Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/546

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��Popular Science MonlJtli/

���In this method of shooting the man with the machine simply pulls the trigger and the clay bird soars in the air

��it follows that if the man at the extreme left end of the line, who is No. I, gets a bird Iea\ing the trap at the extreme left angle permitted, he gets a bird that is swiftly traveling right across his line of fire seemingly.

This is termed a quarterer. If the bird, on the other hand, flew straight away from No. 3 man, who stands back of the very center of the trap, it wonld be a straightaway from the trap and Irom this man, but still ciiiartering to the line of the others in the .scjuad. (Juartcrers are the bane of the beginner, because he shoots right at them, and they are not there when the shot arrives, but much farther to the right or left.

In trai)shooting tiu' rules fi)ri)id guns larger in bore than 12, and charges of shot hea\ier than one and a quarter ounces. Black powder, because of its smoke and interferiTici' with the \ision of the shooters and scorers, also is taboo. Because the shooter likes to shoot as many pellets as he can and still can!U)t shoot too small-sized shot, lest they fail to break the bird, he has found that \o. 7|i or 8 .shut is the li.i])py

��medium between shot loo small to break the cla\', and too large to make a dense cloud or "pattern" of shot iju-ough which the little cla>- cannot escape. Us- ua]]\- the powder load is liuee drams of smoke- less. The guns must weigh from seven and a half pounds to nine to absorb kick and make >iiooting pleasant, but I his is not a rule of the game, merely common sense.

How the ''Events" are Conducted

In a regular shoot, the sliooters are di\ided up into squads of fi\e, who remain together through the day or the whole tournament unless han- dicap events which re- ([uire different distances for different shooters make re-squadiling neccssar\-. Each "e\-cnt" ma>- consist of from fifteen to twenty-five birds, each man firing at this number, then retiring with the squad in fa\'or of the next set. . To make the game fair and give e\"ery man his trial at a dilTcrent peg and so a dilTcrcnt angle to the trap, the whole squad moves up one peg wlu'n a lifth of the event is shot. In the 25-bird event when No. I has shot down li\e birds he mo\es wyi to No. 2 peg, and so on down the line to No. 5 man, who takes his gun and doll rags and walks down behind the length of the s(]ua(l to the \-acated No. i peg. After till' next li\e birds there is another mo\e, and so on.

Each shooter fires in turn, raising his gim and getting it in the correct i)osilion the instant the man to his left lires. The ruk's permit the shooter to raise the gun to tlu' shoulder and get all settled Ix'fore calling for tlu- bird, whiih he does with the ne\'er-\arying word "Pull!" The instant the puller hears the word, the bird is spt'd from the trap. The slightest hesitation in the act of the jjuller will elTectually "b.ilk" the shooter,

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