fyi
I went to Advanced Bullets in Temple on Friday. I was going to Tom Lowe but they're closed on Fridays, WTF?
Anyway, AB is a very laid back place with an organized range. Me and a friend went to shoot trap. We're both beginner shotgun shooters, doing mostly hand launched clays. Greg from AB quickly noticed we were struggling, and stepped in to help.
In short, I highly recommend him as a shotgun coach. He clearly loves the sport, and has a low-stress teaching style. He's not a 'this is the only way to do it' teacher, either. He says he charges $40/hr for coaching, but he hooked us up for free while launching birds for us. We both improved greatly over the course of the day. I will be going back for a lesson after I do some more practice using what I was taught.
Here's just a few of the tips we got:
- The shot string is a long oval, not a wide oval. Shoot in front of the bird and frequently the tail of the shot string will break a bird where you overdid the lead. Seems obvious, but my misunderstanding on this caused me to use the wrong lead, a lot.
- Read the hit. Depending on the direction the biggest piece of clay goes, the shot string was on the opposite side. Again, seems obvious, but it never occurred to me.
- The key to catching and passing the clay with your swing is it must be slow and easy. I.e. if the bird is doing 35mph, your swing should be traversing at 40mph, not 70mph. 70 results in you passing the clay and being forced to rush the shot or stop the swing.
- Line up your eye on the shot, with the muzzle cast slightly toward your offside hand, prior to calling 'Pull'. For trap, the eye line-up is based on which station you're on, and what is the shortest distance the clay must fly before you see it outside the launcher house. The goal is a clear sight on the bird, 'staring hard' at it and slowly bringing the gun up.
- The muzzle should stay on the flight path all the way from unmounted to mounted. Get a mini Maglite, adjust it to a pencil beam, put it in the bore with a Cylinder choke, and practice tracking across the seam where the ceiling and wall meet. In would be preferable to not use live ammo for this drill, but I know some of you will.
- If you're not sure of the elevation to start from, start low. It's much easier to smoothly move up and stop than to lower and stop.
- If you like to pan the muzzle prior to calling pull, make sure the gun is fully stopped before calling 'Pull'.
There was lots more but you get the idea. He also knows a thing or two about fixing the fit to the gun, and was willing to help with that, too.
Their hours are 9-5 Monday to Saturday. Usually there's no clay shooting on Thursdays due to deliveries. Call in the morning to make an appointment for shotgun sports.
www.advancedbullets.com/