Video: Clay Shooting in Slow Motion

On only a couple of occasions have I seen shot in the air — not just the wad, or a disturbance — but the actual pellets. Both times the shot looked copper-red in color although I don’t know why. The first time I was hunting, and saw a friend’s pattern blast by a rooster pheasant, which crumpled in the air. The second was at my gun club, watching high school kids shoot trap. It was fascinating, and I wish could see shot all the time.

So, I loved this video. For one thing, I never get tired of watching clay targets break, especially the older pitch kind that leave a black smoke ball.

And, it’s interesting to see how the targets break. While we can debate whether or not long shot strings help break targets that you over-lead or not, you can see here that shot does string out even at the 21 yard distances on a skeet field. On the really close station 8 shots all the pellets arrive more or less at once, but on the longer shots you see the first pellets in the string break the target while the ones that arrive milleseconds later grind and regrind the pieces.