Hello all, I’m Tim and a new shooter of any type effective this summer. I was asked to attend a sporting clays event early summer, used a borrowed pump-action gun with an 18″ barrel, and was hooked immediately. The folks who took me in are fantastic.

However, knowing I am a new shooter I wanted to learn quickly and not ingrain bad habits too firmly. I attended the Milford Hills 2-day clinic this September and shot with both Vicki and Gil. I thought I’d document a few thoughts and experiences as I adopt to shooting and this method in particular.

First: I discovered Gil’s video on Trap hold points and followed those for the trap team and season with the folks who welcomed me in to their team. The Gil Trap videos were helpful for me to figure out where to put the gun and where to look at a trap house. From those videos, I explored more of the material online and found the OSP class coming to Wisconsin. Signed up immediately.

Second: My process of learning OSP may be quite different from many of you on the forum and other shooters I am encountering. It seems many of you have habits that need to be unlearned first (and are written and discussed), whereas I’m newer and only wanted to simplify process for me to get up to speed quickly (which I will document and update below). So much of the coaching hour topics and forum topics seem to be more of a process of elimination of bad habits than simply establishing new ones.

Third: Gun fit…what a process of finding a gun and getting it to work. So many opinions, so much information and opinion and misinformation. As noted above, the $200 pump-action shotgun was taken out of my hands after the first 5 shells on my first day of trap, and an old-timer gave me his lucky Browning 325 to use. What a great gesture and a fun gun to shoot. I purchased a used CZ o/u as a “starter” gun to try to start figuring this all out (shorter LOP, longer LOP, cheek pads, etc.) and finally gave up on it. I’ve since replaced it with a new o/u and got stock extensions to make it fit me as I am a little taller. Gil spent some quality phone time and photo reviews prior to the in-person clinic to get some of these fitting things sorted.

Finally, some abbreviated thoughts on where my development is currently:

1: Keep things simple, keep them repeatable. If it doesn’t seem too relevant right away, I’m not using it as part of my shot routine. I’ll explain more as I go along, but things right now like hold points or complicated pre-shot routines seem cumbersome or unnecessary at this point. Your opinions and my slowly growing body of shot knowledge may alter these. Also, Gil recommended just shooting and practicing singles, so that’s mostly what I’m working on today. Report pairs and True pairs get mixed in with friends, but on my own I’m taking them one-shot-at-a-time.

2: Preshot: Observe the clay flight, first for the break point (find a tree or feature reference to view later). Name the shot out loud (challenge, catch, converge). Then back up to where I can first see the clay (trap or exiting foliage). Set feet, weight up on the lead foot. Load the gun.

3: Quiet Eye: Take a deep breath and let my eyes settle back on the BP. Relax.

4: Initiate: Close gun, soft mount, and swivel head and eyes to the view point (trap or branch). I’ll let the gun find its natural half-way or earlier hold point, I don’t fuss where that might be. Slight pause, initiate challenge move (start moving barrels) and call pull.

5: Follow up: Because I don’t have a huge shot inventory yet, sometimes my not specifically picking a hold point means the clay gets out ahead of the barrel, and I catch up. Sometimes I’m waiting for the clay to get to the moving barrels, which means the hold point was too far out. Correct HP for the next shot. Review the mental lead to make sure it was right and adjust if I didn’t get a good break.

I’m keeping things simple for now; no worrying about a hold point for the gun (I let it find it’s own place), no worrying about too little or too much time when set to call pull (I get ready after the quiet eye and just initiate), I’m not worrying about scores. I go to the course and if I miss some types of crossers or quarters repeatedly, then I’ll grab a box and go do that target again and again to see if I can fix it.

I’ll keep adding to this thread as I discover more, but for now I’m only picked a few items to practice with every shot to keep things simple and repeatable.