Do you like spending time in the great outdoors? Do you like shooting shotguns? Do you like watching things explode mid-air? Then I think you’ll love sporting clays.
Originating as small-game hunting practice in 1900s England, sporting clays are a shotgun-based shooting sport consisting of a series of 10–15 stations where a comrade “pulls” a clay disc for you and you attempt to shoot it, either out of the air or across the ground. Unlike in other clay sports such as trap and skeet,1 each station has anywhere from 2–4 unique clay paths, and a proper round includes shooting singles, reporting pairs, and then true pairs.2
Earlier this month, a small group and I met up at an outdoor range outside of the city on a balmy Sunday afternoon. One comrade was kind enough to bring their shotgun stroller3 with their three different shotguns of varying gauges and actions for the group to use. We made it through about five of the ten stations, and all took down multiple clays, even those among us with little to no prior sporting clay experience.
At its core, sporting clays (and similar games such as trap and skeet) are exercises in geometry and physics.4 The clay launcher (point A) fires a clay going in a certain direction at a more-or-less consistent speed, and you (point B) are trying to intercept it at a theoretical point C. Accomplishing this requires the antithesis of traditional target shooting present in sports like 2-gun; instead of aiming directly at your target and then locking into place, sporting clays requires constant and smooth targeting as you track the clay through the arc of its path and, most importantly, get out ahead of your target instead of firing right at it so that your target load has time to travel the distance between you and the clay before reaching it. It might sound complicated, but once you get the foundational elements and technique down, nothing will feel as satisfying and badass as seeing that little orange disk explode into an emulsified cloud of dust and success.
I promise you, it’s a lot of fun. And for you beginners out there: I know it’s easy in any hobby to obsess over gear when you’re first starting out, but as long as you have or borrow some earpros and go with some fellow CSRA folks, I can guarantee you someone there will be willing to lend you their shotgun and give you some shooting tips if you want or need either of those things. As with any hobby, technique is always more important than gear. Truly, the only real barrier to engaging in this activity around these parts is that we, for obvious reasons, don’t have clay ranges anywhere near the city (the two nearest to Chicago are both at least 90 minutes away in each direction). But I can also guarantee that if you join on for a CSRA group outing, somebody will be willing to give you a ride should you need one—just make sure to throw them some gas money ;-)
So, what are you waiting for? Join us on our next outing and embrace your inner Tom Knapp.5
1: Trap is a clay shooting sport where five participants stand in a semi-circle and clays are launched from a single trap house out and away from the shooter, and the shooter attempts to hit the target before it reaches the ground. Targets may vary slightly in launch direction but generally launch at the same speed and pitch. Skeet, by comparison, ejects targets from two different trap houses that fly horizontally across the shooter’s field of view. Typically, there is a “high house” and a “low house” which varies the height at which the target flies.
2: Reporting pairs are where the first clay is pulled, and immediately after the shooter fires at the first clay, the second clay is then pulled. True pairs are where both clays are pulled simultaneously, and the shooter must attempt to hit both before they leave the shooting bounds. As you might imagine, this is decidedly more difficult to accomplish, especially if you’re a freak like me and use a pump-action shotgun instead of a semi-auto or over-under.
3: No, your eyes do not deceive you. These are real and yes, are exactly what they sound like.
4: Don’t worry, you don’t actually need to be good at geometry or physics to do this sport. I was shit in math classes and I was still able to get the hang of things pretty quickly.
5: This could be you with just a little bit of practice!
