Yesterday my daughter’s employer had a Sporting Clays event at at a nearby resort area.
Shoot a round.
Eat dinner.
Open bar.
All on the companies dime.
She really wanted me to go with her, despite the fact I haven’t hunted small game or even fired a shotgun in 30 years.
With my current employment situation I really didn’t want to go.
More than anything I didn’t want to embarrass myself or worse, embarrass her.
Luckily our squad consisted of 2 middle aged women, one woman’s beau, Daughter, and myself.
I wound up top shooter on our squad with my daughter coming in second. In spite of the fact it was her first time even holding a shotgun.
All in all I had a good time.
Got to spend time with “My little girl”, had fun, ate a good dinner, drank a couple cold ones.
A day well spent.
Now I have to start looking for a shotgun.
She enjoyed it and wants to try some more.
I’ve got a Trius Trap.

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Fun day with your daughter, thanks for sharing

The nice thing about Sporting Clays Shotguns is any hunting (field gun) is good!

My wife's gun is a 20 year old Berreta 391 (semi-auto) 20 gauge. It has a 28" barrel. Since hers is actually a Sporting Clays model it has an extra heavy barrel (all of 8 ounces!) to help it swing a little better. The entire Berretta line of semi automatics have adjustments built into the stock. Since my wife is left handed, I set it up for her, that is called CAST ON. Her arms are just a little shorter than mine, so it has the thinnest butt pad to adjust the LENGTH OF PULL. (distance from shoulder to the trigger) and there are wedges to adjust the PITCH (angle of gun to the front of shoulder).

It doesn't cost extra, unless you need really wild sizes of the adjustment spacers, and it doesn't hurt the value like sawing the stock to fit her might!

20 gauge is plenty of gun, but has less recoil than 12, so she won't get recoil fatigue as easily.

I on the other hand have 6 Sporting Clays shotguns (two 12's, a 20, a 28, & two 410's). I like guns that have changeable choke tubes (I normally use IC/Mod. but have used Skeet/Skeet at times (for close crossing targets) and Imp. Mod/Full (for far targets).

Most people like 12 gauge and 20 gauge second for these are the least expensive ammo. Now days I shoot 28 gauge and 410, for least recoil and least expensive reloading.

With my wife's 20 gauge, I entered a League back before Covid and ended up on the winning team, and 4th overall best shooter. Every single shooter but me used a 12 gauge. The first round was so easy I had a new personal best of 45/50. If I had used my 410, I would have done even better. The later rounds were increasingly difficult as the weeks went by.

For High School Graduation presents I bought all three of my sons 12-gauge semi autos (to keep it affordable for them). When they visit we sometimes get to go shoot together (mostly at Father's Day) and we all have a riot!

Ivan

Sounds like an enjoyable time, Acorn.

All of the shotguns at the range were 20 ga Beretta semis or 12 ga O/U Berettas.
Guy I talked to said they must of had a million rounds through them. I don’t know about a million but I would suspect it was substantial.

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Sounds like a fantastic event to me. I know I don’t even have to ask, you shot 25 and your daughter, a 24.
Larry

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Now see, it wern't that bad after all and you got a great meal, to boot !!

Not'n wrong with old "Used" shotguns at the trap club for your use if it is in good condition.
I have a very old Browning A-5 that my father bought when he was very young, that
can still keep up with these new shotguns of today, with all the extras.

Scores are over rated, the time with the family and friends is what life, is all about.

I hope that both of you get out again, and there is nothing wrong with a little 20 Ga. in the trap games.

I hear that some people even use a little .410 to "Kill" clay birds !!

I shot 42/100. Daughter 22/100.
I was happy not to be the low man on the squad.
It’s fun.
Birds flying across, away, towards you, and bouncing rabbits, and combinations of them.

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My wife's record high is 17/50! My best day ever was a couple of decades ago 128/150 and that was with a Browning 425 20 gauge.

I have a gang of guys that don't invite me to shoot with them anymore. It isn't because I beat them on score. It is because, on really hard presentations my 410 make them look bad!

Ivan

Yeah that would.
High scorer for the day shot 89/100.
He just barely beat me!

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Agreed, but some of our serious clays shooters bring shotguns worth more than my entire firearms collection, and almost everyone is shooting an over/under of some sort.

I feel like Jed Clampett out there, I bring one of two 12 gauge SxS guns I have, and one has external hammers. I shoot for fun, not score, and usually hit about 65% of my shots. A full round on our sporting clays range is 75 shots. I generally stick to skeet or 5 stand, where I'm a little better and don't use as much ammo per round.

Do it a few more times and you will be hooked. I shoot sporting clays every week, usually at the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio.

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Good guns of any specialty are a bunch of money!

Our club has one or two "Vintage" shoots a year. At our club that includes any SXS and Pump. I like to mess with their minds and shoot one of my 4 SxS's (2-20, 2-12) using all brass Black Powder loads. If the score keeper can see through the clouds I do almost as well as with a dedicated SC gun!

Ivan

That would be a hoot to see!
I used to take my black powder revolver and shoot with the wonder-niners.
They didn’t like the smell (the gun, not me)or smoke.

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Shotgun sports are a lot of fun. Sporting clays is the most fun just because of the variety of presentations. Some clubs are easy, some are very hard.
A DU event is pretty easy, a state or regional championship will be very hard.
Always a great day with friends and family. Here is my son and I having a little friendly competition a while back.

I would never make light of getting canned but your sporting clays outing is the kind of thing regular work sometimes doesn't leave sufficient time for. Could be a way of demonstrating the kind of things we miss by reporting for work every day. At any rate it sounds like a wonderful day with family and friends.

I survived my share of corporate mergers, consolidations, and buyouts until the time I didn't. I was 46 and I'll never look back on that as a "good day," even though it turned out that way. I took some time off, and decided to work for myself to minimize the chance of that happening again. I'm 66 now and Denise and I are starting to use the "R" word more often and may well retire in a year or two. I've been blessed, we've worked hard, and self-employment has been the best decision we've made together other than adopting our son.

Good luck, Godspeed, and have some more fun!

Bryan

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SWHF #789

I've shot skeet and trap and tried sporting clays 30 years ago when it was first getting popular. My fiancee and I play a ton of pickle ball but she loves shooting so I think I might get her into sporting clays. I have a 20 ga Beretta Auto, 12 gauge Rem 1187, and a SXS 20 gauge.

Super fun game. Worse thing you can do is take it too serious. I use an 1100 with a skeet choke. I don’t have a problem until we get the far away birds.

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My daughter and some fat guy wandering through the woods looking for a free sammich.

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Glad you got out and took your mind off of things.

Do they allow a blunderbuss? I could do pretty well with one of those.

My external hammer double is a fairly new gun with replaceable chokes, the other 12 ga. is from about 1975 and has fixed mod/full chokes. When I get ribbed about "why don't you get an over-under?", I just turn the gun sideways and smile.

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Acorn, sounds like a great day. I like the Beretta silver pigeon over under but fit is what matters, I do about as well and have as much fun with my Remington 870. The Ruger Red Label was my runner up. Nothing wrong with a lot of the Turkish shotguns at a fraction of the price. Life goes on! No one says that you cannot have a little fun while you have some flexibility in your schedule.

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The Silver Pigeons were what their loaners were. The semis were some iteration of the A300.
We all shot the 20ga.
I probably could have picked up a couple more birds with the added shot charge of the 12ga, at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

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My brother has about 3 of the A-300 and A-400 type shotguns, he still has a 391 or two and I still have a 12 gauge 390 Golden Clays, from my younger days!

I'll say this about Berretta shotguns: They Work! We fired a 391 until it no longer functioned. This took a little over 12,000 rounds and 3 years! Recommend cleaning is every 500 rounds or end of season, whichever comes first!

Ivan

My younger brother is a 5 stand sporting clays enthusiast. He started with Grandpa's Browning A-5, moved to a Winchester 101 and then to his Beretta 686 ( I think)

Told me that he would be just as competitive with the A-5, just likes the fit of his Beretta.

After discovering sporting clays, trap and skeet are gone.

Randy

I haven't shot a round of trap in 30 years (shortly after discovering Sporting Clays! I do shoot practice Skeet as a warmup to Sporting Clays.

Ivan

One of my favorites too. Use a Rem 1100 for the past 25 years.

When asked why I shoot a sxs I point out, if God had intended you to shoot an o/u he would not have put your eyes side by side!

I use Grampaw's Remington Mod 11 IC in 20 ga for skeet I had a Browning
12 ga Citori for skeet for years until Ft Ben Harrison closed. Got rid of it as there wasn't any skeet ranges close.
I kept my Ithica/SKB 600 trap gun with IM/F chokes for shooting Trap and Sporting clays. Use an old Mossy 500 riot gun or Remington 870 riot gun for shooting skeet (a few ranges have popped up) and have used Mossy on sporting clays course just for S&G's

The only shotgun I have in my battery right now is my 12ga Shockwave.
I’d of been laughed off the range.

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Spending the day with your daughter enjoying the shooting sports is a blessing. I shot trap for 9 years with a group of work guy's, had a blast. Shot several rounds of sporting clay's over the years, definitely more challenging than trap. I shoot a Browning Citori, I'd guess it has 50k+ rounds through it at this point, it still locks up like a bank vault.

I shoot 4 gun Skeet and 70% of my practice is with the 410. People think the 410 is a lot more difficult but it really isn't, all that is needed is a bit more precision with shot placement. While I'll typically use my 28 gauge for Sporting Clays I do shoot 5 stand with the 410.

I am the odd man out here!

I grew up using shotguns for hunting, but never really shot clays of any sort. When we were going pheasant or quail hunting, my dad would have someone throw a few old cans into the air to tune up his wing shooting. I guess he wanted to save most of his shotgun shells for something to eat. Over the past few years, watching folks (especially olympians) shooting trap/skeet/sporting clays has piqued my interest, but so far, I haven’t tried it. Looks like a lot of fun (and potential embarrassment!,).

That’s what was nice at our shoot.
No one (myself included) was any good.
No egos. Just had fun.

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