Your club and short shotguns

Claybuster

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Does your club impose restrictions on barrel length above and beyond the law?

Where I shoot any barrel length is fine provided the gun is non-restricted. There is also the requirement the gun be shot from the shoulder which rules out pistol grip only shotguns. The shoulder rule was not put in place to ban PGO shotguns but to prevent hip shooting.

I don't believe in restrictions other than what the law requires and occasionally take my shorter shotguns out to the range.

What does your club do?
 
Our club does the same as your club. They actually encourage you to shoot whatever you own as long as it is safe, legal, and you can shoot it from the shoulder. I think they are more concerned of the ammo used (target ammo versus Field loads). Sure we have guys there with expensive guns but no one really looks down on other with less expensive or odd shotguns. I can honestly say that our club is made up of really good members that are always willing to help a shooter regardless of his / her skill level.
 
Our club is pretty much open to whatever you bring, I've shot trap with my 10 gauge. I don't recall a pistol grip shotgun or hip shooting happening yet but I don't even think we would have a problem with that if it was done safely.
 
Our club same as the rest. Just bring what you own legally and can put on your shoulder (for clays). For guys with pistol grips on their defence shotguns they have to shoot at our centerfire range. We don't see many pistol grips anymore as most people can only shoot them safely at our 25 m backstop.
 
You can shoot shortie's at my club and the odd guy does.

In fact one morning these fellas came out early and didn't sign in ( MAJOR error by the club director that was there at the time) just dropped a bunch of cash and the 5 five of them went up to shoot a round of trap with some really cool and very expensive tactical shotguns. When other people started to arrive one of the members recognized them as HA members. A day later they all get arrested and the guns confiscated. They all pretty good with the shorties too. Hit most of the targets.
 
In practice, we don't disallow short guns or hipshooting at our club... as long as we handle them safely. That being said, few people frequently shoot short shotguns or shoot from the hip.

I've seen more safety violations from folks with new/unfamiliar long guns than shorties or hipshooters.
 
I believe the no hip shooting rule is a safety issue. Skeet layouts are often close to parking lots or other fields. Hipshooting doesn't give you the same control over the gun under recoil as shooting from the shoulder.
 
On our skeet range, I have seen a few members shoot the odd round of skeet from the hip just to demonstrate that most targets could be pointed and broke from the hip. Guns used were full stocked sporting guns and muzzles were always pointed in a safe direction. Those doing so always asked when I was there and I never heard of anyone who objected. I once saw one fellow break 19/25 from the hip. Other than station 7, I have never tried it.
 
As a club director, I have been somewhat torn on this issue for a while now.

Firstly, I have nothing against combat shotguns, and own several of them which include a Winchester Defender, a Mossberg 590 with pistol grip and a Remington 870 Tactical. We also have a fellow in the club with a .410 handgun which is a hoot to shoot skeet with.

Our problem comes with the yahoo from Toronto who goes to Lebaron, and some clown tells him an 870 Marine Magnum is the ideal skeet gun, so he buys it and comes up with a flat of 3" XX magnum BB's to try skeet shooting. It's really a shame.

Some in the club want to ban tactical shotty's on the skeet and trap ranges - so to prove a point I brought my defender and ran 25 straight in skeet. So far, we still allow them BUT it would seem as though those who have them tend to need increased supervision.
 
We allow short barrelled shotguns at our club, provided they don't fall into the restricted category. I am the chairman of our shotgun section and worry more about the shooter then the gun. We had a military guy a few weeks ago shooting a 14" barrelled 870 with some sort of attachment he called a door buster on the end. It was noisier then a cutts, but he was safe and broke a few targets and had fun. He said he'd be ordering a 28" barrell though.

With moving targets and inexperienced shooters who get excited, I'd want a standard length gun in their hands.

Steve
 
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