T.C.

Hi John, I am reminded of the man who jumped off the Empire State building. Half way down he was heard to remark "OK so far!"

Kibworth is certainly worth a try. Good targets changed regularly .

Tracer shells will not help you with this problem. Go and get a lesson from a good coach.

When people talk about "Hard Focus" they are usually referring to what is often called central vision. The centre of each retina contains a small circular area called the fovea centralis which contains a high density of visual receptor cells. It is the eye equivalent of HD and only covers a tiny area of vision.The rest of the eye has a lower density of receptor cells and provides peripheral vision. Peripheral vision is sensitive to movement. Central vision is the part you use to read with.It also seems to be the part that your brain relies on for "hand to eye co-ordination". If you want to be able to place your shotgun in the correct place at the correct time you need to be seeing the target in your central vision. The peripheral vision is useful for picking up the initial movement of the target.Locking your central vision on a target for any length of time is difficult and needs practice.I hope this quick guide is helpful.

Most prescription glasses and inserts will show a distortion of the image if you try and look through them with your line of sight more than a few degrees away from the centre of the lens. This will be reduced if you have shooting glasses that position your eye in the centre of the lens when you mount the gun(rather than ending up looking through the top 25% of the lens with normal glasses)ie. shooting glasses with a prescription lens rather than an insert. It may also help if you make an effort to point your nose at the target rather than trying to see it out of the corner of your eye.As a varifocal spectacle wearer I found both of these things made a big difference. The comment that if you look at the target all you see is a blur suggests a visit to your optician might be helpful!

I found mine too heavy when shooting gun down. I ended up with a Beretta 682 and never looked back.The K80 is overpriced in my opinion.

The standard advice for a newcomer is to buy second hand. That way you should loose less money if you trade your gun in for a different model. Few people stick with their first gun gun once they have progressed with their shooting.Stay with Beretta and get a 686E if that is what you got used to last time.

Welcome to the club of barrel watchers! Looking only at the clay and not focusing on the barrel could be regarded as the Holy Grail of clay shooting . It takes some people years of practice not to aim at the clay or carefully measure the lead. The previous poster is right in saying that Gil and Vicki Ash's book spends a lot of time on this issue and would be well worth buying!

Hi Simon, you have a message.

Try this link to Gill and Vicky Ash in America . I found their books and videos helpful. http://www.ospschool.com/index.html

Hi Salopian I have sent you a PM. T.C.

Does anyone know anything about the history of UK Clay Pigeon Sporting Competitions ? For example when was the first national sporting clays competition and how many people took part ? Who organised it? etc.

Thanks in advance. Greg I would be careful . This gun is 28in when most people go for at least 30in and fixed choke so you cannot change your chokes if you want to shoot another discipline (you did not say which chokes it had . ) I would stick with the standard advice for a newcomer . That is to buy second hand from Miroku/Browning /Beretta and go for 30 in barrels and changable chokes .That way if you find you have made a mistake you can sell the gun on . You will then have a gun that can do most things and will retain its value over time .

Clayman , thank you for your post . I was asked by an American coach if I could find out the answers to his questions . He was patricularly interested to know the year when the CPSA started its coaching system . Can you add any more dates to your post ?

Does anyone know anything about the history of coaching competition clayshooting in the UK as distinct from game shooting . When did it start ? Who started it ? How did it develop to where we are now?If you can help please send me whatever you can .