Midis
A midi is made to the same design as the standard but is 60mm across as compared with the standard at 110mm; the job of a midi is to deceive the shooter into thinking that the clay is further away and travelling faster than it really is. In reality a midi is no more difficult to break than any other target because although the clay is smaller it will probably still be well within reach and bigger than any gap in your shot pattern. Most people think that because the clay is smaller it flies faster than a standard - it's true that it will leave a trap faster but it also slows down more quickly because the clay is lighter so it isn't much good comparing a midi with something else then trying to shoot it, a midi is its own man and should be treated as such.
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A CCI midi beside an orange standard - note |
Pickups
Now here's something that is very close to my heart - cheap shooting. Every time I lay on a round of clays I like to watch people break them and take their money to pay for the clays they've shot at; with pickups I have got them for absolutely no cost and still I get paid for them. If you had'nt worked it out yet, pickups are clays that have been thrown, shot at, missed and have landed safely so we can pick them up and use them again. The rule with pickups is to check each clay for chunks missing or cracks and stamp on those which will obviously break a second time round then usually people shooting have no idea that they are shooting at used targets. However good the manufacturers and the quality of clays there will still be breakages, the trick is to sift through the rubbish to find the good enough. A general inspection is good enough to find duff stock - take a stack of around 25 pickups and roll them round, any with obvious cracks or pieces missing around the edges must be discarded, I've used rabbits up to 5 times on grass, midis and standards 3 times, after that the best thing is to chuck them out. Don't worry too much about shot holes, they usually go through again with no problems. Something you will have to look out for is the damage that the sun does to clays, the stack inspection sorts this out because any heated clay will flop and sag so it won't stack square - chuck it out. Manual traps are brilliant for using pickups as the trapper will sort them as he goes, you'll have to be a little more careful with autotraps.
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A selection of pickups for you to work out which can be used again and which |
Clays 1 2 |
Please come back soon to find some articles or ask me about clays.
Copyright of this page belongs to Andy, How to Break Clays.com - the website for the amateur clay shooter, July 2007.