ANOKA, Minn.--Right after this year's Outdoor Writers Association of America annual conference in Duluth I made my way to Anoka to visit the Federal Ammunition Factory.
Every year the OWAA conference is held in a different city, and each year a new group of cities send their civic promoters to the conference to bid on getting a future conference. Several years ago Duluth won the bidding and that's why I was in the northwoods country.
There is more at stake here for the city hosting the conference than just selling a bunch of outdoor writers hotel rooms and a convention center. The city where the conference is held always enjoys a massive amount of publicity in magazines, newspapers, TV, and radio.
Outdoor writers, like myself, want something interesting to write about. To give the writers story material the host region and a local representative of the OWAA organize a wide selection of trips before and after the conference for the writers. Most of these trips are very outdoorsy, which is fine and good for everyone because the writers get something to write about and the local guide or outfitter gets some very valuable publicity.
Last year I took a trip to Cherokee Landing near Chattanooga, Tennessee, to go bass fishing. This year there was something else I wanted to do, and that was come here to Anoka, Minnesota, and visit the Federal plant.
The good folks at Federal Ammunition offered to take a group of writers on a tour of the plant, serve us lunch, and then take us to the Federal Shooting Sports Center where we would get the opportunity to take shooting lessons from one of the best shotgun instructors in the industry--Steve Schults, chief instructor at the Federal Wing & Clay Shooting School.
The Tour
First, we went on the tour. Touring an ammunition manufacturing facility the size of Federal's is not a quick walk around the block and back to the office for coffee and donuts. This tour takes at least two hours of serious walking. I don't know exactly how many miles we put in, but we made the complete tour from .22 rimfire up to shotgun shells, and that night my feet hurt.
The manufacturing process for .22 rimfire ammunition is one of the most fascinating in the industry. With bullets that small you wonder how anyone could design a machine capable of producing enough ammo to keep up with demand. All of the ammunition companies have similar machines, and the sheer quantity of .22 ammo cranked out every hour of every day at these factories warms the cockles of my shooter's heart.
Then there is rifle ammunition. Each step of the procedure is a little more marvelous to see. The brass cases we are so familiar with begin life as long rolls of flat brass that are fed into a machine that stamps out brass plugs that have no resemblance to center-fire rifle ammunition. Gradually, as the bass passes from one machine to the next, it takes on the appearance of a modern rifle case as it is drawn, extruded, forced, and shaved into the proper shape and dimension.
Once the shape is there, the cases roll on to the annealing process where they are heated and cooled to develop the proper hardness essential to good performance. While this is going on in one part of the factory, the primers and bullets are being made in another area. The bullets are first made from long rolls of lead wire that are cut and swaged to the proper size; then the jackets are cut from rolls of copper and added to the bullet.
I've seen the process of inserting the primer, loading the powder, and inserting the bullets in cases before (at the Remington factory), but it is still one of the most fascinating aspects of the manufacturing of ammunition. All of the components of the bullet are like the parts of an industrial ballet and they come together in the final act to produce the completed round--ready for packing in the boxes to be shipped to retailers.
Shooting School
After lunch we drove to Federal's Shooting Center. Steve was waiting for us. I had already warned him that I brought my brand new Beretta 20-gauge Onyx over-and-under. I hadn't put a round through the gun yet and I was hoping to find out if it really is the shotgun I want to carry back and forth to Africa.
First we were given the usual safety lecture, and although I've heard different versions of it many times before, I always listen in case there is new information. When that was over we picked up several boxes of shotshells (Federal, of course) and walked to a station for our first round of five-position sporting clays.
As we shot at each station Steve walked behind the line of shooters and watched each person shoot, and when he had seen enough he called a break. After a short explanation of our most common faults, he began coaching each one of us individually.
Worth the Effort and Time
All of us like to think we've got a good handle on shooting, and if we are avid bird hunters we've convinced ourselves that we really don't need much help. Well, I am here to tell you that there are very few shooters who wouldn't benefit from a little time with Steve at the shooting school.
Steve picked up on my worst habit right away. He watched me shoot at several clay birds then he put his hand on my shoulder.
"You like to shoot rifles don't you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, you're not shooting a rifle now. This is a shotgun and it doesn't have iron sights on it."
It's a basic lesson that a lot of shooters forget as they move back and forth from rifle to shotgun shooting.
Steve watched and coached me as I tried to change from the habit of aiming the shotgun to pointing it. For someone like me, who grew up with a shotgun and a rifle and spends a lot of time in the field every year hunting birds, having someone tell me that I am doing something wrong is frustrating and somewhat humiliating. But, I also know that my shotgun shooting does need improvement and I wanted the coaching Steve had to offer. At another point he watched me miss a bird that simulated a rising pheasant.
"You like to pheasant hunt?" he said.
"Of course."
"Well, right now you aren't hurting the population much when they come up right in front of you."
He was right. On birds angling away I have a good percentage, but for straightaway and climbing birds I have a lousy percentage. He asked me where I was putting the gun and I told him, then Steve gave a demonstration of where the bird should be relative to the muzzle of the gun on a variety of shots.
"Try putting it there on the next one," he said, showing me a part of the clay bird that would reflect the light as it flew in front of me. "Don't slow down your swing or stop but tell yourself to pull the trigger at this point and keep swinging. It'll work."
I did what he said and it did work. The bird was broken into little pieces like it should.
Before he went to the next shooter Steve summarized my weaknesses and told me what to work on and how. Since the lesson I've been trying to do just that, but it isn't easy to stand in front of a full-length mirror and practice mounting a shotgun. I know though that if I expect to improve my percentage of hit birds I need to practice.
Steve's shooting school isn't tied to Anoka, Minnesota. He will take it to any shooting club in the country that can put together the minimum number of students needed. The course isn't cheap and a full three days of shooting and instruction cost $945 per student, and a one-day shooting clinic is $375. Both prices includes all the ammo and targets.
That may seem like an awful lot of money to spend for shooting instruction. I don't think it is if you start adding up how much you have invested in a pheasant hunting trip. If your shooting is preventing you from taking home the birds you should, then the school is a good investment.
In one afternoon Steve managed to correct two problems that have plagued me since I learned to shoot as a kid. If I practice what he told me, I should be able to improve my scores on the sporting clays course, as well as my percentage of birds hit during hunting season.
It is pointless to travel halfway across the country or around the world to go bird hunting if your shooting is faulty. I think Steve made a dent in my problem and I hope to make a dent in the number of birds this fall.
If you would like information on Steve and Federal's shooting school you can call: 1-800-888-WING or 612-323-2527.
Tell them All Outdoors sent you.
Good Shooting,
Galen L. Geer
Copyright (c) 1996. All rights reserved.
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