doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Single pellet clay breaks

I have been thinking about single pellet clay breaks as discussed by Dr. Andrew Jones in his new patterning book. Having looked at his photos and his data, I have become much more observant of target breaks. I have noted that some targets break pretty much in half and believe this is a pretty sure sign of a single pellet break. Couple of weeks ago I did some crusing of a skeet field "landing zone." Following are photos of some of what I found.


A single pellet hit that "almost but not quite" broke.


Inside of the previous clay. Note the lack of penetration by the pellet, yet the extent of the "reverse" damage due to the brittle material getting hit with a shock load force.


Looks like a one pellet break, although I don't have the other half to prove it. Note the break goes across the pellet hit and the extent of fracture.


Inside of previous clay. Note the reverse side damageand the fracture lines.


A case of a pellet skipping off the edge of the rim, yet fracturing the clay.


Extensive inside damage.

I think a test desinged to maximize single pellet hits is in order. A large sheet of plastic in the major landing zone should aid recovery of targets and fragments. As noted in a previous thread, we need field data that indicates the % of single pellet hits that result in a scorable target.

This is why I use 7.5's for all my Sporting Clay Shooting. Anyplace where there is a relatively "soft" landing zone for clays, you'll see dozens of clays like that, including some with 3 or more hits. Some batches of clays really are harder than others.

Why?

Possibly a related story? Some years back I was shooting a terrible round of trap when the scorer mentioned he could see the dust flying of my targets but they weren't breaking. I think I was trying 7/8oz of 9s with IMod. I was trying to get rid of a bag of 9 shot I still have.

I think the clay manufacturers are making the clays more resilient. I just know I'm hitting the targets but they won't do their part and break. :-)

What Joe Wood said. The best shooter still wins the money in a clay target event. In any shooting of live birds, we aren't the least bit interested in one pellet hits.

I'll take the magic BB anytime.....

Some shooters suggest that the biodegradeable targets are harder to break than the older ones.

If you watch good skeet or trap shooters, especially if the skeet guys are shooting 12's or 20's, you will not see very many breaks where there are just--as a shooting friend says--"the minimum number of pieces". You'll see a lot more if someone's shooting a .410--which makes sense because of the reduced # of pellets in the pattern.

I understand that mass marketers (Walmart) order a tougher bird to reduce handleing losses. It also seeems that the bio-degradeable birds are tougher.
bill

Again, what difference does it make, if everyone is shooting the same batch of clays. First, you guys changed the rules to allow the gun to be pre-mounted so it'd be easier to have higher scores. Now you want clays that break easier....to have higher scores. What next? Slower clays? Bigger clays? Hey, that's an idea!