Get your skeets on

Tony Bracci explains the discipline of skeet shooting, a great way to improve your speed and accuracy

- Tony Bracci

This article is not intended to be a masterclass in skeet shooting, rather a brief explanation to encourage you to give it a go if you haven’t already done so.

Skeet is a formal discipline and an Olympic sport at its highest level. It has a humble history starting when some American farmers wanted to practice wing shooting in the offseason. They started with one trap, shooting at 12 stations ‘around the clock’ to give a variety of angles to mimic wing shooting. After a dispute with a neighbor over falling shot they added a second trap and shot in a semicircle with seven equidistant stations, starting from station 1 at the high house and station 7 at the low house.

You can use any type of shotgun to shoot skeet, although shooting with a 32in trap gun with full and full choke may be a disadvantage. In the past skeet, guns had short 26in barrels but nowadays most shoot with 28in or 30in barrels.