Sporting Clays Spur Growth Among Shotgun Shooters

There were 8.66 million shotgun shooters on the nation’s ranges in 1993, up 13 percent from 1992, and among them were a record 1.68 million women.

“It shows more and more women and families are finding out about the enjoyment of target shooting,” said Larry Ference of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The 8.66 million figure “does not include the people who merely go to the range once a year to sight in their guns for the deer season,” Ference said from NSSF’s Newtown, Conn., office.

“These are people who are going there to shoot skeet, trap, sporting clays or throw their own on an informal field. It may or may not be competitive.”

National Sporting Goods Association numbers show the tremendous growth of sporting clays as a form of shotgun shooting. Sporting clays is a game in which the shooter moves from one position to another. The clay targets are thrown to imitate different types of shooting at the different positions. The setups may imitate flaring ducks, flushing partridge or even a bounding rabbit.

Last year there were 3.1 million sporting clays shooters, up from 2.93 million in 1990, the first year they were surveyed, 2.94 million in 1991 and 3.03 million in 1992, according to NSGA.

A separate survey by American Sports Analysis shows that last year there was a dramatic increase in “frequent shooters,” those who visit a range more than 25 times a year.

There were 181,000 new frequent shooters, bringing the total to 567,000. The bulk of them, 355,000, were sporting clays shooters, an increase of more than 80,000 in 1996, ASA said.

, DataTimes