the Sporting courses monthly.

 

people are bored with uniformity and repitition.
people dont want to concentrate and be precise.
people just want to send lead downrange and accept whatever happens.
thats s.clays in a nutshell, people love it.
makes you wonder why someone would need an expensive gun just to do that.

 

Boring is boring....
We need to put the sport back in the game. Speed it up. Smaller targets. Limit the payload. Whatever it takes or the sport will die.

 

5 hole....and attract those with money willing to put it where their mouths are.

 

Go back to the old days when you shot from a low gun stance

 

Why and when did we change that?

 

Don’t no the year they changed it ,I believe sometime in the 40s

 

When it comes to guns, and many other items we use to enjoy our interests, for most of us it's not about need, it's about want.

I've had a few cars in my lifetime that were considered "high performance." I was never capable of driving them to their fullest capacities. But I still enjoyed owning them.

I was a registered skeet shooter for a few decades. However, I finally got tired of spending an entire weekend shooting all four gun events - and although I managed to attain AA classification in all four guns I was pretty consistently getting beaten by the really good shooters. And . . . .I got tired of running a hundred straight and losing shoot offs, thereafter, to the really good shooters. It's my understanding that today there are far more 50 registered target events rather than 100 target events. This does enable a shooter to possibly shoot all four guns in a single day. But that simply reflects the lack of interest by the shooting public.

I'm not certain there is just one reason many folks are migrating from skeet to sporting clays. It most likely cost isn't the factor. Sporting clays targets are always more expensive than skeet targets - whether registered or just causal targets for fun with friends. And many sporting clays shooters are using guns that are on par with target specific competition skeet guns - whether from a cost standpoint or possibly "cross over" guns that can be used in multiple venues.

When I was shooting registered targets in my state (Indiana) there were at least 6 clubs/ranges that held registered four gun tournaments plus doubles on any given weekend Friday thru Sunday. Today I think there are two clubs that throw registered targets - maybe twice of three times a year at most. And the 2025 state shoot had 25 four gun participants. In the 70"s and 80's when I was shooting there were easily over 100 four gun shooters at the state shoot.


There is no easy answer. Entry level sporting clays equipment can be had relative inexpensive. With that being said, I've seen everything from field grade 870's to other similarly inexpensive shotguns. The folks I see regularly on our sporting clays range aren't tournament shooters. Apparent they simply like to shoot for fun and fellowship. I predict the return of an increase in registered isn't going to happen.

 

sad. skeet and trap use to be that way. local clubs use to exist for men to shoot during the week after work, all to unwind.
i vividly remember it was..........
cards friday night
fishing saturday and late night dancing
church with the family sunday, then off to the skeet range.
monday was pistol league
tuesday was trap
wednesday was bowling
thursday was tv.

it was good to be an american.