Recently my wife and I attended the 2 day Wingshooting School at Orvis Sandanona. See this link for more information:

Orvis Wingshooting Schools

I thought you might be interested in what the school offers and our review of the two days. Overall our impressions were excellent with the instructors, the facilities and the training curriculum. My wife is a new shotgun shooter and I have been shooting for a number of years but felt I was not able to progress above about 60-70% hit average. I always wanted to have someone with expertise watch my shooting and see what I was doing that limited my ability to have a higher average. Here are our impressions of the school:


Facilities: Orvis offers the Wingshooting instruction at a few of its sites and we opted for the Sandanona NY site as it was about 3 hours away from home. The Sandanona site has a long history and if you are a member of the Vintagers and have been there I think you will agree that Orvis has done an excellent job in creating a world class shooting facility. The clubhouse has been recently expanded and remodeled and has a classic and distinctive rustic charm. The site has a full-fledged Orvis store on the ground and also stocks fine firearms. The instruction area, dining facilities (lunch is provided daily with the school) were superb. The weather was cold the weekend we attended and the fireplace was inviting and helped to break the chill. Orvis has a 22 stand sporting clays facility with every possible combination of Wingshooting presentation you can imagine including simulated driven bird hunting, rabbits, overhead shots and even a “fishing pier” stand where you shot down into a gulch off a long pier. Lunches were served daily by catering staff and coffee and tea is always available. This site is over 400 acres and they have hunting grounds on it where you can hunt chukars and numerous other birds. The site is well marked with roads and the stands each have a theme to them. We saw about 20 4 wheeled ATV type vehicles for transporting staff and shooters. All of the traps are top quality most are electrically fed with a few battery supplied with solar chargers. In addition to the shooting ranges they have gun fitting and patterning area. One the first day we were each assigned a beautiful Italian Caesar Guerini over and under in 12, 20 or 28 gauge. I had a 20 gauge and the wife had a 28 gauge. They recommend shooting a smaller gauge for the two days to avoid getting beat up by a 12 and developing poor habits or a flinch. The guns were superb and had nice wood. They were used hard, something on the order of 100K rounds a year but we had no malfunctions. All shells are included in the course fee and we shot about 250 rounds in 2 days. Overall everything you could want in a high class shooting facility.


Curriculum/Instructors: The first day started with a general introduction of the staff and students followed by a safety video. Safety is paramount at the school and heavily emphasized…nearly every one of the students was gently reprimanded when safety protocol was overlooked…never intentional but more like due to the excitement of the shooting. Still with the number of shooters going through the school and the regular shooting clients it was good to see that safety was at the top of the list. After the video we reviewed the plans and basic shooting components. We then broke into smaller groups, no more than 4 students to 1 instructor and we made our way to individual stations for training. The first morning consisted of basic instruction in form, stance, focus, and follow through. The school teaches the Churchill method of shooting and is based on the premise that if you can point at it you can hit it with a shotgun. Fundamentally the school is focused on game shooting and not target shooting but of course increasing your skills will increase your overall hits in any discipline. After lunch we then rotated to a different instructor and that was the theme for the 2 days. We had 4 instructors over the course of two days and while all were based on the same fundamentals you got the chance to get the flavor of different instructors.

On the afternoon of the second day we shot part of the sporting clays course where we shot 11 stands always accompanied with an instructor in in this case a trapper (who was also an instructor so in reality we had 5 instructors in 2 days) who operated the traps. Each time the instructor was hands on with each student, patient and genuinely tried to address each student’s needs. One of the advantages of being on a small group is that you got to learn from each other. Each instructor had numerous years of experience either at the school or elsewhere and many of them had various shooting titles to their credit. They were engaging, added humor to teach a lesson and were always quick to recognize your successes. During the two days each student was pulled out for a personal gun fitting with Joe Wassi, one of the instructors where he personally set up a Guerini Try Gun and tested your shooting against the pattern plate. You are given your personal stock fitting measurements at the completion of the course. A stock fitting can run anywhere from $2-300 and while talking with Joe I learned that he does somewhere around 8-10 fittings per week so he knows his stuff. If you go to a custom gun manufacturer I bet they don’t normally do 8 fittings a month so with his experience he has seen it all so to speak. I was surprised with my measurements and the fact that the average factory gun is so poorly fitting for me…that is my excuse for all my misses to date

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Summary: While the weather made the first day a bit challenging having to dress in multiple layers overall our impression and review of the Orvis Wingshooting School was excellent. There was not one thing that we call a negative except for information overload and wanting it to not end. My wife started the course with about a 10% hit average and finished with about a 50% average including shooting pairs. I clearly learned a lot about what I was doing wrong and my average is certainly increased as a result of attending. I can’t wait to get out to the range and practice more utilizing the techniques I learned. If you are looking to improve your shotgun shooting skills I highly suggest you give one of the Orvis schools a strong consideration. They offer both a 1 day and 2 day school at 4 locations. PM me if you want more details. Thanks for listening.

Paul

Great report Paul....hope they fitted you and the Mrs. with right guns. Gun fit is paramount for Wingshooting with both eyes open.

Looks like you are ready for a trip to Argentina We are heading down to the ultimate wingshooting paradise in July for 3 days of doves and 4 days of ducks.

Nice report Paul - I've never been much of a wingshot and have been considering a school like this.

Besides your wife, were there any other inexperienced shooters?


Phil

Phil,

Yes there were...in fact most of the shooters were inexperienced. One other gentleman and I probably had the most experience (not saying much for me!) and we had 2 other women besides my wife out of the 9 of us. The instruction was very dedicated to each shooter. Never did we feel that we had to "wait in line" etc to shoot. Each shooter got to shoot about 10-12 targets at each station as we made our way through the instruction day with the instructor watching each shot and coaching and giving feedback.

Since we have been back home I have been to my local range 1x and tried hard to assimilate all that I learned and generally that means slowing down and focusing on each shot for good form, mount and follow through. The weather did not cooperate that day but I shot 75% on one round of 25 birds and with each miss most importantly I clearly knew why I missed. More practice and following the book will help. I did forget to mention that each shooter received a copy of Bruce Bowlen's book:

The Orvis Wingshooting Handbook, Fully Revised and Updated: Proven Techniques for Better Shotgunning [Paperback] by Bruce Bowlen, $10.26 at Amazon

The Orvis Wingshooting Handbook

Which was essentially the course curriculum. I had read his first edition and this new and revised edition has some updates. It is an easy read and not overwhelming in technical information. I re-read it since being back home and if you buy the book and follow it you could do a pretty good job on your own. Not to take away from expert instruction and I would still recommend the course but it is a good start. There is nothing like having an expert observe your shooting to help make it better.
Good shooting,

Paul

Note-they have a course at May's Pond Florida...does not look that far away from you. See the Website I listed in the posting for details.

Paul,

Thanks for the feedback. Definitely on the list of things to do - sounds like a good way to learn some good habits.


Phil

+1

Paul, my wife and I may do the two day course at Sandanona in August, do you have a recommendation on where to spend thee night?

Hi Johnny,

We stayed at the Hotel - HILTON GARDEN INN POUGHKEEPSIE/FISHKILL which is about 25 miles from Sandanona and did not take long at all to get back and forth, about 25 minutes. There are some B&B and other smaller hotels near Sandanona,the Cottonwood is right up the road, but I had some hotel points that were about to expire so that is why we stayed at the Hilton Gardon. Also if you stay close to Sandoanona you will end up driving towards Fishkill for food.

PM me for details, happy to speak by phone if you want more information.

BTW I have been practicing new found shooting skills and am now averaging much higher than before the school. I am more of a rifle shooter which of course was part of my problem...you point shotguns and not aim them.

Good luck

Paul

Paul, PM sent...

Phil,
There is an Orvis school right here in SC at Okatie, which is down by Beaufort.

My dad was a member of the Millbrook Rod & Gun club, which is only a couple of miles from the Sandaona facility. Even back then (late 1950s), Sandanona was a gentleman's place.
When I accompanied my dad on hunting trips, I remember that there were lots of pheasants in the area, many that had escaped from Sandanona facilities.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bob Nisbet:
My dad was a member of the Millbrook Rod & Gun club, which is only a couple of miles from the Sandaona facility.[QUOTE]

Millbrook R&G is still there on Woodstock rd.......I used to shoot a few clays on the skeet range during open to public hours.

I live about 15 minutes from there.

Those in the area may also want to check out British Sporting Arms and Safari Outfitters.....both are just a few minutes away from Orvis.

Also Dover Furnace has nice facilities for clays in the area....Beretta shop there.

My wife and I just did the two day course last weekend, and for the most part, I would echo what Paul posted. The facility was great, the instructors extremely helpful and informative, and the gun fitting was an eye opener. Apparently I require a 15.5" LOP, which is a far cry from the 13.75" to 14.25" LOP of the shotguns I currently own. My wife is only 5 feet 5 inches tall, and she checked out at 14" LOP. Best of all, she was totally into it. All she had done in the past was shoot my little Beretta 28g at select straightaway targets at a clays range, and low house station 7 targets at a skeet range with me. I am no instructor, and did not try to be one, so we decided to do the Orvis school. She was so into it, we both came away with orders for fitted guns, mine being a 12g Knockabout (loved the case colors), hers being a 28g Uplander.

The only thing I did not like was on the afternoon of the second day, we hit the clays course, and some of the stations I found were difficult for a regular shooter, and quite impossible for a new shooter. In my opinion, to keep new shooters interested, clays need to break. Incomers and straightaways should have been the majority, but were not. There were some very fast crossers, and other "trick" clays that I thought should not have been presented to those whose first shotgun experience was the day prior.

Overall, it was a good experience, and I learned quite a bit about what I was doing wrong, and hope to correct that. My wife and I do not want to let what we learned slide, so we will be at Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays on Sunday AM to see what we can do...