SSC Blog

By Joe Wilkins

This year, March went out like a cold, damp, windy lamb; and the SSC just happened to have scheduled a double fun-shoot at Big Red Oak Plantation on one of the more unpleasant days of this reluctant spring. I guess it was about fifty degrees at sign-up under an overcast sky, and the weather conditions didn’t change an iota over the course of the shoot except that the wind became more and more brisk as the day wore on. The two courses that were served up by Big Red Oak were a little closer together in difficulty than usual. The easy course was a little bit harder and the hard course a little easier than has been the case over the past few events at this great facility.
Continue reading "Yeah, but…….at least it wasn’t raining!"

By Joe Wilkins

Once again The Social Shooting Club caught a perfect day in the midst of some rather dicey late winter weather. It was strictly shirtsleeves for both the morning and afternoon flights, and there was barely a breath of wind to cause the targets to do unpredictable things. It’s hard to believe we had a day like that a mere week ago, because as I look out the window this morning, I see the tops of the ancient trees here in Grant Park swaying in the wind and snowflakes swirling around the neighborhood.
Continue reading "Ocmulgee Gun Club March 2, 2008, What a Day to Be Outside!!!"

By Joe Wilkins

After two solid days of much-needed, soaking rain, there seemed little chance that the Kenneth Thomas Memorial Fun Shoot would be greeted by ideal weather on this 23rd of February 2008, but the last line of sooty clouds blew past just as the entrants began to head out to their assigned stations for the start of the morning round. It was pleasantly cool at the first shot, and there was just enough of a breeze to merit a light windbreaker, but other than that, you couldn’t have ordered up a better late-winter day for shooting a round of sporting clays. The weather simply got better as the day progressed, and the afternoon shooters needed only a flannel shirt and a shooting vest to remain comfortable throughout the round. The pre-shoot publicity announced that that the two courses, Promatic and Beretta, would be set at the same degree of difficulty, but those of us who shot both courses, had to conclude that Beretta was a significantly more difficult set-up. This assessment was born out by the scores. Both the par and the average score was three targets lower for Beretta. In addition to the degree of difficulty, the two courses displayed a markedly different approach to target setting. Promatic had a lot of close targets with short break windows interspersed with a few, more testy, technically difficult presentations. Beretta, on the other hand, was a pure test of shotgun technique. It featured a lot of mid and longer range targets with perfect visibility and long break windows. There was no variation at all in the menus for all 24 stations. It was all report pairs.
Continue reading "The Kenneth Thomas Memorial Shoot Was...Well...Memorable!"

By Bert Schmitz

One of the things I like best about sporting clays is the wide variety and large number of clubs that are available. I take every possible opportunity to shoot a new club and my totals are now at 99 different clubs shot through 20 different states. All kinds of terrain and conditions have been seen from the leafless drab frozen snow covered woods in central Wisconsin, to the desert like conditions in the Florida panhandle, to the cool mountains in Virginia, and to the humid courses set under the Spanish Moss decorated live oaks in South Carolina. I liked all of them and what I especially liked was seeing all of the different styles of target presentation. There are some skilled target setters out there that really do a super job.

Continue reading "Touring Sporting Clays Clubs"

By Joe Wilkins

Our breaths lingered in the cold, moist air as we stood around and chatted before the morning rotation rolled out onto the course on this late January day at Callaway Gardens Gun Club. “I swear, it’s colder now than when I left the house,” remarked one camouflage-clad shooter as he stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands deep in his pockets, “This is the kind of cold that cuts right through your clothes. I wouldn’t mind it on a deer stand, but this is supposed to be fun!” I don’t know what it is about those damp, cold mornings that allows the frigid temperature to infiltrate even the most carefully chosen layers of winter clothing, but we had such a morning on this Sunday in Pine Mountain, GA. The first station of the morning flight was shot under a soupy sky, although the light was sufficient to eliminate poor visibility as an excuse for missing targets early in the round. By the second station, however, the overcast had almost completely burned off, and shooters found themselves reaching for their darker tinted glasses. It was a few more stations before most of us were able to shake off the early chill, but eventually, it turned into a fine day for sporting clays.


Continue reading "Callawy Gardens Gun Club Jan 27, 2008. It’s a good thing there were only fourteen stations. Some of us were running out of ways to miss."

By Joe Wilkins

Blalock Lakes December 29, 2007

At about the time 100 burley men were lined up with their elbows on the table noisily sucking the goo out of crawdad heads, I’m sure the management of Blalock Lakes Hunt Club was wondering just who it was among their ranks that thought this was such a brilliant idea. Was it really possible that one of these slobbering individuals might actually purchase a property in this new recreational subdivision or a membership in their hunt club...and if they did, would that necessarily be a good thing? They wisely realized that there was nothing much they could do about this questionable management decision at this point, so they had little choice but to allow the afternoon flight to proceed out to the course as though this appalling spectacle had not taken place. Continue reading "Blalock Lakes Hunt Club Mistakes SSC for Classy Organization! Invites us to Shoot Their Splendid Course."

We are creating a new section to the SSC web site - the SSC Web Log.

We will initally be using this as a tool to post Joe Wilkins "Shoot Report" but expect we will be using it for other features in the future! 

The Meadows December 16th, 2007

By Joe Wilkins

“These sure aren’t pen-raised birds!” exclaimed one shooter after attempting a particularly aerobatic presentation on this cold and windy 16th of December 2007 at The Meadows National Gun Club in Smarr, Georgia.

Continue reading "SSC (Social Shivering Club) Confronts Wendy’s Windy Targets"

By Joe Wilkins

Ocmulgee River December 2, 2007

There was threatening weather all the way down from Atlanta, and the first shooters to head out to the course did so in a light drizzle on this early December day at Ocmulgee River Gun Club. The drizzle ceased, however, by the time the first shots were fired. The clouds began to thin also, and by the time the shooters stepped onto their final stations in the morning flight, the sun was actually peeking through, and most of us had stripped off at least one layer of fall clothing. By the time the afternoon rotation began, there was hardly a cloud to be seen and it was strictly summer weight uniforms all around (meaning threadbare t-shirts with goofy sayings)

Continue reading "Division One Leaves the Rest of The SSC in Its Dust"