Once the press conference is over in Tuscany, Italy and the pretty girl has held up the shotgun while everyone clamors around with a camera, there’s a much more defining moment. It’s the moment when the gun is in your hands, and the arm of the trap is cocked and loaded with the first clay you’ll shoot with it.
Just recently I was looking through some of my favorite recipes for preparing fresh summer vegetables. I came across one for okra gumbo that my grandmother used to make. I must have been an extraordinarily weird kid to have liked okra. Still do, because Grandma’s recipe for gumbo was always made with garden fresh okra. “Delicious” really was an appropriate description.
The season of Not Hunting is, for me, always filled with a bit of listlessness that can be ameliorated somewhat, but not entirely, by shooting skeet and clays. And occasionally going out for a summer cottontail hunt.
We love seeing pictures like the first ones below because they exemplify how shooting shotguns parlays into your everyday life. When you are passionate about something it shows, right? Here at Lanier Shooting Sports we are all about being lighthearted, fun, (albeit safe) about your shooting passions. In fact, we like it so much we would like you to send us similar photos of how shotguns are a part of your life and if we use your photos, we will send you a Lanier Shooting Sports hat with our logo! Submit your stories and photos to elanier@laniershootingsports.com.
A sporting clays training session that drew top instructors to South Carolina in mid-June could change how the sport is taught to the majority of shooters using the new “Coordinated Shooting Method.”
The idea of Touch-and-Go actually has its roots in aviation. New pilots use it to learn how to land and take off again. You come down for a landing, touch the runway with your wheels, and then push the throttle forward to take off again.
What does Touch-and-Go have to do with consistently breaking targets in sporting clays? It has to do with how you approach the target, touch it, and then pull ahead for the proper forward allowance — or lead as most people call it.
This is a new column dedicated to recreational shotgun pursuits in both the clay target disciplines and the feathered kind. From the first moment I ever pulled the trigger of a shotgun, I loved it. I had to really work at it but I enjoyed it so much I was willing to do so. The more I shot, the more I wanted to learn. I took lessons from a variety of instructors and, over time, my skills evolved as did my passion for just about everything involving shotguns.
Oooooh, I can feel it already: You read that headline and you wanted to punch me.
That or you’re still reading this story because you’re a terrible shot, desperate for anything that might make you better.
If it’s the latter, go get your gun fitted. Then practice, practice, practice.
If it’s the former … well, good instinct!
In Part I, we met Charlie Mincey, former Georgia moonshine runner who would be our host for evaluating the new Ruger Red Label on sporting clays courses that we visited in a restored 1939 Ford Sedan moonshine car. In Part II, we shot sporting clays with the Ruger Red Label at the Foxhall Resort and Sporting Club as well as Barnsley Gardens — delving deeper into Charlie’s incredible story. Now in our final installment, we stress test the Ruger Red Label at the ravine-intense Etowah Valley Sporting Clays followed by a visit to Dawsonville, which is the heartbeat of the state’s moonshine culture.
In Part I, we met Charlie Mincey, former Georgia moonshine runner who would be our host for evaluating the new Ruger Red Label on sporting clays courses that we visited in a restored 1939 Ford Sedan moonshine car.
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