When shooting skeet, what shotgun bore size can I use?

Shooting expert
JOHN BIDWELL
The minimum gauge size for English Skeet is .410 with the maximum being 12-bore firing a 1oz (28gm) cartridge.

If you enjoy using smaller bore guns, and lots of people do, then you might like to try your hand at shooting skeet under North American rules (NASSA) where you can compete against other people using .410s, 28, 20 and 12-bore guns.

It’s great fun to do so – and some of the scores achieved with even the smallest bores are quite incredible.

It’s a specialised form of Skeet shooting but you don’t have to go to the expense of owning a gun in each bore size to compete – you can buy balanced sets of different tubes to slip inside a 12-bore.

You can use high velocity (HV) cartridges if you want to but there’s no advantage in doing so at this form of shooting because most of the clays are broken inside 30 yards, and often less.

Furthermore, HV cartridges generally tend to be heavier on the shoulder and this can create fatigue in a shooter over a long day with, hopefully, a shoot-off for top spot at the end of it.

What you don’t want now is any mental tiredness or a sore shoulder… so stick to your ‘standard’ loads throughout. You won’t regret it.