My family was not fond of weapons, but I wanted to learn how to shoot. And I knew that I was not alone in my desire. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the number of female shooting athletes has increased by 60% . While self-defense remains the most popular reason for learning how to handle firearms, there are two more - the desire to learn how to hunt and get the opportunity to shoot with family and friends.

And it is for these reasons that I decided to take up trap shooting in order to properly prepare for my first non-waterfowl hunt this fall. But it turned out that in addition to the basics of the technique and mechanics of shooting from a gun, you need to know a lot about the basics and etiquette in this sport. And here's what I learned from my own experience.

1. Know the etiquette

I grew up watching golf on TV with my dad, licking the foam off his Budweiser and bantering about the dark silence the audience kept, its quiet comments and polite applause. Little did I know that trap shooting etiquette would be very similar to golf until I decided to visit the Orvis Sandanona shooting range to see trap shooting with my own eyes.

Located in upstate New York, Sandanona is the oldest shooting club in the US. I arrived there on a windy morning wanting to learn the basics trap shooting from Chief Instructor James Ross.

Ross explained to me that, as in golf, silence is expected to be maintained when a group of shooters line up at the station. This sport is based on concentration, not chatter and laughter. And since the most important thing is always safety, no one keeps the weapon loaded, except for the shooter, and only when he or she is ready to fire.

The shooter will ask for a demonstration - a skeet target is launched into the air without firing, which allows everyone in the group to see the trajectory and estimate the speed of the target at that station.

“When the shooter is ready, he will give the command "Give!"that tells the launcher (the person who operates the target launcher) that the cymbals can be launched," Ross told me.

At each station, everyone shoots in turn. As in golf, the group moves from one station to the next in order.

2. Use the gun that suits you

A properly fitted gun is the first step to accurate shooting.. It is worth taking the time to fit your gun to your body structure with the help of a specialist. The shift on the ridge (the part of the stock that your cheek rests on) affects where the shooter's eye will look when properly inserted.

A shift on the buttplate, or on the top of the stock that rests against the shoulder, affects aiming in general; too much shift can increase recoil noticeably. A stock that is too long can get stuck under your armpit or caught on your shoulder; with a stock that is too short, you will feel more recoil on your shoulder or cheek.

When Ross checked the fit of my Browning Citori Micro Satin Hunter shotgun, he commented that the ridge shift was too much for me, so my eye was too low when properly inserted. He added a gel pad to slightly increase the height of the cheek and to ensure that my eye was in line with the front sight when aiming.

Shotgun shooting is often referred to as shooting golf. You move across the field and shoot from various stations. Many rules of etiquette are also similar - for example, you should not talk when someone is shooting.

3. Practice the right stance

The way you stand has a big impact on your results. Ross notes that "self-taught people usually lack a proper stance."

If you are shooting from right hand like me, your left leg must always be leading, that is, the toe of the left foot must always point to the point of defeat (the place of hitting the target). And then follow the formula for the correct stance from Ross:

1. Imagine a clock face.
2. Place your leading foot at 12 o'clock.
3. If you are right-handed, the 1 o'clock point will show the gap between the heels, and the 2 o'clock point will be the place where you need to put the toe of your right foot.
4. If you are left-handed, the 11 o'clock point will show the gap between the heels, and 10 o'clock will be the place where you need to put the toe of your left foot.
5. Spread your legs shoulder-width apart, not wider.

The idea is to get into a comfortable stance that will allow you to move smoothly while raising, aiming and shooting. “Every time your legs are wider than shoulder-width apart, you are telling your body to tense up. It is not comfortable. This is a game of movement. Any inconvenience makes it harder,” explains Ross.

4. Decide for yourself where you will hit the target

There is a big difference between skeet shooting and flying bird shooting. The shooter always has at least a general idea of ​​where the target will come from and what its trajectory is, so he can plan where to point the gun. Hunters, of course, never know how a bird will fly.

When preparing to shoot a target, it is very important to focus on the point in the sky where your eyes will see the target, and not track its entire flight path after launch. This way you avoid chasing the target, and you can clearly and confidently focus on the place where the target will appear.

“The ideal place to hit the skeet is as close to the top of the trajectory as possible, because that's where it moves the slowest,” advises Ross. He also recommends aiming at the leading edge of the target.

By focusing on a point in the sky above a particular tree, you can start breaking cymbals from the very first shots. Understanding these basic principles not only gave me confidence in my own abilities, but also showed me how much fun trap shooting can be.

Bench shooting

Clay shooting attracts regardless of gender and age - these are men and women, and children (the youngest athletes are twelve years old), and the elderly. Bench shooting, or as it is also called, skeet shooting, is carried out from smoothbore guns at special targets flying out - skeet.

Skeet

Skeet shooting is an enchanting pastime at corporate parties, friendly field trips. And if you shoot skeet with your sons, then such moments will be remembered for a lifetime. After all, shooting is not only a man's occupation from time immemorial, but also self-discipline and accuracy.

Bench shooting in Moscow and Moscow region

Bench shooting in Moscow and the Moscow region has found a lot of admirers. Sports shooting clubs provide an opportunity to learn the skills of sporting, compact sporting, double-trap. Modern clubs trap shooting in Moscow and the Moscow region provide an opportunity to try all kinds of disciplines.

Sporting (large) is characterized by a huge variety of trajectories, a large firing range.

A distinctive feature of compact sporting is that a set of 25 targets is produced on limited sites.

With a double-trap, a pair of targets fly out along almost parallel trajectories.

With the passage of time, truly masculine activities and hobbies remain less and less. One of these, largely untouched hobbies on the part of the beautiful half of humanity is hunting. For thousands of years, men have traveled to the forests to get game or meat for their family's table.

Now that meat can be bought at the nearest supermarket, hunting and owning a gun has become more of an enjoyable pastime than a gender obligation. In addition, in the conditions of urban life, you can’t especially run after ducks and deer in the forests, so natural-born hunters simply replaced all this with a special sport - clay shooting.

What is clay shooting

Shotgun shooting is one of the types of shooting sports, using smoothbore guns. The main task of the shooter is to hit the plate so that its visible part breaks off from the base. Shooting is carried out in special open spaces. Plates made of bituminous pitch and concrete are fired at the command of the shooter from special machines on the principle of a catapult. In addition, with Tendency shooting is an endless learning process, even after 10 years of practice there will be a flight that you will not understand the first time and that you will take apart with the excitement of a beginner piece by piece in a circle of friends and masters.

The history of trap shooting

The official chronicle of shooting sports dates back to the 18th century from references to "land shooting". In European countries, the so-called garden clubs of hunters arose. One of the first was English club Hornsey at the Old Hats Inn. At the shooting range, holes with pigeons were covered with old hats, and at the command of the shooter, who was ready to shoot, the servant pulled the lace tied to his hat, the dove took off, and its further fate depended only on the accuracy of the shooter.

In the late thirties of the 19th century, the American shooter from Boston, Portlock, proposed firing at an artificial target he invented - a glass ball with a diameter of about 6.5 centimeters. Soon, his compatriot Bogardus invented a special machine with a flat spring that throws a ball at a distance of up to 35 meters. In order to better see the result and make shooting more efficient, the balls were made of colored glass and filled with feathers, paint, smoke or fine dust. Shooting at glass balls has gained great popularity not only in America, but also in France, England and Canada. Some gardening clubs also used flat, thin, well-fired clay plates as targets.

Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, in most countries where landing shooting was cultivated, artificial targets were widely used instead of live pigeons, shooting at live pigeons was also included in the competition program at the Games of the Second and Fourth Olympiads. However, in 1910 the International Olympic Committee condemned this type of shooting as inhumane and excluded it from the competition. So landing shooting gradually turned into trap shooting with humane cymbals. Although in Egypt, Italy, Spain, France and other countries, competitive shooting for live pigeons is still being carried out. There is even international federation organizing the world championships.

Types of clay shooting

Types of trap shooting can be divided into two groups: Olympic sports and sporting species.

OLYMPIC PROGRAM IN Olympic program includes competitions in three disciplines: a round stand (skit), a trench stand (trap) and a double-trap. On a round stand, moving from one shooting place to another (there are eight in total), changing the shooting angle relative to the trajectories of the outgoing targets, the participant fires at the skeet flying towards each other. Targets are launched at different heights. In addition, the round stand differs from other exercises in the delay of the target departure after the shooter's command, which automatically varies from 0 to 3 seconds. On the trench stand, the athlete shoots at the skeet thrown out of the trench in a random direction (left, right or straight ahead). Until the moment of departure, the shooter cannot know where the target will fly. The double trap is played in the same way as the trap competition, except that the cymbals are thrown in pairs and the shooting is done in doubles. In the double-trap exercise since 2004, a delay of the target after the shooter's command from 0 to 1 second has also been introduced.

SPORTING Shotgun sporting events are not Olympic. They also host the World and European Championships, and often they are even more spectacular. For compact sporting, you can use the shooting ranges of the round and trench stands, it is enough to install an additional machine on them to launch the “hare” target, which does not soar into the air, but jumps on the ground. Large sporting involves the use of a large area with rugged terrain, it is also called the “hunting route” or “hunting trail”. Big sporting is the most diverse in terms of target trajectories and the complexity of shooting at them. The athlete does not see the departure of some targets (bushes, trees, terrain folds). There are very few venues for big sporting in Russia, and they are highly valued by professionals.

Equipment and clothing shooters

Hunters are practical people, so the key quality of clay shooting clothing, as with all sports, is comfort. Each element of the shooter's equipment meets strict practicality and allows the athlete to be concentrated on the targets and not be distracted by trifles.

Earmuffs One of the key and important elements equipment, without which, according to safety rules, you will not be allowed to the booth. There are two types: passive and active. Passive can be special earplugs or just soundproof headphones. Active - headphones that work through built-in microphones that suppress the sounds of shots, but without problems transmit the sounds of human speech.

In addition to the accessories listed above, shooters often use a shoe-mounted tongue that rests against the barrels of the gun while the shooter waits for his turn. As well as gloves for shooting in cool weather, which can be worn with pleasure on the streets in a cool autumn.

Manufacturers of clothing and equipment

In addition to the hunting brands described in , which are happy to use shooters in cool weather, there are several brands that have made clay targeting a key or a priority. These include Beretta, Perazzi, Blazer, Zoli, Musto and others. It is interesting that even here the Italian companies (Beretta, Perazzi, Zoli) are flagship in the design of clothing and accessories for shooting and, of course, in guns.

Video of Billy Reid on shooting clothes

Products of these brands can be purchased in Russia in stores at shooting sports clubs (Lisya Nora, Olimpiets, Nevsky and others) or in gun shops. And scarce sports and shooting goods - in Western online stores. But the prices in them bite, for example, the Perazzi online store will ask you 100 euros for sending goods worth 70 euros by air to Russia. It is often more economical to shop in small British stores, like Sporting Lodge, where there are additional markups on goods, but delivery will cost 5-15 euros.

Barbour Vintage Cup video for classic wear
arrow and beautiful guns

How and where to shoot

How to shoot correctly in general and at a specific target in particular is an immense topic for discussion by the fireplace in the circle of shooters after training and competition. There are many schools of trap shooting, the leading and generally recognized among them is the classic English, which originates from the first garden clubs. But, in fact, there is no standard set of tricks that will help you always hit 100 percent of the cymbals.

Shooting is an individual matter, you can be taught the stance, insert, rules for working with a specific target, but still this set of knowledge is projected onto your physical data, plasticity, reaction, vision, endurance, morale, and so on. Thus, it is important to get to an experienced master who can not only tell you book knowledge, but also help your hands give results. Shooters are mostly open-minded people who are happy to share their knowledge with less experienced colleagues. Therefore, frequent debriefings in the truest sense of the word at the table in large companies in shooting clubs are commonplace. There you can get the most valuable experience in this case.

It is also worth considering that shooting is not just a shot, it is a kind of complex of your "home" work and the conditions in which you shoot. At the moment of pulling the trigger, success or failure depends on many factors that are under your control and not under your control, everything converges to one point: did you eat well, did you clean your gun, did your right boot get wet, did a strong wind blow, how quickly the machine operator filed you a target.

In Russia, compared to Western countries, where trap shooting is a classic discipline, there are not so many sports and shooting clubs so far. But in Moscow and St. Petersburg, you can still find a place that would suit you both in terms of price tag and location. Full list such establishments are possible. It is believed that one of top clubs- this is Moscow's Fox Hole and St. Petersburg's Olympian and Nevsky.

Text: Igor Makhno

Mastering marksmanship should begin on shooting stands. Fortunately, our ancestors took care of this problem, and today there are shooting complexes at the service of hunters, which allow them to learn marksmanship in the “trap”, “skit”, “sporting” exercises and participate in competitions in these types.

The machine, at the command of the shooter, throws out the plates; the angle and direction of flight may change. Photo by Anton Zhuravkov.

The first shotgun shooting competition against fast-flying targets took place in England in 1793. Shooting was carried out at pigeons located in special cages.

At the command of the shooter, the feeder pulled the cord, and the pigeon was thrown out of the cage. Such competitions began to be called "land shooting", and shotguns with a sharp and heaped battle - "land shooting".

The first mention of shooting pigeons in Russia dates back to 1737, during the reign of Anna Ioannovna, who skillfully shot a gun. In the "Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti" of that time, they wrote about pigeon-shooting competitions at the royal court, where expensive prizes were raffled off.

Over time, the protests of animal rights activists against such an inhumane sport forced the lovers of "land" shooting to replace the birds with artificial targets. American Partlog from Boston invented glass beads with a diameter of 6.35 cm.

Photo by DOHA STADIUM PLUS/FLICKR.COM (CC BY 2.0)

Using a leaf spring, they were thrown at a distance of up to 32 meters. The balls were stuffed with smoke, dust or feathers, which, when hit, created a certain effect.

LADDER

In 1880, the American D. Ligovsky and the Englishman M. Kaski, being on opposite sides of the ocean, independently invented clay targets - plates - and the first throwing device.

The sites where throwing machines were installed in the trench began to be called stands, and at the place of their installation (trench) - trench, which gave the name "trench stand", that is, a ladder.

Shotgun shooting was first included in the program of the Second Olympiad (1900), where the first Olympic champion became Roger de Barbarin (France).

In 1910, the International Olympic Committee eliminated live bird landing and introduced artificial target shooting. The 1912 Olympics contributed to the spread of trap shooting throughout Russia.

The modern trench site is a rectangle 25 meters wide and 24 meters long. A trench is equipped ahead, in which throwing machines are installed on the foundation, three for each of the five shooting numbers.

In all groups, the machines provide throwing targets to the right, straight and left, with deviations to the sides up to 45 °, and in height from 1 to 3.5 meters. Their casting distance is up to 85 meters.

15 meters from the trench, across the entire width of the site, 5 shooting rooms are equipped for shooting from the “place”, connected by a two-meter track. Each number has a microphone for giving a command by a shooter.

The Soviet government gave great attention shooting sports, thereby solving one of the main tasks - preparing the population for the defense of the Fatherland. In 1923, the "Big Prize" of the Moscow Gubernia Hunters' Union was raffled off in Moscow.

A notable event in sports life Russia also became the First All-Union Spartakiad (1928). Her program included trap shooting. In the individual competition, the shooter of the Red Army N. Batyr became the winner.

Since then, army athletes have taken a leading role in trap shooting for a long time. But the Great Patriotic War broke out, and many leading athletes went to the front. Their experience and knowledge in shooting contributed to the implementation of complex combat missions.

The victorious volleys died down, and in the competitions of the Military Hunting Society in 1947, the Chernomorian A. Sukharev achieved an outstanding result, hitting 299 targets out of 300, setting three USSR records at once.

The first post-war championship of the USSR among DSOs and departments took place in Moscow in 1948. Army shooters won team shooting and excelled in individual programs, and V. Leontiev was the first in all the "trap" exercises.

In 1950, the USSR national team made its first debut on international competitions in Sofia. The first steps on the world platforms were difficult.

At the Olympics in Helsinki (1952), soldier Yu. Nikandrov was only 16th, but already in 1955 he became the champion of Europe. And from this date, the triumphal procession of Soviet benches on the sites of the world begins.

1960 Roman Olympics. S. Kalinin (VOO) wins the bronze medal.
1962 Cairo, World Cup. V. Zimenko, after repeated skirmishes, managed to put the squeeze on his opponent and win gold.

Events at the XVII Tokyo Olympics developed no less dramatically. P. Senichev (VOO) showed the same result with the American W. Morris - 194 out of 200. Skirmish.

P. Senichev missed with the first shot and, being sure that the target was beaten, he lowered his gun. One can only guess what our fans and coaches felt. But Pavel, seeing that the plate continued to fly, broke the almost falling target with a second shot and finished the series without a miss. Silver.

At the Moscow Olympics-80, R. Yambulatov hits 196 plates out of 200 in the “trap” exercise and takes 2nd place. At the 1981 World Championships in Argentina, USSR athletes won 4 gold medals and one of them in the trap team event.

A. Asanov became the world champion in this type of shooting. At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, our athletes did not participate for political reasons. But at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, D. Monakov completed shooting with a score of 222 hit targets out of 225 and became an Olympic champion.

Perestroika, the political upheavals of 1991 and the ensuing economic crisis caused serious damage to shooting and clay sports. In the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympics, Russian stand-ups did not achieve significant victories.

In subsequent years, one can note the successful performance at the World Championship (2001) by P. Gurkin (VOO). 3rd place. In the same year, A. Alipov declared himself at the World Cup in Seoul, taking 3rd place. And already at the Olympics in Athens (2004) A. Alipov (VOO) wins gold with a score of 149 plates out of 150. At the Beijing Olympics (2008) Alipov managed to win bronze.

As for our women, they also won more than one medal in competitions of all levels. In 1962, V. Gerasina (VOO) became the first female world champion. Yu. Klekova was also a world champion. In 2001, at the World Championships in Cairo, I. Laricheva (VOO) won a gold medal.

At the World Cup in the same year, E. Tkach became the first among women with a score of 97 hit targets out of 100. I cannot but name Elena Rabai, Honored Master of Sports, five-time champion world, eight-time European champion, multiple champion of the USSR and Russia, head coach of the Russian women's team. That's what it is, "ladder", and the success of Russian athletes.

SKIT

When hunting, you will not walk with a butt inserted into your shoulder, and you have to shoot game flying in different directions.

The need to create conditions for training in shooting, to a greater extent corresponding to real bird hunting, predetermined the appearance of a round stand (skit).

The origin of the round stand took place in the USA between 1910 and 1914 in the vicinity of Andover (Massachusetts).

The farmers - father and son Davisa and their neighbor B. Foster - were avid bird hunters and, although they were known as good shooters, sometimes they still made offensive mistakes, and in the simplest situations.

Some of them came up with the idea to install a throwing machine in the field, take a position relative to the flight path of the target in such a position that a miss was made on the bird, and shoot until you get a reliable hit.

Such shooting contributed to the correction of mistakes made on the hunt. But walking around the typewriter soon got tired of everyone. And the shooters built a circle platform with a radius of about 23 meters, with 12 shooting numbers arranged around the circumference, like numbers on a watch dial.

On a small rise, behind the 12th shooting number, a single throwing machine was installed, throwing a plate in the direction of the 6th number. Shooting began from the 12th number, the hunters moved in a circle, taking two targets on each number. The last, 25th target was taken from the center, which was not assigned a number.

Photo by Anton Zhuravkov

In the process of shooting, it became clear to the guys that the radius of the circle was large, and for this reason, after the shot, the target sometimes flew away intact, that is, the arrows fell into the so-called shot scree windows.

In 1923, the radius was reduced to 18.2 meters.

But B. Foster built a chicken coop near the 3rd rifle number. Because of him, shooting from shooting numbers 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 became impossible.

The site has been renovated again. The 6th number was renumbered as the 1st, and a second throwing machine was installed there; The 12th number became the 7th, and the shooting station in the center of the site was assigned the 8th number.

After some time, a platform 4.5 meters high was built behind the 1st number and a throwing machine was installed on it. Thus, the shooting range took on the shape of a semicircle with seven numbers and an eighth number in the center.

A new exercise in trap shooting was called "skeet" (from the English skeet - sports skeet shooting). This exercise has crossed the oceans and has become widespread throughout the world. The created stand area with slight geometric changes has survived to this day.

Today, the site of the round stand is a segment from a circle bounded by a radius of 19.2 meta and a chord drawn 5.49 meters from the center.

The length of the chord is 36.8 meters, at its ends, 0.91 meters from the intersection with the circle, there are booths, each of which has a throwing machine. From the left booth, the target flies from a height of 3.05 meters.

The right booth is low, a plate is released from it from a height of 1.07 meters. In contrast to the trench, the flights of targets on a round stand have constant directions. They must fly over the center of the site so that they are above it at a height of 4.575 meters.

The deviation of the targets in the middle of the site, both vertically and horizontally, should not exceed 0.455 meters, the plates should fly through a ring with an internal diameter of 0.91 meters, mounted on a control pole 4.12 meters high.

When serving a doublet, the targets must simultaneously fly through the control ring. Seven shooting numbers are located at the same distance from each other (8.24 m) along the arc of the segment, the 1st and 7th numbers are at the ends of the chord, and the 8th in its center. All shooting numbers are connected by a path. Behind the 4th room, 2-3 meters away, is the operator's booth.

Shooting on a round stand soon became so popular that in 1947 it was included in the program of the World Championship in Stockholm, where J. Kozelin (Sweden) became the first champion with a score of 95 targets out of 100.

The first post-war championship of the USSR among DSOs and departments took place in 1948 in Moscow. team shooting WOO athletes won. They also excelled in individual exercises of the program.

Shooting on a round stand was first included in the program of the national championship, and the first champion of the USSR was the soldier Ivan Abramovich Kantser (the author's trainer. - Ed.).

Success came at the World Championships in Moscow (1958), where Soviet stand-ups became winners in the trench and round stands in the team event. gold medal A. Kaplun won in the individual championship on the round stand.

N. Durnev announced himself at the round stand, who in subsequent years brought more than one medal to the USSR national team. At the 1959 World Championships, O. Losev (VOO) won gold in the skit exercise. In 1963, he again achieved a high result at the European Championship, becoming the European champion.

He was one of the first to be awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. Soviet athletes from year to year achieved world victories. So, at the World Championship (1962) N. Durnev had no equal. He defeated rivals with an amazing result - 200 hit targets out of 200 possible.

On XIX and XX Olympic Games E. Petrov won gold and silver medals in rather difficult conditions. They started talking about the highest skill of E. Petrov when in 1972 he won the competition "Shooting to miss" with a score of 231 plates. His record has not yet been surpassed by anyone.

The homeland highly appreciated the merits of the athlete, twice awarding him the Order of the Badge of Honor, medals "For Labor Valor" and "For Labor Distinction".

The most talented shooters and coaches are leaving the shooting ranges. Less and less often we applaud the victories of Russian shooters in the world championships, Europe and the Olympics. Why? The answer must be found by the coaches.

At international competitions, all athletes have one task - to defeat the Russians. You have to learn to resist it.

Thanks to any of us successful performances of our athletes at the Olympic Games have repeatedly heard about the existence sports shooting from smoothbore weapons on the Round and Trench, also known as Shotgun. The rules of the competition strictly regulate the location of the throwing machines, the size and trajectory of the targets, and the positions of the shooters. All this is united by one concept - a stand.

Over time, as a result of the desire to extend the “hunting season” for hunters, improve the skills of safe handling of weapons and increase the accuracy of the participants, training and competitions in sports and hunting target shooting began to be held on the ground and in the field - skeet, which received a generalized name - Sporting.

Shooting grounds can be successfully organized in almost any cluster far enough from residential buildings, which can be several forest clearings, banks of water bodies, a field or an abandoned quarry. the main objective- creation of shooting conditions as close as possible to the conditions of hunting for game birds and hares. This is what allows the organizers of sports and hunting shooting to create for the participants the most complete feeling of being on a real hunt. Another important factor is that the sizes and types of targets used are very diverse, which, together with a large selection of flight paths, makes it possible to quickly and flexibly adjust cymbal flights to the requirements of competition and training.