The safer way to set your sights on shooting

At the shout of "pull!" bright orange discs fly across in front of a grassy bank. Few of them are troubled by the pellets coming from Nigel Dickinson's shotgun. This is only the second time that he has tried clay pigeon shooting, but towards the end of the coaching session he starts to get the hang of pointing the gun ahead of, rather than at his target.

"Once you've actually hit one, when you see it shatter, that's good." says Nigel.

For those coming to shooting for the first time, handling the gun itself, in this case a Beretta 687DL 12 bore, can be slightly un-nerving. "It's very frightening, there's a lot of power there," says Duncan Greaves, a professional shooting coach. "There's more to it than meets the eye, you don't just lift the gun up and pull the trigger. You've got to hold the gun firm into your shoulder, and your stance also needs to be correct otherwise it does feel like it's throwing you back a little bit."

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Duncan Greaves is a shotgun coach assessor for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation – in other words he teaches the teachers. Every year he introduces hundreds of people to shooting, giving them training at a very basic level. The idea of novices trying it without training or practice is something which horrifies him.

"I totally abhor the idea of anybody practising on live quarry. At the end of the day I think that people should be proficient with the gun and know how it functions. Have all the safety aspects of gun handling before they even attempt to go out in the field."

His advice is to find a local shooting ground, (clay pigeon shooting range) which has a coach. Many of them do, in the same way that most golf clubs will have a professional who can give lessons. He says that it is important to make sure that the coach is properly qualified. "Sadly a lot of shooting grounds around the country have people who call themselves a coach but don't actually have any coaching qualifications."

The coaching provided by Mr Greaves can also act as a taster of the sport. Here at the North of England Activity Centre at Rufforth, near York, a one-hour session costs 55. Included in that is the basic safety tuition and a chance to fire the shotgun at clays. It includes the cost of using the shooting ground, the use

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of a suitable shotgun and cartridges, the clays themselves, insurance, protective glasses, and ear defenders.

"From experience, and over many years, I've found that people, once they've had a go, tend to think 'I quite like this, I'll have another go'. The next step is getting your own gun, and the biggest piece of advice here is to opt for second-hand. The make isn't particularly important. It is the size and shape which really matters.

"Sadly too many gun shops are too ready to sell guns to people who don't actually fit them. You could pick up a very good used gun for a few hundred pounds. Ultimately, the gun is only as good as the user."

New guns can cost thousands of pounds. As well as the cost of the gun, if you are keeping it at home there is the additional cost of fitting a secure gun cabinet which will meet the approval of the police.

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Cartridges cost about 12p each when bought in bulk, although a casual shooter will pay more for small numbers. The clays for an average session will cost about 10, and there is a charge for using the shooting ground itself, although many regular shooters can reduce this by joining a club.

Following last month's shootings in West Cumbria, where Derrick Bird killed 12 people before turning the gun on himself, there is more sensitivity about shotguns, and their control. Mike Eveleigh, the senior firearms officer for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, believes that unlike previous incidents such as Dunblane and Hungerford the response from politicians will be more measured. He was heartened by a recent parliamentary debate on the shootings.

"The words knee-jerk came up eight times in that debate and to be fair, in general, politicians, and the government, and the police, and the Home Office are taking the view that we should wait to see what can be learned, to see what problems there were, before doing anything."

More than half-a-million shotguns are legally held in in England and Wales with more than 40,000 shotguns in North Yorkshire, and almost 25,000 in Humberside.

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BASC estimates that more than half of its 130,000 members shoot clays.

Duncan Greaves says between a half and a quarter of the people he introduces to clay shooting move on to live quarry, pheasants or rabbits.

Nigel Dickinson probably won't be one of them. "I don't think I'd like to move out of clay pigeon shooting, I'm not one for killing something for the sake of it."

Of course, the other option is to join a club and shoot clays competitively. There is an Olympic Games just round the corner and clay pigeon shooting is an Olympic sport.

Duncan Greaves can be contacted at MasterShot Clay Pigeon Shooting Ltd.

01904 793800 (office) or 07831 327235 (mobile)

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