Clay Shooters are an "Interesting" Bunch

[fishoholic]

2 things....Hole spacing must be very carefully measured for synthetic stock guns. LOP (Length of Pull) can't readily be adjusted (a few synthetic guns had pieces that can be removed and spacers can be had to fine tune the LOP).
On a wood stocked shotgun, the stock can be cut to offset the added LOP. In fact, you can even use a thicker pad it can be made to any LOP by varying stock length and thickness of Kickeez pad.
There are other pads specifically made for various shotguns, but I have been very happy with the Kickeez pads on my Guerini and my Ruger 77 in 338 Mag. I used to work for Scott's Gunsmithing and he is a fan of these pads as they not only work very well, but tend to grind and finish very well when hand fitting.

I never messed with synthetic stocks except for some hunting guns, but I put a falcon strike on one K-80 pro sporting. I also run a Kickeez on a Kolar with only a bench sander and some fine grit sandpaper and steel wool. just check the screw spacing and order accordingly.

 

[emerald]

I'm late to this thread and far from an expert in clays, but as I skim through and think about the reaction you received on that FB group, wow, who'd have thought I could have so much fun shooting some clays on Sundays with a couple of friends and my grandfather's 1100? Sounds like it should have been impossible. Who'd have thought.

 

[trickg]

I wanted to update this thread because of another wild experience I had on the FB group.

I went back on to update a thread on another group - not even the one where I got so much grief.

The next thing I knew, I was being harassed by the same two people who harassed me in the other group, and since they were just so so nice, I'm going to name them by name:

1. Gary Fitzjarrell
2. Yim Lun Szeto

Gary apparently has a place on his family farm that is now pretty much exclusively a shotgun club called FLC Outfitters, and I guess he's a champion clay shooter as well. Gary also represents Aguila Ammunition in some form or fashion.

Yim is also a competitive shooter, and as mentioned before, she works for the Midway USA Foundation. I wonder how Larry Potterfield would feel if he knew that one of the folks representing his company was being a social media online bully. Additionally, she worked for Mossberg and represents Blaser in some form or fashion.

I'm not sure what I did to incur their wrath, but apparently Gary is an admin on the group and decided to flex his adminly muscle and give me 24 hour timeout from posting on the site.

I know that those two certainly have a long laundry list of credentials, but sheesh, does this give them the right to be straight up @$$h01e$ to someone like me, legitimately looking for solutions that don't involve spending thousands of dollars? Cleary those two think they are Big Deals, and their suggestions and opinions shalt not be questioned or thoust shall faceth thy wrath. For what it's worth, I had no clue who either one of them were prior to joining that group. How dare me!

Seriously, I'm a bit taken aback. I know that I can be opinionated on certain things, but I'm not sure that I'm just flat out argumentative. Not only were they not helpful, they harassed me because I questioned whether or not their suggestions, which amounted to me having to spending thousands of dollars, were absolutely necessary to get my wife started with shooting trap.

Thank goodness the folks at the AGC trap ranges aren't like that because if I'd experienced attitudes like what I saw on that group, I'd have quit!

 

[MaxVO2]

I wanted to update this thread because of another wild experience I had on the FB group.



I know that those two certainly have a long laundry list of credentials, but sheesh, does this give them the right to be straight up @$$h01e$ to someone like me, legitimately looking for solutions that don't involve spending thousands of dollars? Cleary those two think they are Big Deals, and their suggestions and opinions shalt not be questioned or thoust shall faceth thy wrath. For what it's worth, I had no clue who either one of them were prior to joining that group. How dare me!

Seriously, I'm a bit taken aback. I know that I can be opinionated on certain things, but I'm not sure that I'm just flat out argumentative. Not only were they not helpful, they harassed me because I questioned whether or not their suggestions, which amounted to me having to spending thousands of dollars, were absolutely necessary to get my wife started with shooting trap.

Thank goodness the folks at the AGC trap ranges aren't like that because if I'd experienced attitudes like what I saw on that group, I'd have quit!

****They are big fish in a very small pond. Glad you met up with people willing to help you and not have the elitist BS attitude you experienced. This happens with other groups unrelated to firearms - cars, bikes, horses, dogs, minor sports nobody has heard of or cares about for the most part (NOT CrossFit because *everybody* has heard about CrossFit! ), etc..

Anyway, some people get really hung up on equipment and minutia and argue endlessly over stuff that is just frankly silly to anyone who has a life outside of whatever activity is being considered as a hobby. It's most likely not healthy to be that obsessive about anything and not nice to actively make someone new to a hobby feel like an idiot, or unwelcome. Not the best way to make friends and/or influence people. Some famous dude wrote a book about that once - maybe twice.

Sorry this happened to you.

 

[smdub]

The more money you can put into a sport the bigger dicks you will find.

 

[Biggfoot44]

I have a 1000% foolproof strategy to never have Facebook harassment.

 

[teratos]

The more money you can put into a sport the bigger dicks you will find.

Live pigeon shooting still a thing?

 

[Doco Overboard]

Live pigeon shooting still a thing?

Yes, but more than likely your not going to shoot your own gun.
Or ammo.
If your good/lucky enough you could quickly upgrade your current personal gear in short order.
If you get to shoot at all in the first place it may be a better option to split your ticket with someone who is.

 

[trickg]

I have a 1000% foolproof strategy to never have Facebook harassment.

I hear you - there was a point where I considered dumping FB altogether, but I'm a member of a few groups that I quite enjoy - a couple of reloaders groups, a Dan Wesson group, a couple of optics groups, a precision rifle group, etc. You know, those PRS shooters aren't dicks at all, (at least not that I've experienced) and a person can wrap a whole lotta money into a really high-end precision gun. I figured that the clay shooters groups would be similar.

Nope! Not even close. There are some good folks, but there are definitely some elitist jerks.

 

[fabsroman]

You should try being me on this chatboard. lol Granted, I can send the poo right back without hesitation, and with a smile.

 

[PapiBarcelona]

There’s definitely a lot of butthurt

on warringtons old website a few years, they had something like this plastered right on their home page “Papi Barcelona is BANNED for life from Warrington Sporting Clays!!!”

Seemed hella sus to put that on a website like that, I googled the guys name and he was like top level shooter.

One the times our group was there someone asked what was up with that and evidently he was leasing them target throwers. They said he showed up and took them before a big shoot without notice

of course they didn’t tell us why, but it do be like money was involved in his decision to repossess his equipment

 

[PoPo3]

I didn’t read every reply so I may be overlapping some answers. Find a shotgun in your price range. If you can afford an O/U, probably better because it’s probably a little heavier (mitigate felt recoil).

Browning makes a bt-99 micro which is a shortened LOP single barrel specifically designed for trap. Problem is, a smaller gun, usually a lighter gun. You can do things to make it heavier, but that almost always means modifying the gun and some people don’t want to “ruin” a stock gun.

A good recoil pad, either bought or already on the gun. They help. Lastly, ammo selection. You can find “light” 12 loads that don’t kick much. 7/8-1 ounce loads in the 1145 fps range. Much easier on the shoulder than some “high handicap” loads that stuff 1 1/8 ounce of shot between 1250-1290 fps.

 

[trickg]

I didn’t read every reply so I may be overlapping some answers. Find a shotgun in your price range. If you can afford an O/U, probably better because it’s probably a little heavier (mitigate felt recoil).

Browning makes a bt-99 micro which is a shortened LOP single barrel specifically designed for trap. Problem is, a smaller gun, usually a lighter gun. You can do things to make it heavier, but that almost always means modifying the gun and some people don’t want to “ruin” a stock gun.

A good recoil pad, either bought or already on the gun. They help. Lastly, ammo selection. You can find “light” 12 loads that don’t kick much. 7/8-1 ounce loads in the 1145 fps range. Much easier on the shoulder than some “high handicap” loads that stuff 1 1/8 ounce of shot between 1250-1290 fps.

That's almost exactly the direction we went - in fact, I just went and picked it up tonight. It's the BT-99 Micro with adjustable Length of Pull. She's shot this same gun owned by another member who shoots trap out there with us, and it works pretty well for her.

I reload - bought a shotshell reloading setup - and it was already set up for 1-1/8 oz loads, but I'm going to tool up and get it adjusted to reload 1 oz loads too so that way she has something that won't beat her up so bad, although we're going to try the 1-1/8 oz loads to see if she can handle those. If she can, it could be that we've take all the steps necessary to get her going.

Dang - that's $3K worth of shotguns I've bought in the last couple of months! (Although I'm also very aware that this is a drop in the bucket compared to what CAN be spent.)

 

[PoPo3]

Sweet. Glad you found something that will work. Those micros are cool guns for smaller shooters. She will enjoy it I’m sure.

 

[Boondock Saint]

That's almost exactly the direction we went - in fact, I just went and picked it up tonight. It's the BT-99 Micro with adjustable Length of Pull. She's shot this same gun owned by another member who shoots trap out there with us, and it works pretty well for her.

I reload - bought a shotshell reloading setup - and it was already set up for 1-1/8 oz loads, but I'm going to tool up and get it adjusted to reload 1 oz loads too so that way she has something that won't beat her up so bad, although we're going to try the 1-1/8 oz loads to see if she can handle those. If she can, it could be that we've take all the steps necessary to get her going.

Dang - that's $3K worth of shotguns I've bought in the last couple of months! (Although I'm also very aware that this is a drop in the bucket compared to what CAN be spent.)

Don't you know that you're a dingleberry for not spending $2,000 on a choke for a $14K gun?

 

[trickg]

Don't you know that you're a dingleberry for not spending $2,000 on a choke for a $14K gun?

Those turds on the "Clay Shooting!" FB group seemed to think I needed to spend thousands on a Krieghoff shotgun and then have it fitted with a $3500 custom and fully adjustable stock, and of course all of this needed to be done by traveling hundreds of miles to some wizened ol shotgun fitting guru.

I mean, how dare I think that maybe we could successfully dip the toe in the water by putting a Magpul SGA on an 870!

 

[STeveZ]

I would be interested in the names of the FB groups since I find pompous ajoles kind of amusing. Also "champion" sporting clays shooters seem to be plentiful since I meet another one every year or two.

 

[remrug]

Live pigeon shooting still a thing?

I went to one once.....

 

[Bigsawer]

I mean, how dare I think that maybe we could successfully dip the toe in the water by putting a Magpul SGA on an 870!

You may have said this tongue-in-cheek but my old 500 went from ok on the line to making me look good after installing an SGA. Apparently my frame likes it.

 

[trickg]

You may have said this tongue-in-cheek but my old 500 went from ok on the line to making me look good after installing an SGA. Apparently my frame likes it.

I was actually serious about it. I would have been able to adjust LOP - my wife's main issue with sizing a shotgun - by 1/2" increments to a pretty suitable fit, and it comes with a pretty nice recoil pad. That would have cost considerably less that what we ended up doing.

Ultimately we ended up getting her into a Browning BT-99 Micro with a Graco adjustable LOP setup, and I got a good deal on it by stacking discounts (10% member discount with a 5% military) so she has a solid gun to use now. The good news is that she LOVES the fact that her very first real gun that she can claim as being "hers" is a Browning - unadorned, but still beautiful as it is simple and functional.

We went out to public trap at AGC again tonight and she's picking things up pretty well She was stuck on 9/25 the last few times we went out. It was uncanny that every round seemed to be a 9. She broke into double digits tonight with a 12, and she was pretty stoked by that. More importantly, she's figuring out where her pattern is going. Once she dials in a bit more, she's going to be giving me a run for my money in no time!