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Gunpoints Foot Position
Shooting Positions and Angles of Flight
The five shooting positions are indicated at the 16 yard line. Handicap yardage extends back to the 27 yard line. Also indicated are the five angles of normal target flight, spaced an equal distance of 11° apart. Flight paths indicate straightaway targets from each shooting position, and are numbered opposite the shooter according to that position. Average breaking point is approximately 20 yards from the trap house, or 36 yards from the shooter standing at the 16 yard line. Note that the line of flight of the left angle target from position #5 represents the imaginary parallel line on which your toes should be placed for proper alignment on all five positions.
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Skeet
Skeet was born in Massachusetts in the 1915, when grouse hunter Charles Davis invented a game he called "shooting around the clock" to improve his wingshooting. He put a portable trap on the ground at six o'clock on an imaginary clock face 25 yards across and shot targets from each "hour." Skeet lore has it that the neighboring landowner objected to the patter of shot on his chicken house roof, so Davis cut the circle in half and added a second trap facing the first.
Outdoor writer William Harndon Foster played the game with Davis and wrote about it often. "Clock shooting" caught on quickly and became extremely popular. The name "skeet" (a Scandinavian word for "shoot") was coined during a contest to re-name "Shooting Around the Clock".
During the Second World War, aerial gunners took skeet training to learn how to lead targets and after the war ended, these gunners came home and bought skeet guns. Skeet was originally shot from the low gun, but in the 1950s the National Skeet Shooting Association did away with the low gun start and the variable three-second delay, ushering in the era of perfect scores and endless shoot-offs.
The Game
The targets emerge from a high house (10 feet above ground) on the left and a low house (3-1/2 feet above ground) on the right that face one another 40 yards apart. Legal skeet targets travel between 60 and 70 yards and pass 15 feet above a crossing stake set 21 yards from the shooting stations, which are arranged around an arc running from one house to the other.
A round of skeet consists of 25 shots, beginning with a high-house bird at station one, then a low house bird, then a double at one, two, six, and seven.
You shoot high and low birds beginning at station one (which is right in front of the high house) and proceed on through eight, always shooting the high house target first. To make a round of 25, you shoot an "optional," either immediately repeating your first lost bird, or, if you don't miss, shooting the last station--low 8--twice.
Skeet Tips
If you decide to get serious about shooting good skeet scores for their own sake, you'll imitate the tournament shooters who use a mounted gun, a sustained lead system, and calculate their forward allowance to the millimeter. Many top shooters time their swing with their call and break targets automatically.
Champion shooter Fred Missildine is said to have actually hit skeet targets blindfolded that way. You'll get better practice, however, shooting skeet with a low gun and using whatever system--pull-away, move-mount-shoot, swing-through--you like for sporting clays. Try to take the outgoing targets as near the center stake as possible but let the incomers to cross it.
Aim your feet past the point where you want to break the target to assist your follow-through, just as you would on a sporting clays station. With most skeet stations you can take the high and low birds without shifting your stance between shots. Many shooters, however, move their feet slightly between birds at stations three and five, which are pure 90-degree crossers. By shifting your feet in favor of more follow-through on each bird, you'll have an easier time dealing with these stations, which demand the longest leads on the field.
In skeet doubles, a high and low house bird are launched simultaneously and fly right at one another. You have to shoot one target, then swing back in the opposite direction to catch the other. Skeet doubles are invaluable teachers of the bedrock rule of all doubles shooting: watch the first target break.
At all four stations, you shoot the outgoing target first. Make sure of it, and don't panic if you lose track of the second bird; simply look up and to your left at stations one and two, to your right at six and seven, and you'll find it.
The real trick shot in skeet is station eight, where you stand out near the target crossing stake and shoot birds screaming virtually right over your head. Beginners fear and miss station eight until they learn that it's the easiest bird on the field. Then they love vaporizing the target a few feet from their gun muzzle.
Rather than try to break station eight over your head with a pattern the size of a golf ball, hold even with, and to the outside of, the trap opening, so you have a good view of the target the instant it appears. Then swing up to blot out the bird as soon as it emerges. That way, you'll have the advantage of a larger pattern spread to work with and the shot becomes that much easier.
Equipment
Skeet is a short-range game. Most skeet targets are broken within 25e yards, and many are taken at half that distance. You break low 8 at four yards. A skeet choke is ideal, cylinder and IC will both do.
For years, skeet guns had 26-inch barrels, period. In recent times, thanks in part to the lessons learned by sporting clays shooters, skeet barrels have grown to 28 and 30 inches. Most skeet targets are falling slightly by the time you shoot, so a gun that hits dead on works better than a high-shooting gun. Most sporting guns will work perfectly fine for skeet shooting.
Size 9 shot is the standard skeet pellet, but there's no law against shooting the 8s or 8-1/2s you load for sporting clays. You'll find, too, that an ounce of shot is more than enough for skeet, and even the 3/4 ounce 28-gauge load will shatter targets impressively. Back to Top
Sporting Clays
If you enjoy swinging a shotgun, chances are you've had a go at sporting clays, the game in which clay targets are released through the woods, over water, and from high places in such a way as to simulate field shooting.Surveys from the National Shooting Sports Foundation boast that well over one half million shooters now log over 25 days a year sampling targets called "minis," "midis," "battues," "springing teal," and "rabbits" from sporting's testy menu.
In fact, growth of this exciting game has been so dramatic that a newcomer, eager for a first taste of sporting clays, can easily feel a bit daunted by all the in-group stuff and nonesuch: hard-core target sharks who break amazing scores and spout the most dazzling ballistic jargon; sporting-specific guns with innovative stocks, locks, and barrels; an incredible array of new target ammunition; the inevitable ephemerata of fashionable clothing and accessories ranging from electric-choke tube wrenches to the latest in leather-trimmed vests and luxury golf carts.
Not to worry. The beauty of the game lies in its tremendous flexibility. It is, at once, the perfect tool for introducing the novice to wingshooting and the consummate test of the competitive shotgunner's skill.
In sporting, the bird hunter finds an off-season reason to shoot his pet smoothbore; others simply enjoy the "hunt" from stand to stand, each clay target a bloodless parallel to catch-and-release angling.
Savvy promoters have struck a chord with sporting as alternative corporate entertainment. More than any other target activity, the game serves as an appetizer to the wingshooter's smorgasbord of fine firearms, good gun dogs, and wild game in pretty country.
Really all we need to begin enjoying the game of sporting clays are (1) a mechanically sound shotgun that will cycle two shots in rapid succession and (2) a clear understanding that everyone, everyone , misses sporting clays targets.
Check your ego at the door, fill your pockets with shotshells, and come join the fun
Proper gun fit is an absolute must for trap. You have about one second, after calling for your target, to identify its angle and break it - which makes trap shooting like rifle shooting with a shotgun. At the distances trap targets are broken, being off a quarter inch in your gunpoint can mean a lost target. So your gun must be pointing exactly where you are looking. To see if your gun fits, close your eyes, raise your gun to your face and shoulder, then open your eyes. If you see the two beads directly in line on your ventilated rib, the gun fits. But if they are off and you can see some of the rib in between, the gun doesn't fit and you should have a good gunsmith adjust the stock accordingly.
The primary concern of every shooter...even over shooting excellence...must be safe gun handling. 
