Stan, You must be shooting some spreaders then with those tight chokes at regular sporting? What brand spreaders do you like? Do you use that Perazzi for FITASC or do you go to tighter chokes?
Hi buzz,
I do not shoot spreaders. I admit I do this thing a little differently, sporting I mean, but I started shooting this gun with these chokes about 6-7 years ago, and never looked back. My scores increased until I punched into M class in 2010, although the last few punches to put me there were gained with my BSS at the S x S event at the 2010 U. S. Open. I on;y shot a couple small registered shoots in 2014, so they bumped me back down to AA, which suited me to a "T".
I have a confidence level that is hard to explain when shooting these fixed chokes. I just know that there is nothing they will throw that I cannot crush with them. As to the close stuff ............. it just goes away in a puff of dust. I thought, when I started shooting these tight fixed chokes, that I might lose some close rabbits or crossers because of them, but that has not been the case. When the other guys on my squad are deciding how open a choke they can get by with, on a particular presentation, and changing them, I am thinking about how I will set up on it, whether or not I will begin my gun moving at sight of the bird or when I hear the trap throw, what the line is, what the speed is, where is the best place to break each bird in the pair, stuff like that. Maybe they are smarter than me, and are able to process more information in a brief time than me, but I just shoot higher scores when I'm not fiddling with choke tubes. YMMV.
I have settled into a groove that is working for me. I cannot shoot many registered targets a year. I love to shoot S x S events when possible, and doing that cuts into my total amount of big shoots I can shoot a year. But, what I am doing is working for me, I think, as evidenced by a shoot I was able to attend on Friday only recently. It was the NWTF "Turkey Shoot", a big sporting clays event with lots of side games that happens in August each year. I have not been to a big shoot the whole year, until that one. Because I was only able to be there on Friday I shot the competition 5-Stand, the Prelim, and the S x S event. I won AA class in the 5-Stand, won Veteran's concurrent in the 5-Stand, and won AA class in the S x S event. My score in the 5-Stand tied the second highest for the whole event, a 45x50. 395 entrants in the shoot.
http://app.scoringpro.com/public/awardssummary.aspx?enc=936BbrRl5E4imlu/L52CdZ9kBZZ7S4I43+g3Mlx7kv4= Tight chokes work for me, and several top guns as well. King George included.
SRH
Oh, I forgot. I hardly ever shoot FITASC. I can't shoot everything at a big shoot without stretching myself too thin, and I really like the Main Event, the Five Stand, the Make-A-Break, and the Long Bird comps the best, and try to concentrate on them.
SRH