Pet Hates!

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For me it's the large groups of people with all the nice shinny vests, caps, badges, umbrellas etc which all seem heavily branded.

They step into the cage and start a half hour long ritual of heavy breathing and gun mounting and cartridge playing, you think here we go I'm going to be witnessing a real pro in a minute.

they then proceed to miss all the targets and then have a discussion with there mates about where the were on them etc whilst still standing in the cage, completely obvious to the 20-30 people who have amassed and are waiting to shoot the stand. 

This is why I don't go to many club shoots anymore. 
what if its a left handed auto on your right ;)

 
Shooting a registered competition and then waiting ten days to find out how you did...

4x4 drivers who didn't do the off-road driving course and churn everything up...

So called "gunsmiths" who are in fact bodgers...

Gun shops who fail to understand the term "best" in terms of English guns...

Traps loaded with pre-broken clays...

Magazine reviewers who insist on using the term "engraving" when describing stamping, laser etching, rolling, or similar embellishments...

People who squirt oily cleaning fluids into the striker holes...

Fried eggs with the white still transparent...

My wife's dog at 2.30 this morning...
you and the other gits mates then??

As a glass half full chap my only real "pet hate" is a lost target, 
You best get with the program and whine about something totally meaningless like everybody else

 
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I've got another one for you, People that turn up at 10.30 get an entry number of 130+ and expect to get round in two hour's.

Oh and then make up stories about multiple breakdown's that didn't happen(*) so they can rush off to another shoot.

*We had one serious breakdown yesterday that was sorted out as quickly as possible, and two other traps that were sorted within a couple of minuets.

none of these caused any major delay. 

PS, When a stand s having its traps filled up it isn't broken !!!

Patience people, patience 

 
Target setters/ground owner who think it's clever to set eye sight tests and/or don't know how to present anything other than edge on clays...

Good/top shots (a minority of them) who are ignorant pricks and think they are somehow more entitled to be at that shoot/stand/hoop because of 'who' they are...there is no need. 

Arseholes who eject shells over their shoulder in the cage...(again they are a minority) 

Crap pool shoots...

 
I've got another one for you, People that turn up at 10.30 get an entry number of 130+ and expect to get round in two hour's.

Oh and then make up stories about multiple breakdown's that didn't happen(*) so they can rush off to another shoot.

*We had one serious breakdown yesterday that was sorted out as quickly as possible, and two other traps that were sorted within a couple of minuets.

none of these caused any major delay. 

PS, When a stand s having its traps filled up it isn't broken !!!

Patience people, patience 
Shoots that take 5 - 6 hours to shoot 100 sporting.

If your selling 130 entries by 10.30 you must be having 200+, you need to consider squading or telephone entries at your shoots. The busier you get the more breakdowns you get the more trap filling required, the more delays the bigger the queues get. It wouldn't happen in any other dicipline of clay shooting. It's all too common 150 - 250+ entries and that's in the winter. When is a ground considered full.

If you went to a restaurant and you were told you had to wait two hours for the meal you would not go back.

Grounds need to look after the shooters better.

 
Interesting to discuss oversize entry at shoots. Ground owners just don't know how many will turn up. Yes, they can estimate fairly well, but when it gets to capacity level, another 20 entries could cause problems. Let's say the absolute maximum you can get through on a trouble free day is 250. What happens after that? Does a ground owner refuse to sell more cards? Can you imagine the row from the bloke that drove 100 miles to be there..? If you KNOW that demand exceeds capacity then the only way would be to take first come pre-booking against time slots. Not squads though.

Squadding guarantees no disappointment for those shooting, but it also decimates the capacity for the ground. The 250 max entry shoot could probably accommodate 120 if squadded; plus, people dislike squadding and all that comes with it. For example, I reckon Owls Lodge now needs to get scorers on stands and stop squadding as its limiting their capacity. They schedule about 80 people through in winter squads, while EJC manage 180 with manned stands.

 
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We actually had 168 entries, it's just that most of them turned up early so they could shoot and get to another ground afterwards. Most got round under 3 hours and those that came later (between 12 and 1) got round in about 1 hour 30. 

Our last entry is 1 and I wouldn't turn anyone away that turned up before that, if the entry was 250+ most would realise that's it's going to take a while.

a couple of years ago we had 220 on a normal registered shoot, we were all done ( scores on the board, presentation done,) by 2.30 yesterday because of a couple of trap issues it was about 3. 

The reason it doesn't happen in any other discipline is because there all squadded, you book in get a start time and turn up then to shoot. 

 
Yes - but at EJC if you started at 11 took 4 hours to shoot, batteries were dead on the traps, queues 12 - 20 on every stand, and that's supposed to be the best ground in the country, you could squad 6 shooters 10 squads 12 stands (2 stands spare for problems) every 1.5hrs on a 4.5hr shoot you would put 180 through and have happy customers. They would know in advance what resource to taylor to the shoot. At the moment know ones got a clue till the numbers turn up, swamp them. These small shoots are now big shoots regarding entries.

Olws is obviously putting its customer experience first and it's efficient. How would you like to take 5-6 hours to shoot it.

So no one gets turned away at the moment - hundreds turn up - it's manic in every respect. Tempers get tested. The ground owners have to do something. When is a ground full?

 
Yes - but at EJC if you started at 11 took 4 hours to shoot, batteries were dead on the traps, queues 12 - 20 on every stand, and that's supposed to be the best ground in the country, you could squad 6 shooters 10 squads 12 stands (2 stands spare for problems) every 1.5hrs on a 4.5hr shoot you would put 180 through and have happy customers. They would know in advance what resource to taylor to the shoot. At the moment know ones got a clue till the numbers turn up, swamp them. These small shoots are now big shoots regarding entries.

Olws is obviously putting its customer experience first and it's efficient. How would you like to take 5-6 hours to shoot it.

So no one gets turned away at the moment - hundreds turn up - it's manic in every respect. Tempers get tested. The ground owners have to do something. When is a ground full?
I just don't recall EJC being like that. One stand was a breakdown, but otherwise OK. Anyway, squadding definitely reduces capacity, but agreed it works well for the shooters that get in. So how do you drive away the 100 "unwanted" shooters to make a perfect flowing day? Up the price to £60 is one way. More likely you just need to take advance bookings on first come basis. Both solutions aren't great. The trouble with "exclusive" is that nobody likes to be excluded.

 
If I went to EJC and that happened to me I simply wouldn't go back until I was assured it wouldn't happen again. They should be better prepared. Every ground has problems now and then but if it's constantly bad, vote with your feet ! 

For me personally I would probably draw the line at 300 as I wouldn't want to be shooting to late in the day because of the risk of upsetting people in the local villages.

when I started shooting reg sporting in the early 90's a 4 hour round wasn't unusual and at a major shoot (Eng, Brit open) before they were squadded 5 hours plus wasn't unusual, it was what it was and you just got on with it. 

 
Took me 2.5 hrs to shoot 5 stands, had to be somewhere else at 15.00 so never completed the card. The stand by the pattern plate was 45 mins. Rabbit in the dark never got fixed after two visits. I heard they had ran out of batteries. Huge queues.

no ones talking about a perfect flowing day or driving anyone away, and breakdowns are inevitable, but it is unacceptable to queue for so long. I personally prefer to be done in about three hours, don't mind the odd 4-5hr shoot but the latter is becoming the norm. More stands could be put on. 50 shooters per hour could be signed on. Not 150 at 9.30. Someone put on forum one hour to sign on at Erriswell Lodge. Nothing's changed much in years.

Adam- that's 25 years ago you now have auto traps eliminating trappers 

 
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I can cope with having to book in for Owls but I don't think I would want to see that happen generally speaking.  Adam is right back in the day it was normal to take hours and hours shooting 100 birds, Tony was only talking about it a while back.  Most shoots although busy run quite smoothly and when we get a bad day and it takes a long time its just one of those things.  Busy shoot rather than no shoots.  Selfishly I don't want to be squadded because I am then dependent on going round in a bigger group and I am someone who likes to do two shoots in a day.  

 
Pet hates

Shooters persuading refs to give them kills when they have missed , and as Steve said judging shoots on personal performance. Oh and is it that difficult to get the empties in the bin !

 

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