I think there’s a place for all sorts of shoots and I think it’s more a question of personal taste whether you like things on the end of your gun or in the next county or a bit of both. Balance is the key for me. Shot the Cheddite the other week and Richard Bunning won only missing 3 of the same bird which was the most difficult on the course. It would probably be in the Billy Bollox category. I never got anywhere near it but I enjoyed trying. What made it a good shoot and okay to be spanked by that clay was that there were degrees of difficulty for the mixed entrants and it was okay not to get that one. The Barbury shoot this weekend was a good shoot, I missed a fair few but included in those misses were what we usually refer to as the easier, steadier presentations and yet I scored higher on a particular stand than the first seven top ladies - Cheryl, Amy, etc. My score was 66 which at first I was upset with but when I looked at the scores I felt okay about. We’re a hard bunch to please. I also shot Horne on Sunday after Barbury. Haven’t managed a 100 there yet somI obviously need more practise on those types of clays as well. There were two stands of following clays. Lazy? Boring? I still missed one on each stand. To me that is about having a lapse of concentration so they are good for my concentration.
Shoots are too easy nowadays
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Jonny English
Well-known member
Shoot Grimsthorpe and Orston and you will find the targets are set to challenge the majority of the time. Everybody moaned about the English being too hard, if you shot Grimsthorpe/ orston esp or fitasc on a regular basis the English was a lot easier to take on, with maybe only 2 or 3 exceptional birds.
Clynt
Well-known member
Is it not about what you enjoy ? if you like ego massaging closer slow targets , theres loads on offer ? if you want to test your ability to take on flying birds at 40-50m then choose those grounds that supply them ?? forget scores , total meaningless, Barbury ETSS seemed to find a very good balance ??
charles275
Member
Has anyone shot in the USA bigger FITASC or sporting comp's. How do they compare target wise. Are we keeping up with the rest of the world in target setting? Any views??
I hate the close stuff, the slow ones are even worse but paradoxically it doesn't always mean they're easy to hit. It's a fact that patterns don't develop to their best potential until at least 25+ yards and maybe even much further than that, so hitting a slow/close quartering away rabbit for instance can be very testing as can a fast crosser with a short but sensible window.
It's also pretty much established fact that most shooters (OK maybe not the top 30-40) will miss a mixture of both hard/medium/easy presentations, crucially the figures I supplied at the outset back this up.
It seems to me that people look at the winning scores in B/A and forget the reason they're often unusually high is that the shooters are improving and in transition, it's much easier to mock their progress and assume it must have been easy.
Our shooters do very well over there so little reason to think we're lagging behind in target setting.
charles275
Member
Be interesting to see how the top Americans do at Churchills !!... My view on recent shoots is that the targets are generally getting closer but certainly not easier. The result for me is that I enjoy shooting at the close ones less than the long ones thus I'm enjoying English Sporting less than I used to. I think this is a common view. My moan is why do course setters put a green clay on against a green background. Southdown have recently put blue clays against a clear blue sky. Surely the idea of coloured clays is to make them more visible not less so. As you get older this becomes more significant..
Bebo
Well-known member
Was so misty when I shot that stand on Friday morning I couldn't have told what colour it was, just that I could see that one enough to hit it. Good idea to use something that doesn't reflect the sun, it's a bugger to see them when they turn almost silver in the reflected sunlight.
ChrisPackham
Well-known member
I think if shoots get much harder the mere mortals will start to be put off..
schmokinn
Well-known member
Really i am a mere mortal but i miss the bigger targets we used to see,when Purbeck could actually be bothered to put on proper reg. years ago and Wylye existed i used to enjoy the challenge.
I shoot Southdown regularly but i would say 50% of the targets are to close to be true sporting targets.
Seems to me that it isn't shooting and the ability to hit the target that is tested most of the time now but concentration/focus on close technical targets.
I can find one shoot in 2012 there where i scored 67 at Purbeck probably about right as i shot less and it would have been a reasonable C class score.
Is it possible to go back further in CPSA records?
Will Hewland
Well-known member
The old website had records to about 2001 I think. They tell me it’s still there, but couldn’t see it and haven’t checked lately.
schmokinn
Well-known member
Well it appears i can only find scores since i rejoined apparently in 2012!
I can though find scores of somebody else by name all the way back to 1992?
You have to look it up in scores and rankings and go by issue number or scores and then wind the calendar back manually as the drop down only goes back 5 years and whn you get their go back through 70 or so pages clicking next.....WTF designed this crap!!
I can though find scores of somebody else by name all the way back to 1992?
You have to look it up in scores and rankings and go by issue number or scores and then wind the calendar back manually as the drop down only goes back 5 years and whn you get their go back through 70 or so pages clicking next.....WTF designed this crap!!
Over the last 15 years talking with people who run shoots, whether Sunday morning straw balers or monthly registered, I hear much the same story. What matters most to them is happy customers who keep returning and for that they have to find the right balance of big difficulty v big scores. Human nature normally prefers a flattering score to getting dispirited by monster targets so some places vary the difficulty level from shoot to shoot to avoid being labelled and certain grounds that were getting a name a couple of years ago for being soft have certainly upped their level.
At most shoots you only have to hit all the straightforward targets and you've got a score of 75 or 80 right there.
At most shoots you only have to hit all the straightforward targets and you've got a score of 75 or 80 right there.
tiptop
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Issue 15
May be the target presentation has changed as the sport, and equipment has evolved, but they don't appear to be as soft as some people might like to think they are.
- Scores included from 01/11/1992 to 31/10/1993
English Sporting
30
ESP
100.00 to 86.80
86.79 to 82.40
82.39 to 75.10
75.09 to 67.90
67.89 and below
- Scores included from 01/05/2017 to 30/04/2018
English Sporting
30
ESP
100.00 to 87.73
87.72 to 83.58
83.57 to 76.80
76.79 to 70.00
69.99 and below
May be the target presentation has changed as the sport, and equipment has evolved, but they don't appear to be as soft as some people might like to think they are.
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Just as I found a few years ago when comparing AA cut-offs going back 10 years, the figures blip up and down by practically nothing, certainly not the huge jumps some would have you believe. Also don't forget to factor in the undeniable rise in peoples general skill sets brought about by more of us shooting higher volumes and being exposed to a lot more variety. In the old manual trap days it would have been nearly impossible to set up and pay for twenty different trappers in anything other than major shoots, today it's the norm, in fact it's the norm to shoot 12 stands which would have meant 24 trappers !
tiptop
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But then again........The cut off points were static up until issue 49, when obviously they changed the way classifications were done and the cut off point has slowly risen. Even so, the static cut off points were not that far away.
Obviously a static cut off gave the old baggers a target to aim for.
Obviously a static cut off gave the old baggers a target to aim for.
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Will Hewland
Well-known member
No Martin, they were never static. Always new each period. Maybe the new site is misleading you?But then again........The cut off points were static up until issue 49, when obviously they changed the way classifications were done and the cut off point has slowly risen. Even so, the static cut off points were not that far away.
Obviously a static cut off gave the old baggers a target to aim for.
tiptop
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As you were then, not as easy/soft as people think.
I must admit I do prefer the bigger targets, but we all have to evolve with the sport as it moves forward. Whether people think that it is good or bad.
