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Skeet & Double Trap Preview – First Leg of the U.S. Olympic Trials for Shotgun

USA Shooting

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. --(Ammoland.com)- The action continues at the U.S. Olympic Trials for Shotgun in Kerrville, Texas. Double Trap and Skeet athletes are gearing up for their first shots at a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.

The excitement officially begins on Sept. 30. In Men’s Skeet, the competition will be fierce as the athletes compete for two spots on the U.S. Olympic Team.

Jon Michael McGrath (Tulsa, Okla.) is the only American to earn an ISSF World Cup medal this year, but Frank Thompson (Alliance, Neb.) and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock (Eatonton, Ga.) have put up competitive scores as well.

Since the USA Shooting Team has one quota in the Men’s Double Trap event, shooters in Kerrville will be competing for the alternate spot. National Team member Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas), the 2008 Men’s Double Trap Olympic gold medalist, is among the contenders. Eller, a Sergeant in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, was the recent bronze medalist at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Clay Target Championships. After that performance, Eller will certainly be an athlete to watch in the upcoming Trials. Also, be sure to follow Billy Crawford (Johnstown, Ohio) the junior gold medalist at the World Clay Target Championships; where he shot a new junior world record score of 147 out of 150 targets. Staff Sergeant Josh Richmond (Hillsgrove, Pa.), the Men’s Double Trap quota winner and Olympic nominee (pending approval by the U.S. Olympic Committee) will not be competing in this event as he prepares for his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

Like the Men’s Double Trap athletes, the U.S. Olympic Trials for Women’s Skeet will offer the opportunity to earn an alternate spot on the U.S. Olympic Team as Kim Rhode (El Monte, Calif.) has already secured the 2012 U.S. Olympic Nomination (pending approval by the U.S. Olympic Committee) and will not be present as she is competing in the ISSF World Cup Final. With only one quota available for each country in 2012, only one American female is slated to attend. Regardless, Olympic Training Center Resident Athletes Caitlin Connor (Winnfield, La.) and Jaiden Grinnell (Port Angeles, Wash.) are catching the eye of the skeet community. Both Connor and Grinnell won medals on the ISSF World Cup circuit this year and have delivered solid performances.

The final for Double Trap will take place on Oct. 1, while the finals for Men’s and Women’s Skeet will be on Oct. 2. To watch live scores, please navigate to the iClays website for Skeet or Double Trap. For more information, check out www.usashooting.org.

About USA Shooting:
USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. USA Shooting’s mission is to prepare American athletes to win Olympic medals, promote the shooting sports throughout the U.S. and govern the conduct of international shooting in the country. Check us out on the web at www.usashooting.org and on Twitter at twitter.com/USAShooting.

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Clay Shooting Tips – The Most Common Reason For Misses

Mark Hampton, one of many successful Olympic Trap shooters, with his head down and following through.

FieldandClays.com

FieldandClays.com --(Ammoland.com)- There are many reasons why trapshooters miss targets, but in my opinion, the most common reason for losses is lifting the head prior to shooting the target.

This is a difficult problem for many shooters because they don’t realize that the head is being lifted. The head need not be lifted a great deal in order for the target to be missed. This is because of the “megaphone effect”.

The megaphone effect means that a slight lift in the head from the stock, (the mouthpiece of the megaphone), is compounded by distance and by the time the shot reaches the area of the target, (the open end of the megaphone), the mistake is much larger and often results in a lost target.

Fortunately, there is a way for shooters to prevent lost targets due to head lifting and at the same time, allows a shooter to see his own target pointing errors. It’s called follow through. Now, when I mention follow through, I’m not referring to the gun moving beyond the target after the gun has been fired. That’s called momentum and if you’re building up enough momentum to carry the gun well beyond the target, then the gun is probably a little out of control. The follow through I’m speaking of is keeping the head on the stock long enough to insure that head lifting will never cause a lost target.

For those of you who would like to develop follow through, you will have to do a little thinking about it when you practice shooting until the follow through becomes second nature to your style of shooting. At that point, you won’t have to think your way through each shot as follow through will just be a part of what you do each time you call for and shoot at a target. I wouldn’t want you to have to think too much during a competition because every time someone tells me that they were shooting quite well and “I got to thinking”, I know they are going to tell me about losing a target. We want follow through to become second nature to you so that thinking is no longer necessary. Now, all you need to do is see the target and react to what you see without having to think.

In order to develop follow through, you must force yourself to pick out a piece of the target you just broke and point at it before you dismount the gun. By doing this, you will insure that you are still well attached to the stock after breaking a target. If you are still lifting your head, you will be made aware of the situation when you try to point at the piece and you can’t get a good sight picture. If you are not lifting your head, you will still have your normal sight picture and pointing at a piece of the target will be easy. In addition, with the sight picture still intact, you will clearly see pointing errors if you happen to over lead, under lead or shoot above or below a target.

Follow through will make a much better shooter out of you, but like I said earlier, it will take some thinking during practice sessions until follow through becomes second nature to you. If you watch for this practice while watching some of the better shooters, you find that their heads stay put long after the shot is fired. If you develop the same habit, you will probably find yourself in more shootoffs with those same better shooters.

Good luck and don’t forget to keep your head down.

About:
FieldandClays.com; is dedicated to furthering knowledge and the positive enhancement of the shooting sports. FieldandClays.com is the magazine promoting family-sporting fun with a gun. Trap, Skeet, Clays, and Hunting. It is a publication devoted to the shooting sports, by shooters. The staff members are active participants and competitors experienced in the shooting industry, publish the magazine. Visit: www.FieldandClays.com

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