How do you "dust" clay pigeons?

Hit em in the middle. If they're breaking into pieces only a few pellets are hitting. This would equate to a wounded bird.
 
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You are just hitting them with the edge of your shot pattern. You are shooting low or behind them????? Just need more practice:)
 
A good dusted bird in my inexperienced opinion comes from knowing the gun, right choke, nice ammo with round shot (promo ammo is not likely graded for perfect round shot) maybe even better shot wads help...
Brent
 
It is easier to do with tighter chokes, closer ranges, and smaller shot. Try good quality #8s, such as Winchester AA Super Handicap. The downside to a tighter choke is that you have to be right on the target, not as much room for error, but if you are, more pellets connect which "dust it".
 
I have noticed that the newer clays, the biodegradable ones, don't seem to turn to dust quite as easily as the old pitch based ones did.

It could just be my imagination, or has anyone else noticed this?
 
I can smoke clays with a Skeet choke on a Skeet field / from stations 3,4 and 5 ( not all the time mind you ..) but its just a matter of centering the bird in the shot cloud.

You don't need to go to tighter chokes ...
 
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My 13 yr old son does it all the time! And it frustrates me because I can only do it once in about 50 clays. When I ask him how he does it, he says, "I just point the gun at it and shoot." He does it with an old Ithica model 37 featherweight, 26 inch barrel, full choke.
 
there is a difference between "dusted" and "smoked" - dusting a clay is NOT breaking it, but getting close with the shot to literally break some orange dust off the clay that is visible without breaking a chip for a "hit". Anything else. like smoking, ink-blotting, etc....is hitting it so squarely there is no visible piece
 
Oneounceload and olddrum1 are correct. To a comp shooter, dust is what comes off a "close, but not close enough" lost target. That being said, we know the OP means what's known as a smoked, powdered, puff balled, ink blotted, black cloud, vaporized, or any other description of a target hit, as 1-oz said, "so squarely there is no visible piece."

How to smoke a target? Practice, Practice, Practice. Of course, a load that concentrates a much shot as possible on the target helps. The closer the target, the more likely it's going to get vaporized. (In my younger, crazier years, when we were closing down the club for the evening, we'd play chicken skeet. We'd position ourselves at the low house target stake and try to hit the approaching target as close to the end of our guns as possible. This would result in some spectacular breaks.)

It doesn't take a heavy load, .410s puff ball targets all the time. Also, it doesn't take a hot load: often lower velocity loads are more center dense than their faster cousins and smoke more targets. Vaporizing targets may look great; but, as was previously mentioned, it usually means you've traded off a larger kill zone for harder hits. There's an old saying in the comp shooting circles: "I'd rather dirty chip 100-straight targets than ink ball 99 and miss one." There's no style points on your average card. That being said, one of the most satisfying aspects of shooting is inking a skeet pair from station 4 with a .410. You know you're having a good day.

Also, if you're impressed by the factory demonstration shooters ability to smoke 'em up in the videos, don't assume they are shooting the same targets that you are. As RoscoeC indicated, not all targets break the same. Shooters want targets that are easy to break. But, gun clubs want targets that don't break before their time. Targets damaged during handling or while in the trap machines don't make any money. And, the target manufacturers have a lot a wiggle room with their product. Here's the complete NSSA 2009 target specification:
[SIZE=-2]SECTION I - EQUIPMENT
A. TARGETS
Standard targets of good quality measuring no more than
four and five-sixteenth (4-5/16) inches in diameter nor more
than one and one-eighth (1-1/8) inches in height shall be used.
B. AMMUNITION...[/SIZE]
Just what is a "Standard" target is up for interpretation.
 
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Ruger - there is ONE exception to that rule.....live pigeon shooting....if that bird doesn't fall in the ring, it is a loss.......and I have watched 50G's turn over on one bird....in that case choke for smoke is the way to go.........all other things considered.......a chip is as good as an inkblot everyday on the scoresheet
 
Oneounce....Can you really get those live birds to chip and/or smoke??? Just kidding with you. I know what you mean.
I was in a Trap tournement years ago in Sierra Vista, AZ and they had some, basically, steel targets (Remington I think). I hit one so hard it just belched smoke,,, called lost.. It was the correct call, but a couple of my squadmates told the Ref there was NO WAY I didn't hit it. I know I hit it pretty solid, it should have broken or at least chipped, it didn't. Just a "cloud" of target dust. Not a single chip.
The rules often are not totally fair, but they are the rules we live with. No big deal, I won anyways because EVERYBODY else had to shoot the same bullet proof targets as I did. So in the end, it was no handicap at all.
 
3" magnum shells and a skeet choke... We were hand-throwing some clays this morning and at one point I was letting one of the guys take the first shot and then cleaning up if he missed. No, I didn't shoot very many that way. Those dang things hurt after awhile. But they sure were doing a number on those clays.
 
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