Clay Pigeon Shooting Disciplines
Clay pigeon shooting has at least 20 different forms of
regulated competition called clay pigeon shooting disciplines, although most can be grouped under
the main headings of trap, skeet, and sporting:
Clay pigeon shooting disciplines
Sporting Clays
The English Sporting discipline has the sport's biggest
following. While the other disciplines only use standard targets, in Sporting
almost anything goes. Targets are thrown in a great variety of trajectories,
angles, speeds, elevations and distances and the discipline was originally
devised to simulate live quarry shooting, hence some of the names commonly used
on sporting stands: springing teal, driven pheasant, bolting rabbit, crossing
pigeon, dropping duck, etc. Clay pigeon shooting disciplines in this group include English sporting,
international (FITASC) sporting, super sporting sportrap, and Compak sporting.
Maze clays shooting
Clays are thrown either as singles or doubles from one or more
traps situated around 15 m in front of the shooter, and are generally fired
away from the firing point at varying speeds, angles and elevations.
Down-The-Line
Also known as DTL, this is a popular trap shooting
discipline. Each competitor shoots at a single target in turn, but without
moving until all have shot five targets. Then they all move one place to the
right, and continue to do so until they have all completed a standard round of
25 birds.
Scoring of each target is simply 3 points for a first barrel
kill, 2 points for a second barrel kill and 0 for a miss (maximum 75 points per
round).
Variations of this discipline are single barrel, double
rise, and handicap-by-distance.
Olympic trap
As its name indicates, this is one of the clay pigeon shooting disciplines which
form part of the shooting programme at the Olympic Games. Targets for each
shooter are fired upon his call and are selected by a shooting scheme (program)
that ensures all competitors receive exactly the same target selection, but in
a unpredictable randomised order to the extent that there will be one straight,
two left and two right targets for each stand from any one of the three traps
directly in front of him/her; guessing which one is next is impossible unless
the shooter is on his/her last five targets.
Scoring is on the basis of one point per target killed,
regardless of whether this is achieved with the first or with the second barrel
unless it is a final where the top six scorers shoot off as a single barrel
event, regardless of local club grades if any.
A simpler and cheaper to install version of this discipline
is known as automatic ball trap (ABT) where only one trap is used and target
variation is obtained by the continuous oscillation of the trap in both
horizontal and vertical directions in order to give the same spread of targets
as in Olympic trap.
Universal trench
Five traps are installed in a trench in front of the
shooting stands, all set at different angles, elevations and speeds, and upon
the call of "Pull!" by the shooter any one of the five machines,
selected at random, will be released.
Skeet shooting
Targets are thrown in singles and doubles from 2 trap houses
situated around 40 metres apart, at opposite ends of a semi-circular arc on
which there are seven shooting positions. The targets are thrown at set angles
and speeds. In English skeet (by far the most popular of the skeet disciplines),
the gun position is optional (i.e., pre-mounted or out-of-shoulder when the
target is called) and the targets are released immediately upon the shooter's
call.
Helice shooting
The Helice clay pigeon shooting discipline is similar to
trap shooting, but the clays are equipped with a helice (think helicopter) that
will give the clay an unpredictable flight.
They fly out in an unpredictable way; so-said buzzing
through the air. It is designed specifically to simulate as closely as possible
the old sport of live pigeon shooting.
Clay Pigeon Shooting Disciplines
