The short answer to your question as to Why shooters seem to want to hurry from one station to the next, is that the great shooters know that the fast rhythm will cause insecure and inexperienced shooters to hurry their shots, and miss targets. Hurry a squad is the way to win. Simple.
My late friend, Bruce Shurts, was taught how to shoot Trap targets before they got above shoulder height off the ground. He was hitting clays less than 12 yards in front of the traphouse, and that was on his slow days! He once fired a Registered Trap match in Indiana into a strong headwind, and the broken chips of clay target started peppering the Trap boys in the house. Years later, I was with him when one of those trapboys, now a grown man and accomplished shooter, stopped us and introduced himself to Bruce. He reminded Bruce of the incident, and told us how when the round was over he put up the red flag, and went to the scorekeeper to find out who the shooter was that was bombing him in the traphouse with the chips. Bruce was pointed out to him, but because they had more shooters to fire the next round, he had to return to the Traphouse for the rest of the afternoon, and missed being to talk to Bruce then. He said that in all the years he worked as a Trapboy, Bruce was the only shooter who could break targets so close that the chips would bomb him in the traphouse. Then he shook Bruce's hand, and asked him how he learned to shoot targets so fast. The man who coached had won the American Grand Champion title something like 5 or 6 times in his lifetime, and took a liking to Bruce when he first met him at the trapranges. His name was Henry Austin, and if you look in the scorebooks published by the ATA, you will find Henry's name listed in the last 1940s, and early 1950s and the Grand Champion. I know how he did it, but I never put in the hours of practice to learn to do it myself. In Fact, because I could not do that, I would be only man on the squad who refused to be hurried when it came to calling my target and shooting it when we shot 16 yard targets. He usually hit more targets than I did, but I always shot my average or better. The other guys fell apart trying unconsciously to keep up with his fast shooting. Hint: He was slapping his trigger while the target was still rising UNDER his barrel. Like ever Trap shooter, he read the trap machine, and would hold his barrel off the expected path of the clay bird so that he could see it come out of the traphouse. All he had to do was move his barrel laterally and slap the trigger to break the bird. Its a useful skill to have if you are hunting in heavy winds, or shooting a registered trap match in heavy winds. Hitting them that low to the ground breaks the target before the winds go to work on the clay birds, and make them bounce, or turn and go straight up like a rocket.
But I am sincere when I suggest to you that BP shotgun shooting should be a delirative sport, so that you can relax, and enjoy being there. This sport is not for every shooter, nor for all of us all the time. Sometimes I like to make a lot of noise, and break as many targets as I can in a short time. That is when I take out a modern butt stuffer and shoot sporting clays on a 5 stand range. 14 traps, birds flying every direction, 5 shooters blasting away. It just doesn't get much more exciting than this with your clothes on. :thumbsup:
