CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – A 15-year-old Clarksville teen is breaking records and making a name for himself on the world stage. Sheaffer Stanfill recently became the youngest shooter in junior history to run a perfect 400×400 at a world championship.

The Clarksville native became the second-youngest person in skeet-shooting history to shoot a 400×400 at the 2019 Junior World Championships July 25-28 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. To put this feat into perspective, there has been less than 120 people to ever shoot a 400×400 in the history of the sport.

For Stanfill, this was a monumental milestone in his young career and he was overcome with emotion after landing his final shot of the competition.

Sheaffer’s father Jeff Stanfill discussed what it means for himself to be able to watch his son succeed while competing on the biggest and brightest stages the sport has to offer.

“It makes you very proud,” Jeff said. “When he ran his 400×400 he hugged my neck and told me, ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you’. That made everything that we put into that worthwhile. It’s one of the greatest feelings that I’ve ever had.”

Jeff vividly remembers the moment he knew right away that his son was destined for greatness.

“When he (Sheaffer) was getting old enough to start shooting, I took him to the Tennessee SCTP state shoot,” said Jeff. “In skeet, he beat everybody there. In sporting clays, he won that and in trap he came in second. At that point in time we kind of figured out he had a natural talent.”

At age 14, Stanfill became the youngest registered shooter in the world to achieve AAA status in all gun gauges. This is a feat that only approximately 1% of shooters will achieve in their shooting careers.

“You have to shoot at a registered event to get your classification,” Jeff said. “There’s not another junior shooter in the world right now who is AAA across the board.”

In 2018, Stanfill shot a 399/400 to win the Western Open Championship in Stockton, California, becoming the youngest competitor ever to claim the title.

As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect and this is certainly the case when it comes to Stanfill’s outlook on the game he loves.

“You definitely have to practice it because no one can just be born with it,” Stanfill said. “I would say that I was very gifted in the sense that I caught on quickly when I first started shooting. In the off-season, I practice way more than I do during the mid-season because I’m traveling so much from shoot to shoot that I just get my practice in while competing.”

Skeet shooters need to be extremely focused and have a great sense of anticipation in order to be the best in the world. Fortunately for Stanfill, these two characteristics come second nature.

“We’ve never had to teach him (Shaeffer),” Jeff said of his son. “It’s almost like it was a phenomenon. When you become a good shooter, you’re able to match gun speed to bird speed and he was able to do that from square one.”

The 15-year-old skeet shooting prodigy doesn’t necessarily come from a long line of shooters.

“My father never really shot a gun,” Jeff said. “I picked it up on my own as a young man and started shooting trap in my early 20’s. I later decided to start coaching and eventually turned to skeet because trap was losing its popularity in my area.”

Stanfill is currently the number one ranked junior shooter in the world and also ranked in the top 20 in the open division.

“He used to walk in a shoot as an unknown,” Jeff said. “Now when Stanfill walks into a shoot, all of the other top shooters know he’s coming and he’s going to be on the competitive list. Now people expect it.”

Stanfill’s most recent performances have put the skeet world on notice, garnering the attention from the game’s elite.

“It was different,” Stanfill said of being asked to play alongside other top shooters. “It helps give you more notoriety in the sport. It’s a big deal to have a bigger shooter ask you to be on their squad. That’s why when someone from a different division comes to me and asks something, I try to give back as much to them as possible because I know how it made me feel before.”

In September of 2020, Montgomery County Shooting Complex is set to host a World Class Shoot Help in conjunction with the NSSA with some of the top shooters in the world expected to be in attendance.

“This event will be used to promote the game of skeet,” Jeff said. “Along with some of Stanfill’s sponsors, we’re going to put on a major shoot that will have literally some of the best skeet shooters in the world here. We want to help give back to skeet what skeet has given us.”