Posted on 05/01/2011 5:52:11 PM PDT by TheConservativeParty
Anyone want to discuss this season's Top Shot? It just ended on Tuesday. I picked the winner from the first time I saw him and heard his background.
Until the finale, I perceived the contestant George to be a total bleep, but after the finale was over, I changed my opinion somewhat,based on his odd behavior in the finale. I thought it was very interesting the bond he had with the winner of the competition.
I missed a few episodes, so could someone explain why they all picked on Jaime so much? I thought he seemed like a stand up guy.
I am a female NRA member and gun enthusiast. I enjoy the many shooting challenges Top Shot sets up, and the array of weapons they use throughout the season.
I do not own a shotgun yet and the Benelli they used at the end of the season looked very appealing. Anyone have one, or can recommend a great shotgun for a woman? Money not important, I want quality. I might like to take up shooting skeet sometime, and I know there's nothing like a shotgun for home defense too.
Any comments are welcome, and thanks for participating!
George could be a real PITA, but Ashley was the one who set my teeth on edge. His beef with Jamie was overblown and ridiculous. In the end, I cut them all some slack; who knows how time in Iraq has impacted them. I figured both George and Ashley needed strong, loving women, and lots of R&R (if you catch my drift), to settle them down.
Some interesting personalities, some great shooting, some cool weapons.
For the folks back on active duty, stay safe, and may God keep you close!
They need to tweak the show a little bit. When they combine the two groups into one, they should take the two worst performers from the challenge. It turned into a popularity contest instead of a shooting contest. It lost it’s appeal to me after that.
IMO, if you take things on face value, I think George was the winner. If he thought enough about Chris to throw the competition so Chris would increase his chances to win, that kind of character makes him a winner in my book.*doing* the right/noble thing, was more important than money. Not many people I know, who have that much character when 100K is at tstake.. [Tempering my opinion with *if* all what was shown is true]
After he left, George said, “Did I throw myself under the grenade? No. I played the game the way I wanted to play it. I went out on my own terms. Don’t regret it, wouldn’t change a thing.”
The 1000 yd shot ------------------------------------------------------------- On the shotgun question; I shot a Super Black Eagle in clays. Don't shoot clays any more. Fine shotgun.
Agua Dulce, California. They have a very large private ranch there where they film.
Skeet is fun and very challenging. All shotgun sports are fun and challenging. They’re much more social shooting events than things like long-distance rifle matches, which tend to be more solitary pursuits.
If you go to a shotgun range, you’ll tend to find (this is a generalization, and like most generalization, there are many exceptions) that shotgun ranges fall into either the “trap+skeet” setup, or they’re “sporting clay or five-stand” setups. After you get a shotgun, noodle about a bit and try all the games. Neither one costs an arm and a leg to shoot, so try them all.
Sporting clays is a lot of fun because you get very different presentations at every range. Every range is allowed their own unique setups and presentations, as long as everyone is safe. At our range in central NV, we had birds thrown to emulate the game birds in the area, chukar and grouse. We had clays we’d roll along the ground to emulate rabbits, that sort of thing. We’d have “mystery” targets where you’d stand in the “box” (ie, the shooter’s position” and call for the target. All you’d be told is whether the target would be “high” or “low.” It was your job to locate it, get on it and break it. Sometimes the target would be launched off a hill behind you and could be 100 feet up in the air, other times the clay would be one of the smaller clays and it would be buzzing along the top of the sagebrush.
Trap and skeet, on the other hand, have their target presentation rather well regulated. You can go from trap range to trap range and the birds can’t fly too far left, or too far right, and they have to go through a proscribed box X so far in front of the trap when the launcher is centered. Skeet has similar regs for target presentation out of the high and low houses. Hence the scores for the experts can get very high. Trap and skeet have “handicaps” where you get moved back from the target as you go up in qualification. Everyone starts at the front line. If you’re “too good,” ie, you break all the targets cleanly X so many times in a row, you get effectively ‘forced’ up in handicap.
On sporting clay/5-stand ranges, there’s plenty of semi-autos, pumps and so on. On trap/skeet ranges, you see much more emphasis on the “sporting” shotgun as a break-action, over-n-under or single-barrel with a high rib for trap.
Break action shotguns can range in price from a couple grand up to $50K. It is darn difficult to find a semi-auto that would cost you more than $2500.
The one thing I have to tell you ahead of time is that if you’re an experienced rifle/pistol shooter: Shotguns are about *movement*. You don’t “aim’ a shotgun. You “swing” onto the target, figure out what the trajectory of the target is, swing through where the target is on the trajectory, pull that trigger and keep swinging through. DO NOT STOP YOUR SWING. There is no “breath control,” “sight control,” “trigger control.... squeeze” drill in shotgunning. There’s your stance, your mount, your lean, your swing, pull, follow through, etc.
In your mind, partition the operational of rifles and pistols onto one side of your brain, shotguns on the other, keeping all the same safety considerations foremost in mind and you’ll do OK.
And, BTW, there’s a rather sizable and growing number of gals in shotgun sports. Don’t let anyone tell you that you gals “cannot handle a 12 gauge.” That’s BS. What isn’t BS is that you will get sore and POed if your gun doesn’t fit you. If the pull is too long (the length of the stock from the trigger to the butt), it “opens” your hold on the gun, and you cannot “get behind” the recoil. That hurts after awhile. So get your shotgun fitted to you. It’s your gun, you bought it, OWN it and make it yours. If that means taking off the buttpad, sawing down the stock and re-mounting the pad, well then, get a gunsmith to do this. Get the cast, drop, pull, etc — all parameters of how the gun mounts - fitted to YOU. Not some generic average sized male.
That said, some of the heavy goose or turkey loads of shot really do smart, even if you’re a big guy like me. What you need when you’re turkey or goose hunting with heavy loads is a heavy gun to soak up some of the recoil. But for trap/skeet/clays shooting, the max load you’re going to shoot is a 1 and 1/8th oz load. If you are shopping for ammo, ask for “AA loads” or equivalent. The Winchester AA load is the canonical shotgun target load out there.
A goose or turkey load might be as much as 2.25 oz of shot. Trust me, when you light off a turkey load in most any shotgun... you will know it.
The other thing to NB about shotguns: the smaller shotguns are the more expert guns. A guy who can hit 200 clays in a row impresses me.
A guy who can hit 100 clays in a row with a 28 gauge or .410 REALLY impresses me. These smaller guns are throwing a lot less shot downrange - you’re either spot-on, or you miss.
Can’t get into the whole costume requirement. That’s quite a bit of money right there that I’d rather spend on arms and ammo.
George seemed arrogant, but he did a charitable thing to help a friend.
That counts for something.
Were it me, I’d have tried to win, then just give my friend a bunch of money after the fact, unannounced.
I agree with you.
But reality shows are about the personalities more than anything.
Hi! Sorry it took a day to reply, my connection went dead last night right when I was sending my reply.
I think I’ve heard of the Apple Seed Project before. Sounds interesting!
We have a Gander MT nearby that I frequent. I will be buying a shotgun or 2 there. They have a great guns and ammo section and helpful gun guys.
I have a rifle that I like, a Henry Golden Boy in the .22mag. It’s really fun to shoot. Have lots of handguns but still lacking in the shotguns. I will fix that this year!
Cheers!
I agree that Ashley was just over the top in his apparent hatred for Jaime. I figure he had a lot on his mind and a lot to deal with, considering his time in combat, and he was headed right back to combat too. So, God bless him and keep him safe. I wonder if when he watches the show himself, if he is duly embarrassed by his behavior. I hope he is and he apologizes to Jaime. I found myself rooting for Jaime, because he didn’t deserve to be singled out for elimination all the time.
I think that’s a great idea.
The show should not be a personal popularity contest.
It was unsportsmanlike, the way they picked on some contestants like Jay and Jaime.
I was very turned off by the childish bickering and didn’t watch a few of the episodes because of that.
Hey Daffynition! Long time no see! You know,you were the first FReeper to reply to me. It was in 2008 and I had bought a Colt revolver and was looking for an old owners manual. You replied to that question.
George certainly was a complex person. So grating, but at the end, so kind. I remember what he said about going out on his own terms.
I think yours is the second recommendation for the Super Black Eagle shotgun. Geez I love shopping for a new gun!
: )
NVDave, you are proof that FReepers really are the smartest people on the planet.
Too bad you are so far from WI, or I’d take you shopping with me!
Great information, and I will save it all!
I plan on using my NRA membership to take lessons from one of their instructors, esp with the shotgun. I don’t think my husband has ever used one of those. He was in the WI Air Nat’l Guard for 26 years and they used the Beretta 9mm as their sidearm and I think the M-16 as the rifle(?). Anyway, I am planning to get help through the NRA this summer and fall to get really good with the newer guns I have. I got a couple SigArms(9mm and .357sig), and a Colt revolver, since Hussein took office. Added those to my Beretta,Ruger P-90 and my Henry rifle. The Beretta was my first, and we got it since the husband knew it so well. It’s still my favorite, even though it is not nearly the value of the others. I feel very at home with the Beretta. For a long time it was my only gun. I learned to shoot on that one. Ah, yes, first love and all that....hee hee.
Cheers!
Yeah me too. I’d have won it fair and honest and then given Chris as much money as he needed.
He, George, said if he won he'd spend it all on guns. So if I were Chris, I'd definitely at least be buying him a Barrett 50-cal and a nice handgun, maybe a Kimber .45 or something like that. In the end, George proved himself to be a stand-up guy, in a crazy sort of way.
Not a problem. Enjoy the gun shopping! Our Gander Mt. relocated to a larger space and now they have an indoor shooting range, a simulator and two immersive shooting ranges. It’s sweet!
Yeah, George was hard to figure. Seemed like a real arrogant son of a gun, and then showed a very generous side, to say the least. I think Ashley was even more of a jerk. But the both of them serve in the military and I have to admire them for that. God bless ‘em both.
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