doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Tracer Load Question

Stan: It's the one that goes out straight away in about the center of the field and is moving fast without much obvious change in elevation at first. So I cannot figure out if it an optical illusion, maybe even climbing a little. I think I have tried about every possible approach to that one but I don't connect very often. Any thoughts would be most welcome!

I wish I could see it. Can't help much without that. Sorry.

gil: it would be easy to see where the shot is going standing behind you. WHY it's not hitting the target is the problem
If shooting over the target you are likely lifting your head to get a better look at a target that is frustrating you.
If shooting to the left of the target (you have a R shoulder mount and shoot both eyes open?) your L eye is taking over and you are cross-firing.
Another sign of cross-firing is that suddenly L to R crossers require much more lead, and R to L crossers much less lead.
Hope that's not the problem, esp. if the dominance switching is not consistent. I could switch dominance station to station on the skeet field
Even with a dense dot on the L lens, my L eye could still win the binocular rivalry battle and I was obviously trying to look through the dot.

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Drew/ Thank you for the reply. Fascinating. I wouldn't expect anything less from you. I'll have to think about that one. Hope to see you in the field this fall. Gil

Are you saying the trap is situated in the center of the field in front of you, and how far away from you is the trap? If so, do you only miss it from station 3, which is the only station that it would be a true straightaway? On stations 1,2,4 and 5 it would be a quartering way target, in two different degrees. Also, in how much upward arc does the target travel? It has to go upwards to some degree to keep shooters from shooting the trap itself. I'm trying to picture the presentation.

If it is a true straightaway, and not quartering in the least, there are at least two scenarios. IF you're on line left to right you're shooting ahead of it, or you're shooting behind it.

Many times, with these slightly rising straightaways, the target setter will set the trap so that you see the bird rising upwards slightly so you put some forward allowance on it, only to end up shooting in front of it. Why? Because by the time your mind sees the lead and you shoot, and the shot swarm gets there, the target has peaked and is no longer climbing. Very often these presentations call for shooting straight at it.

Another possibility is that it's climbing for a longer length of time than you realize and you're not putting enough forward allowance on it. On presentations like these I start my gun behind the bird and move the gun faster than the bird is climbing, pulling through it and firing as i pass it, with a definite follow through, keeping the gun moving even after I've fired. Stopping the gun when firing is a very common fault with these kinds of presentations. Make sure you're not doing that by having someone watch you from behind.

My guess is it's a rising target. But, when someone has the thought, "at first", they might be letting it get out a bit. There might be some slowing, flattening or dropping. Just general guessing, good luck with it Gil.

I saw 12ga tracer shells at a small gun shop, so I bought a box figuring they would help figure out where my shot was going when the bird didn’t break.
Always keeping 2 tracers in my pocket on the skeet field, I would occasionally shoot one when missing consistently. But every time I shot a tracer, the birds always broke.
Perhaps I should have bought a whole flat of tracers, using them for every shot in several rounds of skeet.

They do work. We shot many cases of surplus red paper Rem. hi-base (copper not brass) 8's when I was at Quantico in '56-57 shooting skeet. I shot with a Parkerized Savage copy of the Rem. Model 11 with a Cutt's Copmpensator. Cartridges came in boxes of ten. Had a heavy little cup of red tracer comp in the top wad that stayed with the shot well, as occasionally the cup would hit a clay. They did start a few fires though when a burning cup landed among target debris in dry vegetation. Still the best coaching came if a person could get behind the shooter and watch. Raised a few eyebrows when I took a bunch home and used them on the duck pass.

Stan/ Sorry for the tardy response. It is the one about in the middle of the field, it goes out fairly low but (I guess by virtue of a wobble trap) can go a little left or a little right, Thanks for your help with this. Gil

No prob, Gil.

A presentation like that can conceivably be shot three different ways: under power, meaning that the bird is climbing and you must have the muzzle over it to be ahead of it............ straight at it, keeping in mind that you are probably telling yourself to trigger the gun just before it tops out .......... and as it begins to drop, which means the muzzle will be under it to provide the forward allowance. The trick is figuring out what the bird is doing at the moment the shot arrives.

Hope that's not even more confusing.