GUNS Magazine December 1955 - Jeffersonian's Home Page

Skeet stance is demonstrated by instructorW. S. Seybold of ree en briarHotel at White Sulphur Springs.BETWEEN THE TWO SHOTGUN SPORTS,THERE IS SLIGHT DIFFERENCE BUTFANS WILL HEATEDLY ARGUE MERITSOF FASTEST-GROWING SHOOTING GAMESLONG THE HIGHWAYS you're beseetheir ranges morefrequently. At night their floodlightsblaze for miles around. If you stop towatch, the "pop" of shotguns drifts infrom the firing front where in groupsof five, men, women, and children aretaking part in this fastest-growing sportin America, the live-wire action gameof shotgunning.To watch these shooters in action isa revelation to the rifle and pistol man.Rifle shooters-large and small caliber-andpistol shooters get together atCamp Perry every year and have achance to watch and learn each other'sidiosyncrasies. But shotgunners seema race apart: for long blistering days,they blaze away at small flashing greydisks, expending hundreds of thousandsof shotshells in an incrediblyshort space of time. The grounds betweenclean-up times are literally car-~eter! with red and green shotshells atthe firing points. That was the pictureat two of the most importantsummer gun meets in America-theGrand American Handicap trap shootingtournament at Vandalia, Ohio, andthe meeting of the National SkeetShooting Association at Waterford,Michigan.Among these roadside shooters, men,women, and nerveless teenagers, aremany aiming for the chance to attendthe granddaddy of trapshooting tournaments,the Grand American. Vandaliais thrilling: the crowds, the competi-tion, and the prize money. Frompiddling little prizes like $1300 won byBill Clark of Chicago, and another$1300 won by Dick Miller of Princeton,Indiana, up to the whopping purseof $9,000 and a box full of sterlingsilver which came to top-scoring gunnerLogan Bennett by way of compensationfor his thousands of practice roundsspent preparing for the event. There isTypical skeet layout has concrete semicircle of seven gun stations and centerstation in line with towers. Only high tower is shown in photograph below.