I always enjoy the long bird contests at the larger sporting clays shoots. May be partly because of the gambler in me, but knowing that half the cash taken in will be given to the winner makes it interesting. I have had some success at it, too, winning a few of them. I just love shooting at really long clay presentations.
There is one being held here tomorrow as a fund raiser for a local 4-H shooting team. I picked up a couple boxes of WW AA 1 1/8 oz. 7 1/2s yesterday to use. I shoot the 1 oz. RIO lower cost shells at sporting most of the time but for this I want heavier premium loads with hard shot. Got me to thinking ...................... at what distance would the energy of the 7 1/2s not be sufficient to get reliable breaks on the clays (standard target, not battues)? Digweed used #4s to set the world's long distance record on clay birds several years ago. Where would you need to go to 6s, to have the energy needed?
And, yes ............... tight chokes are a necessity at this game. You're usually shooting a presentations that are a minimum of 70-80 yards, sometimes considerably longer.
SRH
