July-August 2010 - New Zealand Clay Target Association

y Stuart L. LucasEver watch the good guys shoot skeet,trap, sporting clays or 5-stand and wonderhow they make apparently difficult shotslook easy? Ever say to yourself, “Man, I’dlike to be able to take a target like that,”and wonder how they actually do it? Onething all these games have in common isthe fundamental that the shot columnmust be placed properly onto the target byacquiring lead (forward allowance). Mostof us who shoot or have shot clay birdscompetitively are aware of the most usedtechniques of obtaining forward allowancein the popular clay-target games: theSustained Lead, the Pull-Away and theSwing-Through methods.Skeet shooters generally advocate thebest method for their game is sustainedlead. They apply this technique on targetsby setting a hold point that allows the targetto be peripherally seen upon emergencefrom the house, matching barrel speed totarget speed, with the correct allowancebeing held out front of the bird all alonguntil the moment the trigger is pulled.This method works very well for skeet. Theswing-through technique, though not ascommonly used as it may have been in theearly years of the game, can also work wellon skeet targets, given the relatively shortdistances of the game. Swing-throughis a good fall-back technique when yournormal method gets up on the wrong sideof the bed.Trapshooters often profess to hold tothe sustained-lead technique as well, andmany use a bit of swing-through for thevaried angles the target gives as it flies outfrom the trap. Although an exaggeratedswing-through method is not normallyseen on a trap field, it can and does comeinto play in some form or another when ahard-right, hard-left and possibly even aquick straightaway catches the shooter alittle slow out of the blocks.Sporting clays and 5-stand shooters, dueto the virtually limitless variations of targetpresentations they will see in the course oftheir shooting experiences, make use of allthree – mostly pull-away and sustained buteven a touch of swing-through on occasion.A skeet field can be a good practice ground for learningthe diminishing lead. You might want to ask to havethe targets slowed down a bit for you.Breaking PointHold Pointgunshot 35