The Shoot Report

by  Ben Cole

Everything thing was just right at the Elbert County Gun Club for first foray of the SSC into the heart of Georgia’s granite country.   The early morning temperature was slightly crisp and quickly gave way to clear and mild sunshine that sparkled on the new spring leaves that bordered freshly close-mowed shooting fields.   It was shirt sleeve warm by the start of the first round and the blue sky and thermostat stayed there all day.  
Continue reading " The Stone Canyon and the Trampoline"

By Ben Cole


I have it on good authority that the old Indian word Ocmulgee really means -Oh, crud, I shot over it - and there were enough diving shots on the course today to carry on that tradition.  These challenges were prominent in the mix of targets thrown on a beautiful day that rewarded those hardy shooters who chanced wet and cold to get their fix on few smoked clays.   One wonders how many others rolled out late to find sun shining and wished they had made the effort.     It was a long haul for this shooter especially when I missed the new Hartley Bridge exit and had to go almost to Valdosta to turn around.   But it was worth it, unlike last weekend my ungloved fingers didn’t go numb by the third pair.
Continue reading "Sunshine and Dropping Targets"

By Ben Cole

My Bass Pro digital thermometer said it was 26.8 degrees outside.  It was early Saturday morning, January 31, the day for the Social Shooting Club Shoot at Cherokee Rose.  I finally crawled out of bed hoping that the weather babe, Dagmar Midcap was much too pretty to be accurate about frigid temperatures she predicted, but she was right on.  It would be OK though, the sun would come up and it would be just toasty, I repeated as I shaved and wondered how many layers I would need.   Regardless of the cold, I was going.  After the shoot had been wisely delayed three times, Charlie made a hard call and I was going to be there if hell froze over…and it felt like it almost did.

Continue reading "A Cold Day at Cherokee Rose"

First of all, let me assure you that the rumors that the Rafflemeister had drowned in a vat of slowly bubbling camembert are entirely false……although I have had a few close calls!  For those of you who were wondering if I have been able to do any shooting while I have been in France, my answer is, “Are you kidding?”  I have been out shooting parcours de chasse (FITASC) almost every weekend.  I did not bring a gun to France this time, however, because I had read about a recent French law requiring all gun owners to have a gun safe in their homes.  Well, as you might expect, our little apartment in le Marais does not have a gun safe, and I wasn’t in the mood to spend $500 for a safe that I would only need for a year, so I arrived in the city of Paris unarmed. My French shooting club, The Ball-trap Club de Gonesse, fortunately, has upgraded their loaner guns from beat-up Rizinnis to beat-up Berettas and Brownings. Continue reading "Rafflemeister in Paris 2009-2010"

By Joe Wilkins

The low, rolling cloud cover that persisted throughout the morning, coupled with the playful breeze that ruffled the shooters’ hair and livened up the targets, made for exquisitely comfortable shooting conditions on this 9th day of May, 2009.  The clouds finally broke for the afternoon flight but the breeze remained, giving the late-round shooters a respite from the 80 degree temperatures.  
Continue reading "Year-end Party and Fun Shoot 2008-2009"

By Joe Wilkins

…but the “hard” one was just that.  

We had a bright day and seasonable temperatures for this double fun shoot at Cherokee Rose Gun Club in Griffin, Georgia on this last day of January 2009.  It was still in the thirties when the morning squads assembled at their starting stations, but the thermometer rose steadily throughout the day making for quite comfortable shooting.  
Continue reading "I don’t know about the “easy” course…."

By Joe Wilkins

As a result of some kind of weird bureaucratic snafu, The Social Shooting Club managed to schedule a double fun shoot on one of the coldest days in Georgia and Alabama in a decade!  The origin of this debacle has yet to be determined, but once the culprits are finally identified (just as with the US financial meltdown) we expect heads to roll.  At the risk of rushing to judgment before all of the facts are in, I heard from usually reliable sources that both Budweiser and Charlie Deling arrived in Helfin Alabama on this 17th of January 2009 in separate private jets!  Be sure to check back here frequently for breaking developments. 
Continue reading "B-B-B-B-brrrrrrrrrr!"

By Joe Wilkins

The shooter turnout was impressive despite the dreary winter weather that greeted the SSC membership on this 14th day of December 2008.  A thick blanket of clouds lazily drifted over Smarr, Georgia all day allowing in just enough murky light for us to discern most of the targets that were thrown over the course of this extremely well-set Meadows layout.  The temperature started in the 30’s, fought its way up to the low 40’s, and hovered there all afternoon.  Those of us who shot the afternoon flight watched helplessly as the sun seemed to tire of trying to force its way through the cloud cover towards the end of the twelve-station course. You have probably noticed there are no photos accompanying this shoot report.  Not enough light.   If it sounds like I’m tying to manufacture an excuse for my own less-than-stellar performance on some of the more difficult station, well…….duh!  


Continue reading "Great Target Variation at The Meadows!"

Blalock Lakes Invites Us Back….Skips the Crawdads

By Joe Wilkins

Station 10

This cloudless first day of November, 2008 broke cool, but soon warmed up and turned into a perfect day to spend outdoors. Jackets, sweaters and even a few down parkas were in evidence as the SSC members gathered their gear together before heading out to the magnificent sporting clays course at Blalock Lakes Hunt Club in Newnan, Georgia, but we were mostly down to shirt sleeves by the time we rolled back into the clubhouse for lunch. Truth be told, there wasn’t really that much gathering of gear necessary to shoot this particular course, since all of the shells were provided at the stations by the club (This is a steel-shot-only facility) and you only needed an improved cylinder choke to break every target on the course. Being avid American sportspersons, however, we possess an aching compulsion to gather gear, so gather we did.

Continue reading "Blalock Lakes Invites Us Back….Skips the Crawdads"

By Joe Wilkins

Station 10

Circle W served up two completely different sporting clays layouts and a steak dinner on this 20th of September, 2008. The SSC was greeted by crisp, fall-like weather in the morning which gave way to bright, late-summer weather for the afternoon shooting. Because the SSC fun shoots at Circle W have been somewhat sparsely attended lately, we departed from our usual program of sending the morning and afternoon flights out on the same course, and instead, opted to reset the targets during the lunch break and run this shoot like two separate fun shoots on the same day. This experimental restructuring of the shoot offered the opportunity for participants to rake in as many as six raffle tickets in a single day, a feat that was, in fact, accomplished by one shooter.


Continue reading "Three-Course Feast at Circle W"

Massive SSC Turnout at Big Red Oak

By Joe Wilkins

The Social Shooting Club basically said, “To hell with high gas prices!” and gathered en mass to sample the twenty-four stations of sporting clays and the heaping platters of barbeque served up by Big Red Oak Plantation in Gay, Georgia on the 2nd day of August 2008. The day promised to be hot and humid as we drove through a thick ground fog on the way to the shoot. The temperature rose steadily during the morning round, and there wasn’t the hint of a breeze to help dry the perspiration that trickled down our temples and into our eyes as we attempted the hugely varied presentations offered by the two Big Red Oak courses. Even though the temperature peaked in the mid nineties at midday, a delightful breeze kicked up after lunch to make the afternoon shooting much more comfortable than it had been in the morning.
Continue reading "Massive SSC Turnout at Big Red Oak"

By Joe Wilkins

Station 6

It was so humid on the 26th of July, 2008 at Circle W Sporting Clays that you could hardly tell it was raining, albeit only for a few minutes, during the morning round. Heflin Alabama had obviously gotten some recent heavy rains, and as the day warmed up, the moisture was drawn from the ground in the form of a thin fog which softened the bucolic landscape of this working cattle farm. It made for a very picturesque setting, but the light was less than ideal for viewing sporting clay targets. The sun soon began to burn off the thin overcast, however, and by lunch time, the day was bright and as hot as, well, an Alabama summer day.

Continue reading "It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity…and the heat!"

By Joe Wilkins

On the morning of July 12, 2008 at Callaway Gardens’ Gun Club, The SSC Shootmeister, previewed the course, and with a few deft stokes of his black Sharpie, was able to preserve a tiny shred of dignity among the assembled shooters. He mercifully changed about a third of the menus on the Callaway course from true pairs to report pairs. Even so, the Callaway course was sufficiently challenging to produce a comparatively low par of 88 with an average score among the shooters in attendance of a mere 68.
Continue reading "The Sharpie is Mightier than the Clay"

By Joe Wilkins

I’ll start this week’s blog by getting a complaint out of the way. I think I speak for all of the baby-boomers in The Social Shooting Club (which is most of the membership) when I say that I would like to see the club go back to the policy of having the year-end celebration only once a year. There is really no reason to hold the event this frequently, and I’m sure that the folks who are heavily involved in the planning and logistics would appreciate………What’s that? It IS only once a year? A 365 day year? Gulp!


Continue reading "2008 Biannual SSC Year-End Celebration—Sizzling Heat and Cold Beer!"

By Joe Wilkins

The Bay Gall Sporting Clays Course is woven amidst the fields, ponds, and woodlands of a farm located in Garfield, Georgia about twelve miles north of Statesboro. Since this is an actual, working farm, I was surprised I did not see Chicken Little rushing madly around the property on the 25th of May 2008 cackling “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” In this case, however, she would have had some reason for her alarm, because, man, were there a lot of dropping targets presented to the SSC membership on this particular day! Fortunately for all concerned, the shooters who ventured out on the course on this warm spring afternoon were able to destroy 75% of the falling projectiles before they could come crashing down on the heads of the terrified livestock.
Continue reading "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"