Skeet, Trap or Sporting clays?

All three disciplines will improve you shotgunning skills. Trap and skeet are shot on fields with standardized layouts, whereas Sporting clays is completely different everywhere you’ll go. All great fun so my advice is to try them all and see what floats your boat.Lots of great videos showing the difference between them! Great to have another scattergunner joining us!! Welcome
 
Trap is pretty easy to learn but hard to master. Usually not much talking going on during the relay. Shoot 5 shots in turn and move one station to the right. Some serious shooters that will look down their noses at you if you are not shooting a trap gun. Heaven forbid if you don't have a shell catcher on your semi.
Skeet is more social, a squad of 5 shooters moving around as a group 2-4 shots at each station. After a couple rounds the routine is easy to catch onto. Usually some friendly banter going on. Shoot what you have, O/U, semi, pump, SxS.
Sporting Clays is like playing golf with a shotgun. Can be serious or more laid back depending on the squad you shoot with.
Skeet is my favorite, followed by Sporting Clays.
 
I started with skeet, I find it much more representative of actual bird hunting, because you have targets coming and going , and broadside, as opposed to trap, where are targets are going away from you. Sporting clays has the greatest variety of shot presentations, but is much more expensive to shoot. As has been mentioned, skeet is much more relaxed and more social than trap, and I find sporting clays similar. Skeet or sporting clays shooters tend to do much better at trap, than trap shooters do at skeet or sporting clays. I run a skeet field and shoot sporting clays with a group of friends that mostly come from a trap background , and it took them a while to get used to incoming targets, compared to those of us that came from a skeet background. I enjoy sporting clays most, but as I posted, it is much more expensive to shoot, so I shoot more skeet.
 
Give them all a try if you can, most clubs will have members that will help you out, but I'd try them all , i started with backyard clays then went to trap, skeet and 5 stand. Nearest sporting clays is an hour drive or across to Michigan so haven't shot it yet.
 
I remember daughter and I getting shotguns, cheap pumps, after about 3 or 4 shots, your shoulder is killing you. Then we got into trap, and better shotguns, and proper shouldering of said guns. First time you leave trap, all you can talk about is the 100 rounds of 12 gauge you just shot, and you still have 2 shoulders. I've only shot trap, so don't know about skeet, sporting etc, but I'm sure whichever one you decide to try, you will walk away with a smile.
 
I shoot mainly trap but do shoot skeet and sporting occasionally as they are more realistic target presentations to what you will encounter when bird hunting, all are fun but as others have said not cheap, target prices and ammo have increased dramatically over the last 4 years like everything shooting related, you have to pay to play, get out and shoot and have some fun, won't take long to get hooked :ROFLMAO:
 
Many years ago, I shot trap - quite a bit more than I could afford in a sparse part of my life. I found it excellent stress management - certainly cheaper (and more effective), than therapy. I've only shot skeet maybe a couple dozen times. Didn't really float my boat. For the last decade or so, I've been focused on Sporting Clays.

In large part, it may depend on what is offered in your area. Trap and skeet, may be cheaper because you can shoot a round of 25 and head to the clubhouse if you choose to. Sporting clays is typically around 100 targets for a round. Although sporting clays is very expensive, I have found it to be very social, with varied challenges and opportunities.

Presuming all are available to you, if you start with trap or skeet, I suspect you'll end up with sporting clays. If you start with sporting clays, when you try trap and skeet, you may be asleep by station 3. ;) (Just kidding - sort of).

My vote (as may have guessed) would be for sporting clays.
 
take skeet lessons to learn how to shoot targets in the "basic" presentations
Take Trap lessons to learn the mental focus it takes to win.. perfection , over and over and over again
Sporting clays to learn how to enjoy competitve shotgun sports. and put your lessons to good use
That's been my experience.
 
if you are a complete novice start with some 16 yard trap targets 300-400 then move over to the skeet field skeet will make you a much better wing shooter and a strong background if you wish to shoot sporting clays
sporting clays is fun but tough to become proficient at it requires a lot of practice
they are all tough to become proficient at but skeet is fun and helps with all shotgun sports
 
Rob! said:
Many years ago, I shot trap - quite a bit more than I could afford in a sparse part of my life. I found it excellent stress management - certainly cheaper (and more effective), than therapy. I've only shot skeet maybe a couple dozen times. Didn't really float my boat. For the last decade or so, I've been focused on Sporting Clays.

In large part, it may depend on what is offered in your area. Trap and skeet, may be cheaper because you can shoot a round of 25 and head to the clubhouse if you choose to. Sporting clays is typically around 100 targets for a round. Although sporting clays is very expensive, I have found it to be very social, with varied challenges and opportunities.

Presuming all are available to you, if you start with trap or skeet, I suspect you'll end up with sporting clays. If you start with sporting clays, when you try trap and skeet, you may be asleep by station 3. ;) (Just kidding - sort of).

My vote (as may have guessed) would be for sporting clays.
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Trap and skeet is cheaper, because the targets are much cheaper. We charge $7 for 25 targets so $28/100. Sporting clays runs about $67/100 for the first 1000 targets that come with your membership, and $50/100, for additional targets. So trap and skeet here is about half the price of sporting clays.
 
maynard said:
Trap is pretty easy to learn but hard to master. Usually not much talking going on during the relay. Shoot 5 shots in turn and move one station to the right. Some serious shooters that will look down their noses at you if you are not shooting a trap gun. Heaven forbid if you don't have a shell catcher on your semi.
Skeet is more social, a squad of 5 shooters moving around as a group 2-4 shots at each station. After a couple rounds the routine is easy to catch onto. Usually some friendly banter going on. Shoot what you have, O/U, semi, pump, SxS.
Sporting Clays is like playing golf with a shotgun. Can be serious or more laid back depending on the squad you shoot with.
Skeet is my favorite, followed by Sporting Clays.
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^perfect explanation, especially re: trap. Wouldn't attempt to guess how many rounds I've shot, yet never a 25/25. Plenty of times in the 20-22, best 23 maybe 5 times?

To the question, my only experience is with trap and skeet and of the two, I think trap would be easier to explain to a new shooter. I would guess most shooters would break more clays/sooner with trap than skeet.
 
Because there are ao many more trap fields than skeet or sporting clays fields, trap is more accessible to many people, so more people start with trap. There are more trap fields, because trap requires less land for shot fallout , and only one machine, so it is cheaper and easier to set up and maintain for the smaller clubs. There used to be many more skeet fields, pretty much every center near a military base had one, but over the years, many have been shut down. Just look at the average age of the shooters at a skeet field, and you will see that in general, it is much older than at a sporting clays facility. Our club has one regular member under 40, and the vast majority are over 60.
 
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