Skeet and sporting clays are among the most popular shotgun disciplines in the United States. Learning from champion shooters in both of these games will help you improve and move up the competition leaderboard. In this “American Rifleman Television” clip, Shooting Sports USA Editor-in-Chief John Parker spends time with Team Winchester pros Kim Rhode and Desi Edmunds at Winchester’s Nilo Farms range in Illinois to learn from these top-tier shotgun shooters. (Watch the video above or click here.)
Kim Rhode, a six-time Olympic medalist and six-time national champion in double trap said that “your whole life, you've been taught to point.” When you point, there is no doubt that you will shoot better with a shotgun in competition.
“Look at that house, look at that car, look at that dog, and when you point at something, you tend to be right on it,” Rhode said. “One of the best tips is you want to put your finger either on the side or underneath your fore-end and use your finger as an extension of your barrel to point at that target.”
Team Winchester sporting clays shooter Desirae Edmunds shared her tips for sporting clays and five-stand competition, including gun-mounting, stance, where the feet are pointed and how a shooter’s body can rotate. Sporting clays presentations often incorporate wide angles in which clays can approach. Thus, a shooter must rotate their body and orient themselves properly to the presentation of a clay in order to connect.
“One thing about sporting clays is we’ve got a variety of angles and speeds and distances,” Edmunds said. “There’s nothing that’s consistent in terms of station-to-station or course-to-course. In sporting clays, there’s a big skill level to learn. There’s a lot of different speeds and leads to learn.”
You can watch complete segments of past episodes of “American Rifleman TV” at americanrifleman.org/artv. To watch all-new episodes, tune in Wednesday nights to the Outdoor Channel at 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Learn more about Winchester at winchester.com.
