THE GAME Squads of five shooters fire from each of eight shooting stations arranged around a semi-circle. There is no guesswork as to which house the target will come from and what path it will take. The 25th shot, completing the round, is taken at the time of the first miss, or with 24 consecutive broken targets, the 25th shot may be taken from any position on the field. New shooters tend to rush themselves on doubles and get confused as to which target to break first. Always shoot the target moving away from you first, then break the incoming target.
Competitive skeet is shot with different gauge shotguns.
As the gauge gets smaller, the difficulty naturally increases and scores get lower. Open to 28 gauge or smaller. National Shooting Sports Foundation research indicates that the average shooter breaks 11 out of 25 targets in his first try at skeet and gradually improves through the high teens into the low 20s. A perfect 25 is a reasonable goal for the novice skeet shooter. Skeet can be shot for practice or as a registered event.