New Pigeon Ring Operational!
 

The Pigeon Ring at Lapeer Michigan Sportmans Club is in operation!!! This is thanks to Paul Harm and other club members. Today we shot the ring, or should I say the rotating trap where the ring will be and it is not easy! The trap is hidden behind a wood barrier so this is different than the rings at the Upper Peninsula match where they are under ground level. One step at a time…

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Paul Harm and his granddaughter adjusting the rotator.
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This is me trying my skill with my Elsie Chain Damascus 10 Gauge and hoping for some luck!
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Happiness is our club’s SxS only rack with Parkers, LC Smith, AH Fox, and Remington doubleguns! There are a couple empty spaces. It was a slow day at the range…
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We hope many of you will join us at our Spring SxS Shoot on 16 Arpil 2011. Information concerning this shoot is at:
http://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3421

How does this game work? Looks interesting.

Ed,

The rules for shooting a "clay" Pigeon Ring vary between the clubs operating them but in general they try to simulate live pigeon rings.

1. A trap mounted on a rotating platform.
2. The platform is on an angle so that targets released toward the shooter fly high but will eventually land short of the shooter.
3. Targets thrown to the left or right have medium elevation but travel farther.
4. Targets thrown directly away from the shooter travel low and fast much like a straight away trap shot.
5. The trap is hidden from the shooters view and is rotating.
6. The shooter calls "pull" and the target is released (ususally with a short delay) in a direction that the shooter should not know.
7. There is a circle or "ring" around the trap. The size MAY be 17 yards in front and left and right of the trap and 27 yards behind the trap.
8. A 6" piece of engineer tape (non-sticky brightly colored plastic streamer 1" wide) is folded up and taped to the underside of the targets.
9. The shooter may shoot twice at each target.
10. The piece of the target with the engineer tape/streamer must fall within the ring.

Note: Ideally the trap should be below ground level so that those keeping score will have a clear view of if the tape falls inside or outside the ring. Often wind will blow those in or out adding to the excitement!

Of course when just starting to shoot a pigeon ring, the ring and taped targets are not necessary because those clays are darn hard to hit!

PS: Many thanks to the Sagola Township Mighigan Sportsmens Club, host of the Upper Penisula Side-by-Side Classic, http://www.stsportsmen.com/ for allowing me to copy their World-Class pigeon ring set up!

Our ring at Lapeer County Sportsmans Club in southeast Michigan will never equal that of our Yupper friends! It will however be a lot of fun and will also serve as a warm up for shooting the Yupper rings!

Respectfully,
Mark

Question: It looks like the shooter can shoot in a 360 degree circle around him/her (?), so where do spectators get positioned? I have never seen this and if I were to suggest it to my club, I am sure safety would be the first concern.

Our club, like many, have building and parking in back of the trap and skeet ranges. I assume this would need a much bigger space to accommodate the full circle of shooting available?

Robin,

Good point but looks can be deceiving. The shooting was limited to less than 180 degrees. I picked a few photos which show action but as you point out may suggest a safety hazard. We are going to bring up shooter stands with side and top bars to limit movement. To start we will set 3 shooting stands in a line 10 yards from the ring. The shooters will alternate shots.

For this test run the targets fell in front of the shooter (who in the photos is me). For those photos in which I am pointing up at perhaps an 80 degree angle to the ground, the target was past its apex and its way down. Had we had the 17 yard ring set up, a hit on those targets would have landed the tape outside of the ring.

Clearly a You Tube video of this is needed...

Thanks!
Mark

Robin there are 5 stations similar to trap but you don't rotate, so you are only shooting targets in front of you. It's fun Eric

Thanks! One more question, is there a diagram anywhere that you worked from? Something that gives measurement, positions, angles..... etc, technical stuff to build from?

Robin,

I walked out the distances of the rings at the Upper shoot and shot hundreds of photos. I'll post an album on this site of the best photos.

Shooter is 27 yards (sound familiar?) from the trap.
Rings are 17 yards from the trap on 3 sides with the far side of the ring being 27 yards from the trap.
The far edge of the ring is 54 yards from the shooter.

Mark

Somewhere I read that for pigeon shoots the guns were limited to 8 pounds. There may have also been a gauge restriction to no bigger than 12. This of course is nothing that I want! I like my big and somewhat lively 10's !

Gentlemen,

This is a pigeon. We are not shooting live pigeons. :)

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These are clay pigeons with engineer tape attached as streamers to mark where the "bird" falls.

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A well known COB of the PGCA dropping a CLAY pigeon with a Parker Top Action hammer gun at last year's Upper Penisula SxS Shoot!

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Please notice the orange streamer!

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Everyone shoot well and safe!
Mark