"Straights at skeet would be pretty rare if they involved many single pellet breaks, since we know that it's not at all unusual for a single pellet hit to result in a miss."
They are rare, if we are talking about ISSF (Olympic) Skeet that starts with gun down, an unpredictable launch due to delay from 0 to 3 seconds, and initial target speed of 120 kmh, and a max load of 24 grams of No 9 European shot.
Dr Jones is an Englishman and most likely this is the Skeet he knows. There is no American type skeet outside the USA and Canada.
As for the statistical analysis of 2500 patterns, they covered a LOT more than single pellet hits on clays. He is the thrid successive serious researcher ( a professional research scientist by profession) who strongly indicates the Gaussian nature of patterns regardless of degree of choke. This is his most important contribution and if it was understood it would solve many of the non problems occupying shooters' time. To put it another way, it would be better to shoot more and agonize less.
