Thread: Can Anyone Answer This?

This is not meant to be political, however I'm sure a lot of you have seen the picture of Obama skeet shooting. Can anybody tell me what that puff of smoke coming out of the side of the barrel is? I've never seen anything like it. And no one on television has explained it. Anybody?

Could it be coming out the top, and designed to counteract barrel rise during firing? This was what they told us the compensators on M4's were for anyhow. So, I guess my answer is more of a guess/question too. Sorry.

Ported barrel? That would be my guess, though it does look kind of far back compared to what I have seen. (Note: I know VERY little about shotguns.)

A ported barrel was my first thought also that that would be coming up from the top.

Almost looks like he is shooting an SKB comp skeet gun that is ported SKB Shotguns: Skeet Models .

Bob

Shotguns with screw in chokes are ported farther back..

HOWEVER his hold "Mount" is the dead giveaway for an inexperienced shooter, look at how the buttpad is sitting, he is a novice and obviously nobody explained how to not get a bruised shoulder... His actual wording also was a dead giveaway for a Non-Shooter..

A shooter says

We shoot Skeet
We shoot Trap
We shoot Clays

We do not say "We do Skeet Shooting" it is the same as a non-hunter asking you when you come out of the woods "Did you catch anything" drives me nuts like any other sport there any certain terms and vernacular that define the sport and the people that participate in it...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Shotguns with screw in chokes are ported farther back..

HOWEVER his hold "Mount" is the dead giveaway for an inexperienced shooter, look at how the buttpad is sitting, he is a novice and obviously nobody explained how to not get a bruised shoulder... His actual wording also was a dead giveaway for a Non-Shooter..

A shooter says

We shoot Skeet
We shoot Trap
We shoot Clays

We do not say "We do Skeet Shooting" it is the same as a non-hunter asking you when you come out of the woods "Did you catch anything" drives me nuts like any other sport there any certain terms that define the sport...

Glenn, I couldn't agree with you more. However, as I said, this is not a political comment at all even though I think that pictures Photoshoped, but that puff of smoke coming out of the side is like nothing I've ever seen or anybody. I've talked to has ever seen choke or no choke. I have no idea what that can be and it seems nobody else does either. As far as the way he's mounting the gun to his shoulder,My friends and I would most likely let him shoot one off just for a laugh before correcting the mistakes,And Bob, as for that shotgun you mentioned,it has multable ports on the side so you would'nt see a single puff like that anyway.IMHO

Originally Posted by gssixgun

We do not say "We do Skeet Shooting" it is the same as a non-hunter asking you when you come out of the woods "Did you catch anything" drives me nuts like any other sport there any certain terms and vernacular that define the sport and the people that participate in it...

I hear you. Otoh, if he is just a recreational shooter, it is exactly the sort of thing he would say.
I once got into an argument (a rather one sided argument) with a US gun enthusiast about the word 'clip'. Someone used that word to describe a magazine, and that was his basis for an argument that the person saying it was either ignorant or had a suspicious agenda, or whatever.

I argued that no matter what 'clip' used to mean half a century ago, language is a living thing, and the word has been altered by common usage to mean any kind of magazine. Of course, him being a purist and actively searching for beef against the person who used that word, my argument fell on deaf ears.

So Obama saying 'doing skeet shooting' is in my eyes the same thing: a recreational shooter who uses a term that is commonly used like that. I (very) occasionally shoot, and it's the sort of thing I would say.

I don't understand why the smoke is a big deal. Real smoke or not doesn't change the point of the photo.

Originally Posted by HNSB

I don't understand why the smoke is a big deal. Real smoke or not doesn't change the point of the photo.

Not the point. Or rather, not the reason why they released the picture. I think eveyrone gets the intent.
However, even I -as a layman- find that the pic looks doctored, or at least 'off'.
They should have anticipated that, and taken a picture of him actually firing the gun. Or rather, regardless of whether this pic is real or not, they should have made sure it also looked real.

Because now it looks doctored, and people will start looking for motivations behind the doctoring. Was it a matter of convenience (take one pic and then color in the smoke later) or was it because Obama didn't want to shoot / could not shoot properly (and was embarassed about it) or was it real but just a bad picture, or was it because something else entirely.

Regardless of what the actual message was and whether the pic is real or not, his media team should have anticipated the scrutiny and made damn sure that the pic showed what it was meant to show and prevent embarassing questions.