But I am a bolt gun kind of guy.
You might consider broadening your horizons. When I went to Germany as a graduate student in 1969, I was already a seasoned competetive shooter with a rifle, both service rifle and match rifle. In Germany I joined two gun clubs, one of which had international trap and skeet ranges and a running boar setup for high power rifles. The other had an Olympic rapid fire pistol range.
I was familiar with international skeet, having practiced with the two Olympic team members in clay target shooting while stationed at Quantico. I was familiar with the rules of Olympic rapid fire pistol, but had never shot the course and I had never shot running boar, eithyer small bore or large bore, before. By the time I came home in 1970, I had sampled all three.
Olympic skeet resembles American skeet in that it is shot over the same layout. However, there are significant differences. In American skeet, the shooter may shoulder his gun before calling for the "bird". In Olympic skeet, the shooter must keep the butt stock of his gun in contact with his hip bone until the target appears. The target release mechanism is fitted with an interrupter, which adds an element of chance. The target may appear up to 3 seconds after the shooter calls for it, and the shooter may not shoulder his gun until the target is visible outside the trap house. As a consequence, there is a lot of emphasis on gun mounting, so that the shooter is looking down the barrel of his gun in exactly the same way from target to target. The Olympic "bird" is also flying faster, so that the shooter has to shoot the outgoing bird at doubles really quickly in order to catch the incoming bird before it goes out of bounds.
In Olympic rapid fire pistol, the shooter is confronted with five man sized silhouette targets lined up in a row at 25 meters. Beginning with the pistol pointed down at a 45 degree angle, when the targets are faced toward the shooter, he has 8 seconds to fire one shot each into all five of the targets. The result is scored first by the number of hits on the target and then by the numerical value of the scoring rings drawn across the target. This procedure is repeated once, for a total of ten shots.
The shoter then has two strings of five shots which must be fired in six seconds each, followed by two strings of five shots in four seconds each. The shooter with the most hits on the targets is the winner. In case of a tie, the numerical value of the shot placement is used to break it. I practiced this discipline, but I never fired a match.
I never knew what the competetive rules were for running boar, but I used the layout to practice for a wild boar hunt I went on in Bulgaria. The life size target was pulled between two stations at a range of fifty meters. There were two speeds, slow and fast, used, and I practiced with both until I had a reasonable skill. I practiced with my .375 H&H BRNO ZKK 602 using factory loads. I hit the only "Wildschwein" I shot at.
When I returned home, I found a way to practice Olympic skeet and shot it competetively for a few years. By the end of that time, I was thoroughly schooled in gun mounting and the importance of mounting correctly for an effective shot.
I continued to shoot competetively with a high power rifle up through the 1990's and past 2000, until I problem with my right eye forced me to learn to shoot left handed. At about the same time I developed neiropathy in both feet causing a situation where I can no longer stand unsupported, and that put an end to my competetive shooting once and for all. I can still hunt, but only from a ground blind. My days of wandering through the woods with a rifle are sadly over.
My days of competetive shooting with a rifle were conducted at ranges up to 600 yards, using non-optical sights. My match rifle was a bolt action, and since one half of the shots fired in a match were rapid fire, I developed a certain amount of skill to allow me to go into position, fire five rounds, reload and fire five more rounds, all in a time limit of sixty seconds firing sitting at 200 yards or 70 seconds fired prone at 300 yards, using a target at both ranges with a "ten" ring four inches in diameter. This proficiency stood me in good stead on several occasions in Africa.
