Trap shooting

What a great morning. A friend of mine took me to the local gun club for some shooting. Haven't had a gun in my hand for almost 40 years. Shot my grandfathers 12 ga out behind the barn when I was barely able to hold it up and did some .22 target shooting at Boy Scout camp. This always sounded like fun but I never had the opportunity before.

All I can say is I'm hooked! We did four rounds of trap, with a round of skeet thrown in. Didn't do so good with that, but by the last station of the day on the trap range I went 5 for 5!

I'm going to have to start looking for a trap gun!

Mark

strop said:

What a great morning. A friend of mine took me to the local gun club for some shooting. Haven't had a gun in my hand for almost 40 years. Shot my grandfathers 12 ga out behind the barn when I was barely able to hold it up and did some .22 target shooting at Boy Scout camp. This always sounded like fun but I never had the opportunity before.

All I can say is I'm hooked! We did four rounds of trap, with a round of skeet thrown in. Didn't do so good with that, but by the last station of the day on the trap range I went 5 for 5!

I'm going to have to start looking for a trap gun!

Mark

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Shotgun sports are great fun. Find a range that has sporting clays if you want to have the most fun you can with a shotgun.

Congratulations Mark!

Congrats! I started on trap as well, though these days I prefer skeet or sporting clays. It's a fun hobby, but it isn't cheap. If you're going to shoot a lot I suggest you consider investing in a reloader. It'll save you money and allow you to customize your loads when you get to the point you want to do that.

stobes21 said:

Congrats! I started on trap as well, though these days I prefer skeet or sporting clays. It's a fun hobby, but it isn't cheap. If you're going to shoot a lot I suggest you consider investing in a reloader. It'll save you money and allow you to customize your loads when you get to the point you want to do that.

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For now I think I'm going to start with trap. The club here has trap and skeet but I'm told there are many more trap shooters than skeet here, and I only want to buy one gun to start, so I can get used to that gun. 5 stand and sporting clays look like fun too, but the closest pace for that is about an hour away. Locally it's about 15 min.

I offered to pay the guys for the shells. He laughed and said he had more shells at home than he could shoot in a year, and 2 barrels waiting to be reloaded. Definitely something to look into, though. At least the cost of target loads isn't as much as field loads.

trap shooting is good fun. I suck at it but i'd love to keep doing it in the future

Awesome! I also got into the clay sports this year, which quickly led me down the path of all-out hunter. In fact, was out goose hunting this morning with my wife and have a couple days set aside this coming week for my first deer hunt. I would've been out in the woods this afternoon, but a work obligation put the kibash on that...(I'm still fuming about that, but I suppose the other side to that coin is having a job.)

Happy shooting!

All right! Trap and Skeet are great fun.
I'm shooting a 1974 Browning BT-99 for trap.
I don't have a Skeet gun so I borrow one from my brother.

There's nothing as satisfying as hammering out a couple hundred rounds.

strop said:

For now I think I'm going to start with trap.

I offered to pay the guys for the shells. He laughed and said he had more shells at home than he could shoot in a year, and 2 barrels waiting to be reloaded. Definitely something to look into, though. At least the cost of target loads isn't as much as field loads.

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You'll be looking for a turret press shortly

You can get a multi barrel set in 12 ga. Then you can have it all (trap, skeet, and clays) in a single case.

Trap is the most addictive shooting sport. Until my shoulder reconstruction I loved it. (the shoulder was from martial arts as a kid, not shooting). Enjoy! Reloading helps keep down the costs. I was buying powder a few years ago and the guy in the line ahead of me commented that with the can he was buying he was going to reload his millionth-yep-1,000,000 shotshell!!

turtle said:

Shotgun sports are great fun. Find a range that has sporting clays if you want to have the most fun you can with a shotgun.

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+1, Sporting Clays are great fun and you get a lot of shooting in for the day

Trap and skeet can definitely be shot with the same gun. Heck, you can use one gun to shoot all of the clay sports and then take that same gun out to hunt duck, quail, and even deer.

Specialty trap guns are usually set to shoot high and are frequently break open single shots (built on an over/under frame). Skeet and field guns are usually set to shoot more dead on. And field guns sometimes have different stock dimensions as well as being lighter than dedicated clays guns. But for a beginner you don't want those specialty guns anyway. I suggest starting with a moderately priced semi auto or over/under (pump if you're real limited on cash) no matter what game you're planning on using it for. Get a long barrel and then go shoot it a lot. After a few thousand rounds of your game of choice you'll be in a much better position to decide whether a specialty gun is worth it and if so what exactly you want.

stobes21 said:

Trap and skeet can definitely be shot with the same gun. Heck, you can use one gun to shoot all of the clay sports and then take that same gun out to hunt duck, quail, and even deer.

Specialty trap guns are usually set to shoot high and are frequently break open single shots (built on an over/under frame). Skeet and field guns are usually set to shoot more dead on. And field guns sometimes have different stock dimensions as well as being lighter than dedicated clays guns. But for a beginner you don't want those specialty guns anyway. I suggest starting with a moderately priced semi auto or over/under (pump if you're real limited on cash) no matter what game you're planning on using it for. Get a long barrel and then go shoot it a lot. After a few thousand rounds of your game of choice you'll be in a much better position to decide whether a specialty gun is worth it and if so what exactly you want.

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Good advice. I started with a Beretta A303 semi many years ago. It could go from the range to the field. I don't hunt, but it could do both if needed.
A solid performer is the Remington Wingmaster 870. Extra barrels are cheap and plentiful (in comparison to other brands).
It's sturdy and well built. I had one of those at one time too.

Great job on having fun. Congratulations. The shooting sports are great fun.

Been too long for me...going on 5 years since I shot trap and skeet. I have my trusty Mossberg 500 with a modified choke barrel (fixed choke, I want interchangeable chokes, but...) I could count on shooting 50% even if it had been a few months since I shot.

You don't need the best or most expensive weapon, you need a reliable weapon that shoots straight. Boy is it fun!

Phil

Resurrecting the thread (spoooooky).

Has anyone got out this year yet?
My brother is in a league but I just can't find the time or money to get out and squeeze out a round or 10.

Funny you put this up. i just took my genius labrador hunting dog out for a swim and a walk and thought how nice it would be to go for a round of sporting clays today. Her input was to suggest some out of season poaching, but then she subscribes to a very low moral standard.

My brother was in town a couple weeks ago and I was able to take him out for his first round of sporting clays. He loved it! We also had the opportunity to put my young GSP, Shaker, on a couple quail to keep his nose alert.

Since then, I have joined a local Sportsmans club through a free one year membership as a sort of privilege of graduating from a hunter safety course in the same town. They have 2 trap fields, archery, a 22 range, and a 100 yard rifle range.

Since then, lol, my wife and I have discovered the joy of the pistol. We found another rod and gun club even closer to our house that has trap, skeet, rifle, and pistol ranges. Family memberships go for $125 a year...needless to say, we're both joining there.

*cough* and my 48 hour waiting period ends tomorrow and I'll be picking up our new Springfield Arms XDm 9mm from the FFL agent.

Shooting is fun.

I worked as a "trap boy" at a big trap/skeet/rifle range in the late 60's. Ended up being the top man of all the kids working there. Riding herd on a bunch of kids was a pain as I was a kid too.

I shot a LOT of trap and skeet back then. Wasn't unusual to shoot up half my check. Was on my squadron skeet team in the Navy and our squadron spanked some rear end as there were two of us that could routinely run 100 straight.

Quit shooting it in the mid 70's. Got back into to it in the late 90's had a sweet little Citori 4 gauge tube set. Unknown to me at the time, I had arthritis setting into my right shoulder with a vengeance. It got to where it hurt too much to enjoy. Sold the Citori, sold my big bore black powder cartridge guns that I also loved with a passion. Got a few center fires ( 6.5X55MM Swede and 7x57MM) left to hunt with.

I can still shoot an '06 every now and then.

She's in full recoil in that pic. the empty is above my left hand just out of the shadowed grass.
Happiness for me these days is a warm Garand.


I miss it but I sure do not miss the pain.

Good luck and have fun!

Can someone clear something up for me? What are the different kinds of Skeet/Trap?

I've been out twice now with a friend who is getting into the outdoors. I'm a hunter so I like shooting the courses that resemble bird hunting, but want to get into the, for lack of better word on my part, "tradional" skeet where you do the semi circle and two in the middle with high and low towers on the sides.

Also, there seems to be a few different setups for this. Some are like I said above, others are like flushing birds coming out from under you and there is yet a fourth that I am still not sure what goes on! I need to step up and befrend an older shooter and have them show me around a bit. I'd just intimidated which is not like me very much at all. I have my 870 bird gun with rattle can camo paint and don't know a thing about the sport, other than what another friend taught me before he left the state.