Skeet shooting with D. Lee Braun [antikvár]

HOW IT ALL BEGAN BY ROBERT CAMPBELL 10 ¦ The sport of skeet shooting as we know it today started just about half a century ago on the grounds of the Glen Eock Kennels at Andover, Massachusetts. The kennels were owned by the late Charles E. Davies, a retired Boston businessman. An avid upland game hunter and a crack shot, Charles Davies was also a perfectionist who went to lengths unheard-of in those days in trying to improve his accuracy with a shotgun. He had two handy assistants—his son Henry and Henry's friend, Bill Foster. Henry and Bill were boyhood companions in those years between 1910 and 1915, and spent a good deal of time grouse-hunting. In exchange for this privilege, the elder Davies pressed the boys into service from time to time to help him improve his shooting. Frequently, on missing a shot in the field, he would have them set up the old '' Expert'' trap, which was kept bolted to a plank; then he would position himself as he had been for the bird he missed. While the boys threw targets for him, Mr. Davies would fire away until he was smoking them one after another. In time, all three of them had a habit of correcting shooting faults with clay targets. One winter evening around 1915, while sitting at the dinner table, the two Davieses got into a discussion about how to systematize this idea of shooting at targets from different positions so that