Back in the Saddle

Been a while, hasn’t it? But I’ve been busy — making speeches, riding the rails, and shootin’ skeet. And that’s not even the whole of it. If this keeps up, she’s gonna be a busy summer.

(‘02 Skeet Champions)

Now, I was thinking that from a geometrical standpoint (which is certainly one of the better standpoints, I’d say), shooting is a daunting prospect. Even the slightest unsteadiness as you draw a bead on your target has a detrimental effect on your accuracy. But just how much of an effect, you ask? Well — thinking geometrically again — let’s say the barrel of the gun goes off-target by one degree…

After working a thing or two out with some quick and dirty trig, I reckon that each degree of movement (which, measured at the end of the barrel, can be as little as 1 centimetre of drift) results in a deviation of 64 centimeters after the bullet has travelled 36.5 metres (roughly 40 yards).

With this in mind, it seems like it’s a wonder you can hit anything… but is it really? What if you’re using a shotgun with some kind of skattershot? Well, take a look at this:

You’ll see here that the shot’s spread (which is 1.5m diameter 40 yards out, according to this) is enough to compensate for the given deviation from the target. Of course, this doesn’t take the actual pattern of the shot, but that’s a diagram for another day.