This Saturday, our company sponsored a team-building event at the local shooting range through one of the ERGs (Environmental Resource Groups), and so twenty of us met up early in the morning at the OakTree Gun Club, guns and BBQ in tow.The majority of our group were first-time shotgun shooters, so the 3-4 gun club regulars had an interesting time prepping us for our first ever skeet shooting experience.
Skeet shooting is when the shooter attempts to break the clay pigeons (disks) that are mechanically thrown into the air at a high speed by two fixed stations. The stations respond to the shooter's voice, and so as soon as you yell "Pull", they fling the disks at all sorts of angles and your goal is to break as many as possible. For skeet shooting, you usually use birdshot shotgun shells (which are meant for doves, pigeons, rabbits, etc) instead of buckshots (which are used for larger animals such as deer)
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| Birdshot (left) vs. Buckshot (right) Shotgun Shells |
When we first signed up for this event, we had no idea that a heat wave was hitting Southern California this weekend, so it was a real challenge to be out and about in the field with the scorching sun right above us. Nonetheless, everyone that signed up showed up, ready for some shooting practice. All shooters were required to sunglasses and noise-cancelling headphones to protect our eyes and ears while we were out on the field. We went two at a time, and the first order of business was choosing our shotgun: we had a selection of five, with two short and three long, all varying in weight. I went with one of the shorter guns, hoping it would be lighter than a longer gun (still surprisingly heavy), and my instructor began to show me where to position my gun, how to load the barrel, how to turn the safety on and off, how to look down the top of the barrel of the shotgun to aim properly, when to take shot, and lastly, how to discard the empty shotgun shell.
Once we actually started, I discovered how hard firing a shotgun is. I always assumed it was just a point and shoot type of situation, but to take into account the angle of the disk, the recoil of the gun, and a proper follow-through is much more complicated than I expected. It took me a few shots until I finally hit one of the clay pigeons, and by the time I went through all 50 of my rounds, my arm was aching from holding the gun up and I could feel my shoulder start to bruise from all the time the gun recoiled back into it. Furthermore, due to the heat (it was 107 degrees), the metal parts of the gun were starting to heat up and kept burning my hand every time I accidentally brushed across them. As insanely fun as it was to shoot at moving targets, I was so relieved to retreat back into the shade of our tented BBQ area.
As everyone was finishing up taking their turns shooting, the guys started BBQ-ing and within a half hour, we had delicious Mediterranean-spiced chicken/pork/beef wraps with baked potatoes and salad. We were famished and everything tasted so delicious! It was a great way to end our day at the shooting range.
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