What is Clay Pigeon Shooting

 Clay pigeon shooting is the art of shooting at special flying targets known as clay pigeons or clay targets with a shotgun.

The sport of clay pigeon shooting offers participants of all ages and genders the opportunity to compete at events which range from local through to provincial, national and international competitions up to and including the Olympic Games and it is a sport of great physical skill and mental ability.

The ICPSA caters for participants at all levels from novice through to Olympic athletes and the Association is the National Governing Body in Ireland responsible for the Olympic/international and domestic disciplines.

However not all ICPSA members are driven by competition and the sport has much to offer those who would like to participate in an activity that can be as challenging as you wish to make it and offers the opportunity to represent your club, county, province or indeed country.

The Disciplines

Clay pigeon shooting has at least 20 different forms of regulated competition called disciplines. These can be roughly divided into three main groups, Trap, Skeet and Sporting:

Trap

In "trap", targets are thrown either as singles or doubles from one or more "traps" (the machine used to launch the target).

These traps are usually situated some 15m in front of the shooter and the trajectories of the targets are generally set so that they are going away from the firing point at varying speeds, angles and elevations.

The most common disciplines in this group are: Down-the-Line (DTL), Single Barrel (SB), Double Rise(DR), Automatic Ball Trap (ABT), Olympic Trap(OT), Double Trap (DT) and Universal Trench (UT).

The participants usually pre-mount the gun into their shoulder and the target is released when the shooter calls "pull" or gives some similar vocal indication that they are ready.

The traps are generally electrically operated and most venues now use acoutically activated electronic release systems to launch the target.

Down the Line: Also known as DTL, is a popular clay shooting discipline. Targets are thrown to a distance of 45 to 50 metres at a fixed height of approximately 2.75m and with a horizontal 'spread' of up to 22 degrees either side of the centre line.

A squad is made up of five persons and each competitor shoots at a single target in turn without moving from their stand until all the squad members have shot five targets.

Then all the squad members move one place to the right with stand 5 moving back to stand 1 and the participants continue to shoot 5 targets from each stand until all the squad members have completed a standard round of 25 birds or targets.

Scoring of each target is 3 points for a first barrel kill, 2 points for a second barrel kill and 0 for a miss (maximum 75 points per round). Variations of this discipline are: Single Barrel, Double Rise and Handicap-by-Distance.

Olympic Trap: As it's name indicates, this is one of the disciplines which forms part of the shooting programme at the Olympic Games.

A trench built beneath ground level in front of the shooting stands conceals 15 traps arranged in 5 groups of 3. Shooters take turns to shoot at a target each, before moving in a clockwise direction to the next stand in the line.

Targets for each shooter are thrown immediately upon his call and are selected by a shooting scheme that ensures all competitors receive exactly the same target selection, but in a unpredictable randomised order, from any one of the three traps directly in front of him.

Olympic Trap targets are set to travel 76 metres at varying elevations and with a maximum horizontal angle of 45 degrees either side of the centre line.

Scoring is done of the basis of 1 point per target hit, regardless of whether this is achieved with the first or with the second barrel.

A simpler and cheaper to install variation of this discipline is known as Universal Trench (UT) where only five traps are used as well as Automatic Ball Trap (ABT) where only one trap is used and target variation is obtained by the continuous oscillation of the trap in both horizontal and vertical directions in order to give the same spread of targets as in Olympic Trap. Similarly, the targets are also thrown to a maximum of 80 metres.

Skeet

Skeet is a word of Scandinavian origin, though the discipline originated in America. Targets are thrown in singles and doubles from 2 trap houses situated some 40 metres apart at opposite ends of a semicircular arc on which there are seven shooting positions.

The targets are thrown at set trajectories and speeds and the main disciplines in this group are National Skeet, Olympic Skeet and American (NSSA) Skeet.

In skeet, variety is achieved by shooting round the seven stations in a semicircle. Scoring is on the basis of 1 point per target hit, up to a maximum of 25.

National Skeet: By far the most popular of the skeet disciplines, the gun position is optional (i.e. pre-mounted or out-of-shoulder when the target is called) and the targets are released immediately upon the shooter's call.

Olympic Skeet:  The targets travel at a considerably faster speed, the release of the target can be delayed up to 3 seconds after calling and the gun-down position is compulsory.

There is also an eighth shooting station which is situated midway between the two trap houses.

Sporting

The "Sporting" discipline probably has the biggest following in Ireland and while the other disciplines only use standard targets, in Sporting almost anything goes!

Targets are thrown in a great variety of trajectories, angles, speeds, elevations and distances and the discipline was originally devised to simulate live quarry shooting.

Hence some of the names commonly used to describe Sporting stands include Springing Teal, Driven Pheasant, Bolting Rabbit, Crossing Pigeon, Dropping Duck, etc.

Disciplines in this group include Sporting, FITASC (International) Sporting, Super Sporting, Sportrap and Compak Sporting.

Sporting: This discipline is sometimes referred to as "English Sporting" and can have an infinite variety of 'stands'. A course or competition will feature a given number of stands each of which has a predetermined number of targets, all travelling along the same path and speed, either as singles or doubles. Each stand will feature a different type of target i.e. crosser, driven, quartering etc.

FITASC: Also known as International Sporting, this discipline gives a much greater variety of targets in terms of trajectory and speed, and is shot by squads of six competitors in rounds of 25 targets at a time.

Super Sporting is a hybrid of the two preceding varieties.

There are also other formats such as Compak Sporting and Sportap in which five cages are surrounded by a number of traps, and shooters fire a specific combinations of singles and doubles from each stand according to a program displayed in front of the cage.