Here at The Big Shoot, we know that Clay Pigeon Shooting can sometimes be a bit confusing, especially for the beginner. To help make things that little bit clearer, we are proud to announce our new A-Z of Clay Pigeon Shooting as we focus on the different disciplines within the sport. This time around, we will be looking at the various disciplines which lie between the letters of F and O – FITASC Sporting, Handicap by Distance, Helice, Olympic Skeet and Olympic Trap.
FITASC Sporting
Let’s get things started with FITASC Sporting, which, as you can guess, is one strand of Sporting Clays. The difference between this discipline and English Sporting is that this international version gives a greater variety of targets in terms of both speed and trajectory, as opposed to the standard English Sporting predetermined targets which all travel along the same speed and path either as singles or doubles. FITASC Sporting is shot by squads of six competitors in rounds of 25 targets at a time, after arriving at the stand where they are shown which targets will be shot. This is no easy challenge, as many would argue that this is the ultimate challenge in the world of Clay Pigeon Shooting!
Handicap By Distance
This discipline can be featured in both Down The Line and Single Barrel events, where a handicapping system may be used for different ability levels of shooter. For example, C class shooters would stand at a closer distance of 17 yds, B class shooters would stand at 19 yds, A class would stand at 21 yds and AA class would position themselves 23 yds away.
Helice
Now this type of shooting is a bit different – it technically can’t be classified as clay shooting because the targets are made of plastic! This type of shooting was designed to simulate as closely as possible the old sport of live pigeon shooting. This, of course, was made illegal in the UK more than 70 years ago. The target is constructed of a detachable centre piece with plastic propellers on either side. These propellers rotate at high speeds and are released randomly from one of five traps in an unpredictable, buzzing manner as it zips through the air.
Olympic Skeet
Olympic Skeet is known to be challenging as it requires a high degree of efficient and smooth gun movement. As the name suggests, it is included in the Olympic Games’ shooting programme. This discipline has eight stations in total – seven of these are set around a semi circle whereas there is once station places mid-way between stations one and seven. Similar to English Skeet, this discipline features predictable targets throughout which are thrown in both singles and doubles.
Olympic Trap
Again, this is one of the events which make up the shooting programme at the Olympic Games. A total of 15 concealed traps are arranged in five groups of three in front of the shooting stand, where shooters take turns to shoot at a target each moving clockwise to the next stand in line. To ensure fairness, each shooter receives the exact same target selection, but in a random, unpredictable order from any of the traps in front of them. A simplified (and cheaper) version of this discipline is known as Automatic Ball Trap (ABT), where only one trap is used -you can read about this in our first instalment of this blog series.
Final Thoughts
So, that’s it for edition three of our glossary of disciplines in the A-Z of Clay Pigeon Shooting. Be sure to check back in the coming weeks for the final edition. In the meantime, if you’re feeling inspired by these three different types of Clay Pigeon Shooting, you can try your hand at any one of our Clay Pigeon Shooting grounds located across the UK.
Photo Credits:
sportingshooter.co.uk
range365.com
change.org