Sporting Clays...Man thats fun.


WaCoyote

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Took out the new CZ Bobwhite yesterday to shoot some sporting clays and had a blast. I've never done it before and now I can't wait to go again. Hit 69 out of 100 which I'm happy with but the 1st station was a mess I only hit 3 out of 10. Shooting side by side for the first time is a bit different and took some getting used to.

I did however find out that I'm left eye dominant. How important is this to address? I've shot righty my whole life and just don't think I could switch at this point.

If you've never shot sporting clays go and do it. I took my wife and daughter out with some friends and had a great time. My 13 year old girl hit 15 out of 50 it was her first time out so I'm pretty happy with that. I need to get her some more chokes though. She was using Mod. and I think it's too tight for most of the stations we were at.

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Re: Sporting Clays...Man thats fun.

Very cool! Welcome to the world of clays. Be careful, its addicting. Your score is a respectable one and definately so for a beginner. The cool thing about clays is no two courses are the same. For someone to get to the level of hitting in the 90's out of 100 on average (across different courses) are very good wingshots.

As for the cross dominance, it will hurt your wing shooting. For a scoped gun on a stationary target, its not that big of a deal. Wingshooting on the other hand, it is everything. Your eye is the rear sight so if you switch eyes in the middle of the swing you will miss. There are different levels of cross dominance. Some people are only affected on hard crossing shots. The more straight away shots are not as hard and the cross eyed shooter has a better chance of hitting the target.

There are a couple things you can do to overcome this problem.

1. The first is to shoot one eyed. Close your left eye and just shoot with your right eye. The downside to this is it is harder to establish the angle and distance with only one eye. You need two points of reference to establish the information quickly to allow the brain to calculate the lead necessary. It also makes it harder to pick up the target.

2. Use a devise to block the vision of the left eye. There are things called spots which are colored dots that are to be used on shooting glasses that reduce the visibility if the off eye allowing the shooter to only process clear info from the shooting eye. A layer or two of scotch tape can do the same thing. Just a piece about 1/2" x 1/2" directly in front of the eye is sufficient.

2a. Use a mechanical devise on the gun. These are either tubes or rails that only allow the shooting eye to see the front bead. This one is by Ez-Hit. Unless the shooting eye is looking at the target, the shooter will not see the color of the bead. The drawback to this type is the shooter can focus on the beads and not the target.

3. Shoot lefthanded. It can be hard for a "seasoned" shooter to switch sides after decades of muscle memory has been built in. But it can be the best in the long run. It will take a bit of work and lots of practice but the results will be much better in the long run.

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Re: Sporting Clays...Man thats fun.

Thanks AJ. I may play around with that but it'll have to wait for the off season. I'd hate to change anything right before the hunting season starts. I had never even heard of right/left eye dominance until a few years ago and didn't pay any attention to it at all. Then I saw an article in a gun mag yesterday and sure enough I'm left eye dominant. Thats a dirty trick to play on someone after 30 years of wing shooting.

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