And my ritual humiliation… Sigh…
Met up with a friend at the range this morning to help him sight in a new Remington ADL in .270, after that, he drug me over to the shotgun range, and once again I got my butt beat not only on trap, but ALSO on skeet today…
And to add insult to injury, he brought along his son (VMI senior) and son’s buddy (VMI 2010). I was shooting, er… TRYING to shoot the Citori, and I notice the furniture on the buddy’s gun looks kinda weird, so after the first round I asked him about it; turns out it’s one of THESE! Now at this point he’s missed ONE bird out of the first round…
So we shoot another round of skeet, and I’m sucking hind tit as usual, but out of eight doubles in the two rounds, somehow I managed to hit six of them. I got lucky on two and hit both birds with one shot, but what I can’t figure out is whyinhell I can’t hit a bird going straight away from me… sigh…
So we go over to the trap range, and shoot a round of trap, and I’m STILL bringing up the rear, and this kid cleans the trap too (out of 75 rounds he had 74 hits)! Sitting in the club house over coffee, I find out, “Oh, I was on the rifle team for four years, started shooting trap and skeet when I was 12.”
THEN he suggests trying to shoot with the middle finger rather than the index finger, since I’ve ‘trained’ myself not to ‘slap’ the trigger, and to always shoot the skeet choke tube. I went back and looked at the shotgun and I was shooting full/improved for the two chokes…
Stupid… Just plain stupid… sigh…
Guess I need to go get some more choke tubes. Anybody else ever heard of shooting with your middle finger???
No, but then I’ve never really shot skeet or trap!
Trapshooters have all kinds of weird ideas like release triggers but they seem to work for people. Shooting with your middle finger kinda makes sense if your index finger is trained for precision shooting but at one time I shot weekly leagues in trap, Bullseye pistol, and indoor 4-position smallbore. My scores were in the top tier of all three leagues. I apparently had no trouble going from rifle to pistol to shotgun. Growing up though I did the majority of my shooting with a shotgun and had a easier time hitting a flying target than one that was stationary. So yes I’m a weird one too.
Having the right chokes for skeet would probably help tremendously. 🙂
drjim- Thx
HT- I’m envious… and yeah, the right chokes… sigh
I’ve been shooting trap for years and everyone including myself uses full choke barrels.
YMMV
I’ve never heard of shooting with the middle finger. But then again, I’ve never heard or seen a lot of things…
A clubhouse with coffee and such… sounds fancy. Which range?
I love the look of that Bennelli..
But I shoot a Remington 1100 Trap.
I have never heard about the middle finger fixing a shooters issue. But I’m only 54. I have tons of time to learn from the youngens..
Never shot trap or skeet. I can’t help here!
I don’t know.
But I do know I normally save my middle finger for sign language 🙂
Skip- Thanks, I know they ‘make’ a skeet choke, which is pretty open from what I understand.
Andy- Fairfax Rod and Gun
Danny- I know I suck at it, and honestly just do it for fun… I don’t want to screw up my rifle shooting trying to learn!
Keads- You’re in the same boat I am…LOL
SS- Point 🙂
Suspicious minds are considering the proposition we may be dealing with a sandbagger here.
Sounds like your friend brought in a ringer…. 😉
In any case, it sounds like a fun day (any day at the range has to be a good one)!
I stopped shooting the middle finger years ago….oh, that’s not what you meant is it?
Ed B. beat me to it.
I’ve used the middle finger for shooting lots of things over the years, but never a shotgun.
For trap: full or modified choke depending on how quickly you get on the bird. Going straight away aim a little under it as it’s showing the edge of the clay at the top of its arc to get the right lead to bring the shot into the bottom side of it. For other angles I use a swing thru technique where I bring the bead up behind the bird and swing along the flight path to catch the bird and get out in front of it and time my shot by how fast I have to swing. Takes practice to learn that way but I had plenty of starlings and pigeons on the farm for practice and a reloading press as a kid.
I’ve never shot regulation skeet but a skeet choke is barely any constriction. I grew up shooting with my great-grandfather’s Win. Model 12 in 20 gauge. Nobody in my family knew what the WS-1 choke stamp meant. There’s also a full choke barrel for it. My gun dealer friend explained that it meant “Winchester Skeet One” after I’d tried shooting trap with it a few years ago. It was my first time shooting regulation trap and the range owner/chief instructor was out there sighting over my shoulder saying he couldn’t explain why I only got 3/25. Said I was right on every one of them by his eye. The three I hit were either hard lefts at station 1 or hard rights at station 5. Went back with the FC barrel and broke 19/25. I didn’t have any pattern density left with the skeet choke by the time it got to the bird.
Middle finger thing: My understanding is it cuts back that whole ‘squeeze’ instinct rifleman have built up, and it also leaves the index finger pointed towards the target you want to hit. A mental thing.
I agree…. you just encountered a genuiiine ringer. Still…. nice to watch people with such skills shoot. The trap range I hit occasionally has a young olympian training there. Amazing to watch.
WSF/MC- Not a doubt in my friggin mind that kid WAS a ringer!
Ed/Tim- 🙂 Smartasses 🙂
HT- This kid was hitting birds 8-10 feet out of the house, me, not so much; but I see your point I was trying to ‘aim’ at the birds.
Carteach0- I may try it the next time just to see what happens (hell, I CAN’T do any worse)…
I have heard of people shooting with the middle fingers, mostly deranged paint ballers.
If you were serious I would suggest a release trigger but if you don’t spend the time on it you get bangs when you least expect it.
Straight always will be a problem if you should a field stocked gun that shoots a low point of impact. If you can see the bird over the bead your pattern is low. If your peaking at the bird, head off the stock your shot pattern will be low as well. Trap guns shoot high because the birds are always rising, skeet guns are less so. On my field guns I need to cover half the bird to get a good clean break at 16 yards on a trap field. On skeet I shoot open, skeet 1 or improved. With a full choke I’m sure the birds you did break were dust.
Don’t feel too bad. I ran a sporting clays stage at the Shooting Industry Masters this year and had all the big name 3 gun and action pistol shooters come by and give it a try. Most were pretty average shot gunners breaking 5 out of 10 targets on a pretty easy stage. They aim when they should point and were way too stiff when they should be fluid.
Gerry
I always shoot with my middle finger. Thanks for commenting at my blog. I shall follow you, and I hope you follow me.
Love,
Lola
We were taught (military) to use our middle finger when in the dark with no light.
You lay your index finger along the side of your gun “pointing” at where you want to shoot.
If you use your forefinger as the “aiming” point, you’d be surprised how accurately you can shoot using your middle finger as the trigger finger.
For whatever reason, we’re “wired” to be able to point at something and be pretty close. Put a blindfold on sometime and then get some people to mill about the room, talking to you.
Point your finger at them. You’ll be surprised at how close you come to pointing “directly” at them.
I’ve kept this skill up for over thirty years. If someone breaks into the home at night, the last thing I want is to start turning on lights, or gawd-forbid, a “here I am, shoot me NOW” flashlight.
I’ve also heard of shotgunners using their middle fingers while using their forefingers to “aim” at the flying clays.
That also makes sense to me. Think of all the times you point up in the sky at an airplane. . .
–AOA
Hmm. Interesting. Never heard that either. Although, the shotgun guys probably wouldn’t look so kindly on my Defender when I showed up to shoot clays. Meh. I figure I’m doing alright if I can knock a few out of the sky with my house gun.
Have a family friend who always shoots with his middle finger – though the fact half of his index was cut off in an industrial accident probably has more to do with it than shotgunning tips. He does great with shotgun though.
My son brought his Mossberg pistol grip pump to the men’s fellowship shoot ’em up we held.
Lotsa fun shooting clays like that.
Gerry- Thanks, and yeah, I ‘know’ I was doing it wrong…LOL Between you and HT, y’all have given me some things to try.
Lola- Thanks!
AOA- Yep, NOW I remember that from Shore Patrol quals… sigh… I may try the middle finger just to see what happens, hell I can’t do much worse!
Jenn/Ed- I’ve shot my evil black Mossy before, didn’t do any better with it 🙂
Axe- Yep, that ‘would’ be a bit of a necessity… I may try it anyway!
Thanks for all the comments/recommendations folks!