Is there a time limit when shooting clays?

A friend and I shot behind someone the other day who took ages between calling for pairs. They lined up their shells, pointed at the break points, closed the gun, opened it again, and this went on for what seemed like an eternity. I appreciate that a pre-shot routine is important to some people, but this must have taken a good 20-25 seconds between finishing one pair and starting the next.

DON BRUNT replies: There are time limits to control what may be considered ‘excessive’ time between calling for each pair of targets. In English Sporting the limit is 10 seconds, while in Compak Sporting it is 12 seconds and in FITASC Sporting that increases to a rather long-winded 20 seconds. Some less experienced referees might not even know about these time limits, but it’s important to stay within them otherwise, as you probably found out, it can start to affect others waiting to shoot. If you were stood there paying close attention to how long that shooter took, and it sounds as if you were, and if you took the time to record exactly how long, then you wouldn’t have been focusing properly on your shooting and wouldn’t have performed to the best of your ability. If you are shooting behind someone like that again it might be worth politely mentioning that there is a time limit, and if they don’t at least try to speed things up you might want to bring it to the attention of the referee if they haven’t already acted upon it.