GOULBURN clay target shooter Cooper Mooney, 18, returned from New Zealand recently as the 2016 Oceanic Federation Clay Target Junior High Gun and the Open Pointscore Winner of the 2016 Championship.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The event was held in Pukekohe New Zealand about an hour south of Auckland in April.
Mooney was selected for the Oceanic competition as part of the Australian Junior Clay Target Association Academy team.
The Australian Team won gold in all three events and Mooney picked up three individual gold medals as well as the team medals.
His third gold was in the Junior Double Barrel.
On Sunday he was at the Goulburn Clay Target Range for a regular monthly shoot that attracted a fair number of visiting shooters, mostly from neighbouring clubs.
Mooney picked up a couple of prizes in this event and was involved in a shoot off for the Continental competition winner with three senior contestants who had all shot 50 out of 50 targets in the initial competition round.
The other shooters were his father Joe Mooney, Matt Patmore and the eventual winner Justin Smith from Boorowa.
The shoot off went to two rounds of 25 targets.
Cooper’s dad was eliminated first in the sudden death shootout.
Then part way through the second 25 targets Patmore, who was the overall winner on the day, was eliminated, when he missed with both barrels.
The two shooters Smith and Mooney, who could not be separated at the end of the second 25 targets, took a short break before the final shootout which the aim was to hit the flying clay target with the first barrel and if not then if they were the first shooter get it with the second and hope the next shooter would also need his second barrel to break the flying clay.
Unfortunately the break proved the undoing of Mooney who missed with both barrels on the first pull of the trap.
Smith then called pull and shattered the flying clay with the first barrel.
“It was a good match, Mooney said.
“These guys are all really good shots and I had a lot of fun.
“I think I lost a little concentration with the break and that was it.”
Mooney said it was a tremendous experience travelling to New Zealand with the team and one he would never forget, particularly with the six gold medals he won.
He explained that Down-The- Line (DTL) shooting, which the Goulburn Club is set up for is different to the Olympic discipline that Michael Diamond has represented Australia in.
“We only use one trap machine which can release the clay at any angle within a 45 degree arc, but it only flings the clays at about half the speed of the targets Diamond shoots.”
Olympic Trap uses 15 fixed-angle machines as opposed to the single oscillating machine used in American Trap or DTL.
The 15 machine computer controlled program is designed to deliver 10 left, 10 right and five straight-away targets to each competitor in a randomised sequence.
A microphone release system is employed to provide uniformity in target release times.
The process of a round is as follows: There are six shooters, one to each station, with the sixth shooter initially starting at a holding station immediately behind shooter number one.
At the beginning of first round of the day, test firing is allowed at the referee’s permission.
Upon receiving the start signal, the first shooter has 10 seconds to call for his target.
After firing at his target, the first shooter waits for the second shooter to complete firing, then moves to station two, with the shooter on station six smoothly moving to station one.
This procedure continues through the squad until the completion of the round.
Double trap is a relatively new trap form. An Olympic event since 1996 (from 2008 it was Olympic status only for men), two targets are thrown simultaneously but at slightly different angles from the station three bank of machines.
The target speed is about 80 km/h.
The only unique item is in that the targets are released with a variable delay up to one second.
This was instituted to minimise the practice of spot-shooting the first target.
DTL is a form of trap popular in Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa.
The trap machine oscillates left to right within a 45 degree arc and each competitor shoots in turn, then moves station after having attempted five targets from each station in each round of 25 targets.
Two shots are permitted at each target, but second shots incur a points penalty.
Three points are awarded for each first-barrel hit, two points for a second-barrel hit, and nil for a miss. A perfect score in a 100-target competition is written as 100/300.
The points score, rather than the number of targets hit, determines the winner and is used to determine classifications (AA, A, B and C class).
Mooney said he is considering having a go at the Olympic disciplines but said at the top level sport gets very political.
“I would like to thank the Goulburn Clay Target Club, J and A Geotech Testing, Goulburn Farm Machinery and the Canberra Clay Target Club and members of both clubs for their support, along with the Australian Clay Target Association,” Cooper Mooney said.
“My next big challenge is probably the State Carnival on the October long weekend.”
Anyone interested in finding out more about clay target shooting and the Goulburn Clay Target Club should contact Frazer Roberts on 0418 482 209.
