The 5-stand system offers a different experience
I called for the target and the orange clay target flew out. I pulled up, squeezed the trigger, and cleanly missed the first target of the day. “That’s not good.” I said.
“That’s why we should have been shooting all winter,” said Sammie laughing, as she touched off the first clay for the next shooter.
Half of the group didn’t hit their first clay. We were shooting 5-Stand at Woods and Meadows by Warrens, WI.
5-Stand essentially lines five shooters up in a line very similar to trap, but shoots more like sporting clays. It compresses the number of acres required for traditional sporting clays into an area slightly larger than a trap field. A different but similar idea to the European clay target game called FITASC. 5-Stand comes from Canada.
A wildlife biologist named Raymond Foreman from Canada got tasked with evaluating the shooting part of their Hunter Education Training. Instructors used trap to teach hopeful young hunters shot-gunning skills. Foreman immigrated to Canada from Scotland where he competed in the Olympics in trap.
He asked why they used trap to teach kids how to shoot ducks? He felt the new American clays game called sporting clays would work better. To demonstrate the possibilities and to explain sporting clays, he set up a number of clay throwers on a trap range and started throwing single targets and pairs of targets. 5-Stand developed organically around Hunters Education in the early 1980’s. In 1990 Foreman was set to demo this clay game during the ICI World Sporting Championship at the Doverage gun club in England but still hadn’t named the game. While explaining the game to a journalist doing an article on it the name 5 Stand originated from the fact that it had five stations with five targets at each station for that article.
The clays game gained popularity in the US due to the adaptability of where and what conditions it works well in. An elevated platform essentially makes two courses in one location. Ranges vary from six to 18 throwers, yet I have never seen a course with more than nine throwers. Some clubs make a separate course, other overlay on a trap range or a skeet range.
Shooters shoot five targets at each station with someone occupying each station like trap. Five rounds are shot at each station for a total of 25 rounds in a game – one single and two pairs at each station. The pairs can be either report or true pairs.
What gets thrown for each shooter at a station come from a menu card at each station. To keep the shooting interesting, the range master needs only to change the menu and the round becomes completely different. Something that clubs running 5Stand leagues really like. They avoid needing to reposition throwers.
A shooter in the first station calls out their targets for the single or pairs and then calls for the release with the standard “pull”. After the shot the shooter in the next station shoots, and so on down the line until the rotation comes back to the first shooter for the next pair. When all five shooters complete their station, they rotate to the next just like trap. A round goes quickly.
5-Stand can be shot from a heated structure with shooting ports for each shooter. Usually there is about a four foot by five foot opening for each station. Some structures are basic wind and cold protection. Other ranges are quite fancy with large wood stoves, tables, lounge chairs, and room for those finished shooting to enjoy a beverage and heckle the shooters while sitting around the woodstove.
The fancier places open the structure up in the summer and cool it with either fans or A/C allowing shooters to shoot in rain without getting their firearms or gear wet. Fans keep mosquitos at bay and the roof provides protection from the hot sun in states with hotter summers than ours. The sporting clays ranges in several southern states close in the summer due to extremely hot temperatures. Kind of like a lot of sporting clays ranges close here in the winter due to cold and snow. That’s the winter popularity of 5-Stand in the midwest.
Like indoor 3D archery and video archery ranges, 5-Stand provides a cure for cabin fever. It’s a chance to spend time with friends and family and a chance to keep the shot-gunning skills up to snuff.
It’s a great thing for a trap team to get out together in the dead of winter.
THROUGH A
DECOY’S
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BY
CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
