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A Short History Of Clay Target Shooting In
the second half of the nineteenth century shooting live pigeons, starlings
and sparrows became popular. The
birds were released by remote control from collapsible boxes called traps.
Shooters
were closely handicapped on their known shooting ability. This
was done by a "yardage" where the not so good shooters stood closer
to the traps and the shooters who won and took the prize stakes
(Which were often very high - sometimes many thousands of pounds) shot from
further away from the traps. By
1870 there had been many attempts to produce artificial targets and machines
to throw them.
Glass balls, plain or stuffed with feathers, brass balls, small metal propellers
and many other weird and wonderfully shaped targets had all been tried and
found lacking. In
1880 and person called Ligowski watched some youths skimming clam shells across
the water in America. This
gave him the idea of the saucer-shaped clay target. These original targets
were made from clay and fired in brick kilns. Because
they were baked hard they were not easy to break with the 1.25 oz shot used
at the time. Modern
clay targets are made from a mixture of lime and pitch.
There is an assortment of targets that vary in diameter and thickness, although
all are circular. The
targets are given names such as mini clays, midi clays, battue, and clay rabbits.
These varying targets are used for Sporting Clays. Clay
targets may vary in colour but black is still the most used colour.
The colour thrown varies to suit the background against the target the shooter
is shooting at. All
targets are thrown from a machine called a trap. The trap is a spring-loaded
throwing arm, usually made of metal.
Targets can be thrown for distances of up to 135metres.
The spinning action of the target is imparted by the trap arm and its running
rail that helps to maintain a reasonably stable flight trajectory for at least
the first 50m. There
are today many variations of the sport in the way that targets are presented
to the shooters. Variations
consisting of changes in the speed of the target and the direction of flight
which may vary from travelling straight away from the shooter to travelling
almost straight towards him. Height
above ground level is another factor that can be varied. ---------- We
offer advice on gun and all cartridges for game and clay pigeon shooting. 
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