Buyers’ Guide: Cartridges

Charlie Bull of Just Cartridges lists ammo that will do the job with performance to spare

Ienjoy Skeet because I think it sharpens you up, providing targets at all angles. Station 8, where it appears, is a proper sharpener! I am not interested in grinding out 100-straights because my attention span is woefully short, so I can’t concentrate hard enough to actually achieve it, but it is a lot of fun and generally good practice for a variety of other shooting scenarios. With that in mind, don’t forget that a Skeet shell with about a million pellets in it is absolutely ideal for those closer-in targets encountered at Sporting or Fitasc.

The different Skeet disciplines mean that there is a mind boggling array of cartridges. This list will give you a taste throughout the spectrum.

English Skeet is the most popular of the skeet disciplines, and 28gm 9 shot is the usual choice for the Skeet shooter. American Skeet (NSSA) uses different bore sizes with little choice.

Olympic Skeet is the zenith of the sport. Being faster, shot gundown and with a variable delay on release, this a tricky but exciting variation on the sport. The main difference from the cartridge point of view is that Olympic Skeet must be shot with a maximum 24gm load, and cartridges tend to be higher performance than other standard Skeet alternatives. A lot of Skeet shooters will actually use a larger shot size for the second bird on Station 4. I am not entirely convinced you need it, but the choice is yours. So let’s have a look at what we’ve got this month.