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Oct 22, 2024 By Ben Moyer 5 min read

You’ve heard of skeet, and probably trap. In each, shooters attempt to break flying clay discs with a shotgun. Both sports are shot on a standardized course, where every shot is much the same.

Sporting Clays is different. Some describe it as golf with a shotgun. Each Sporting Clays course is unique, with its own series of shooting stations (like holes on a golf course) that simulate shots at flushed gamebirds — pheasants, grouse, or ducks. Every “bird” requires a different approach to break. It’s challenging. It’s difficult, and a Fayette County man won first place in the Briley 20-gauge class at the National Sporting Clays Association’s (NSCA) World Championships, held in May at M&M Hunting Preserve and Sporting Clays in Pennsville, New Jersey.

Greg Sackett, 65, of Smithfield is an NSCA member with a Master Shooter rating, which enables him to compete in high-level events. About 1,800 shooters from every U.S. state and countries around the world shot in the 2024 World Championships. Sackett bested 317 others for his win in the Briley 20-gauge category.

In 20-gauge, shooters use a lighter gun that fires shells packed with fewer pellets than the more conventional 12-gauge, reducing the chance of breaking each clay bird launched.

Many World Championship competitors are sponsored professionals. For pros, shooting Sporting Clays is a full-time career. Their sponsors — an ammunition maker, for example-finance their travel, training, equipment, and ammunition. Sackett retired recently from a career working for Columbia Gas in southwestern Pennsylvania. For him, breaking clay targets is a mostly self-taught, pay-as-you-go passion. He picked up the sport’s fine points from rented CDs.

“Like most people, I had to go to work every day, and I didn’t have unlimited time or ammunition for practice. I guess I surprised them all,” Sackett said of his victory.

“I started out hunting small game — pheasants and rabbits — on farms in Springhill Township,” he continued. “As a kid, like a lot of people around here, I used a handed-down single-shot shotgun. You had to try hard to hit that rabbit when you only had one shot. I didn’t know it then, but it was a good beginning for my development in Sporting Clays.”

Sackett credits friends who invited him to go along and shoot clays at California Gun Club for his introduction to the sport.

“I’d go to California (Pa.) every weekend and shoot,” he said. “No matter the weather, rain or snow. I was infatuated with breaking a flying target and I felt myself getting better.”

Recalling his progress in Sporting Clays, Sackett acknowledges the financial sacrifice it required. “When I started to get serious about this, I didn’t want to spend the $2,000 for a gun I knew would help me shoot even better,” he said. “Three years later I paid $11,000 for a used Kreighoff.”

That upgrade put the shotgun he uses now into his hands. All hunters would find one specialized feature of the gun radically different. It has a “double release” trigger, used only in competition. Once the shooter has mounted the gun, he or she pulls the trigger, but the gun doesn’t fire until the trigger finger relaxes. It fires on release of the trigger, not the initial pull. Sackett explained that the mechanism, though unconventional, helps shooters overcome involuntary flinching at the shot.

“Once you’re accustomed to it, it’s more natural,” he said. “It’s something like releasing an arrow from a bow, more about relaxing than a forced movement of the finger.”

Sackett has shot in other NSCA events within the United States, but never in the World Championships, which circulate around international venues. NCSA held its 2023 World Championships in Spain. The 2025 competition will be in London, England.

“I thought about it, and I said to myself, I’m 65 years old, and this year’s Championships are in New Jersey. I’m going. It’s now or never,” Sackett recalled.

“It’s something like the Olympics. All the athletes from different countries parade through the venue at the start. Later, there’s a lot of tension waiting to see if the shooters after you overtake your score.”

Sackett won with a score of 95 birds broken out of a 100-target total. Second-place broke 94.

“Ninety percent of this game is mental, timing and rhythm,” Sackett said. “At every station you get to see a target released before you have to shoot one. You have to make a plan of how you are going to break that bird. But then, if you’re ‘in the zone’ your subconscious takes over and breaks the target. Trust yourself and don’t overthink it. Just shoot and let the score take care of itself.

“Early on, I did take some lessons,” Sackett reflected. “They pretty much told me, to get better, shoot more in different places. That’s what I’ve tried to do.”

Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.