It turns out there was an interesting answer to this and a specific sort of German shooting, a bit like our bell target I guess:
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerstutzen
(In German but you can translate in safari at least, though you do get some comic results, eg apparently the shooting is called “room nozzle”, which I guess sounds better in German)
I have not tried this myself but will certainly now consider anointing my balls before shooting to see if it improves my performanceSome shooters therefore use (sometimes mysterious) means to anoint the balls to improve shooting precision; oiling the balls before shooting is commonplace