Beware of Broken Birds

[Bill Jolliff]

Originally Posted by Chuck Bishop

Did you hit a piece of that target or was that a whole target that flew past you? Either way, that target had way too much speed going past you. I think that was a poorly set target off the trap with too much spring tension.

Chuck,

If you're referring to my first post with the movie, that was just a piece of the target that came by. I would estimate about half of it.

Normally, any broken bird, or the whole bird, drops in front of the shooter and creates no potential hazard.

Rarely does any part of it get to the shooter as evidenced by the lack of clay pigeon pieces near the shooting stand. Just one of those oddities that happens and good reason to wear your eye protection and be alert.

But you are right that a poorly set trap or too much spring tension would definitely need attention and changed.

Thanks, Chuck, for your comments.

[ArtS]

I've never been hit but I have seen that happen before. It always seems they take a greatly altered course when you break off one side but more than half the bird remains. My impression is that is what hapened here. When that happens the bird still is spinning and is well stabilized, but it is extremely unbalanced and the dynamics of the large piec left, along with the impact from the hit will radically alter it's course, but not it's stability. If you look at the extreme change in angle but the smoothness of the flight as it passes to the left, I think that is what happened here.

Funny thing is that, although I have never been hit by a target, I have been hit several times by birds either I or a partner have shot. At a Pheasant Tower shoot one day near here, a guy assigned with me and myself were both hit by consecutive shots by consecutive birds. I was hit in the left foot by a bird I shot. We laughed when it happened, then the next bird came straight at us again, he shot and a line drive screamer hit him right across the top of his head.

[Ken]

That's a big piece, you need one more barrel!