Sporting Clays

A practice or competition event will consist of shooting a total of 50 targets from six to 12 different stations on a sporting clays field. Each station round will consist of six to 10 targets per station.

Ammunition Recommendation

Ammunition specifications must meet the use requirements of the shooting range.

Typical ammunition used for sporting clays:

Gauge Shot Shot Size

12 1 oz. or 1-1/8 oz. #7.5 or #8

20 7/8 oz. #8

Sporting Clays Course

A sporting clays course can be laid out in a number of ways but requires a vast landscape and variety of presentations. The configuration of sporting clay courses vary greatly between shooting ranges. Similar to hunting live birds, sporting clays is intended to challenge each athlete with clay targets being thrown at multiple angles from multiple locations. Typically, four to six student athletes compete at each station together rotating through all shot scenarios before moving on to the next station. Different fields within a course are typically located many yards away from one another and are accessible via walking along meandering paths.

Targets At Each Station

Shooting procedures for sporting clays are very similar to skeet shooting. All squad members take turns at the same station and then move together after all squad members have shot the assigned targets at each station. Squad members need to stand at least at least five feet behind the shooter and always behind the shooter’s muzzle.

Each station has a set of instructions notifying each athlete where the targets are coming from and how many will be thrown at a time. Sporting clays targets may be thrown left to right, right to left, away, incoming, vertically, from a tower or elevated platform and in a rabbit (along the ground) presentation. Sporting clays targets can be thrown individually or as a true or report pair. A true pair is defined as two targets being thrown at the same time from multiple throwers at a single station. Report pairs are defined as two targets being thrown in sequence with the second target being thrown as soon as the athlete completes the shot of the first target. No shooter will move to the next station until the last target in a round is completed.