Fat Woman and the easy solution

Fat Woman had been having terrible trouble with her shooting. The amount of lead a clay would need seemed to vary enormously. Fat Woman was also having awful trouble with her gun, but had hopefully got a fit that would allow her to develop a consistent mount. Fat Woman wasn't going to try shooting gun down until she had developed a consistent gun mount, and no gun down shooting means no FITASC, and although Fat Woman isn't that bothered about actual FITASC it does seem that FITASC events are more fun outside the actual shooting than lots of other disciplines. It's all the sitting around waiting for a chance to shoot that allows for partying.

Fat Woman booked a lesson with Shooting Coach because she was sick of being unable to scale up shooting crossers. Fat Woman reasoned that if she could shoot a clay at 20 yards and at 30 yards she should be able to shoot it at 40 yards and maybe even further away. Fat Woman finds it heinously embarrassing that she seems to spend the first twenty minutes of every lesson relearning how to shoot, although Shooting Coach says that's normal.

The lesson started off on the skeet range. Fat Woman missed the first two crossers but managed to hit the next few. When put in front of a simple 30 yard bird Fat Woman missed it and hit it and missed it again. Shooting Coach pointed out that when Fat Woman had successfully hit the 20 yard birds on the skeet range she had been using swing through.

Fat Woman stared at Shooting Coach and asked what "swing through" was.

Shooting Coach then had to gently explain to Fat Woman that whilst she thought she was shooting using the CPSA approved pull-away method what she was actually doing was letting the clay go past her gun then rushing to catch it up and pull past it. This method is "swing through" and requires more lead than the pull away method.

Fat Woman made a face a bit like a fish for a bit as the pieces of her experience fell into place. It was slightly embarrassing to realise that it wasn't the gun that was the problem it was (mostly) her, but it was a terrific relief to finally be able to make sense of what had been happening. Fat Woman then went on to shoot clays at 35, 40 and 45 yards. Fat Woman didn't get the 55 yard clay to break but Shooting Coach said he wasn't sure why it hadn't broken at least one of the times she shot at it.

Thanks to an impromptu demonstration from Shooting Coach Fat Woman is now confident that her gun with quarter chokes and 21g cartridges can break clays at 55 yards, although possibly not yet with her behind it.

Fat Woman now has to pick a method of shooting. Initially Fat Woman thought she'd pick pull away, but actually she likes the bolder style of swing through. When Fat Woman is feeling confident and even a little aggressive she breaks more clays.

Fat Woman would like to refer the readers once more to the shooting commandments as issued by Shooting Coach:

1. It's not the gun, it's you.
2. It's not the chokes, it's you.
3. It's not the cartridge, it's you.

Fat Woman has a lot of her to practice away. Shoot Coach says Fat Woman can pick whichever method she likes and even learn both so long as she doesn't switch around between pairs.