Sporting clays with pump Action?.

ianthomson said:
Many years ago 30 +, I was a young fellow. I only owned one gun. 870 Wing, 1953 DOM. It was my waterfowl, upland, rabbit, deer, and backyard critters gun. It racked up many miles. A buddy of mine convinced me to come to his club for the Sunday fun shoot. Showed up with my 1992 Tercel to a parking lot full of fancy stuff in the yard, and guys wearing vests, boots, gloves and funny hats. All their guns came in shiny leather briefcases, covered in felt and brass. I yanked off the old mud covered sleeve, and propped up the ole Wing, with a proud polychoke, upon the rack. NO ####, time stopped. I seen dudes swing their necks round like an owl, one old British gent even cross himself. Apparently shorts and sandals are not the shooting togs of choice, however they did let me shoot. Now just to be straight, I am not a rock star shot, I have always been a strong 60% plus shooter, BUT that day the moons were lined up, the horseshoe was chaffing bad, but every thing turned to dust for me, I know, I still don't believe it. If you think them old dudes scorned and looked down on the fat kid with a pump gun, by the end of the round, they full on hated me.... I accepted my coffee cup and hat for Top Guest Score, and only one guy clapped. So yes, you can totally shoot sporting clays/trap, skeet with a pump...
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I have heard several similar stories , but I have never witnessed it for myself, at any of the clubs that I shoot at. The only time that a shooter might be made to feel unwelcome at our clubs, is if they ignore the safety rules, are never prepared to shoot when it is their turn, or if they are constantly delaying the squad, either because they aren't familiar with their firearm, the firearm doesn't function properly, or their reloads don't work. We normally have people using a variety of actions including pump actions, I have seen a few people get upset, because the club refused to throw them any more extra targets, because the gun wouldn't cycle, or they kept forgetting about the auto safety, but they had already been thrown many extra targets for those reasons already.
 
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I run a 20" pump gun for deer hunting and pest control on the farm. I put a long barrel on it and take out for sporting clays a couple of times a year to practice working the action. Scores don't drop much.
 
The most important part of any shotgun is how well it fits you. Doesn't matter what type of action you use if you can't hit anything with it. Even something as trivial as an extra 2 inches of barrel length and an extra pound of weight between my two O/Us was huge. Took a long time to get used to swinging the heavier and longer shotgun, but now that I used to it, my scores are consistently higher in everything except skeet.
 
i do not know about high end owners but i do know that people that i shot with that were in the world championships or olympics never cared about the kind of gun but more the fitting and were more than willing to help on the technique.
 
taylorbok said:
I don't understand the issue people have with pumps. How do you forget to rack it? I have never owned a pump and immediately after pulling the trigger I am already pumping it, I can easily shoot doubles with a pump. Personally I wouldn't choose to use one but its not that hard.
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When I started trap shooting with my 870 the other guys thought it was quite comical how I couldn't shoot without instinctively racking the gun. We're only allowed 1 shell in the gun for singles which made it even funnier.

It took a few trips to the range until I could shoot without racking the gun. Was embarrassing at first....
 
Muscle memory is a funny thing, often people who shoot pumps a lot still try to pump a semi or o/u and people who don't shoot pumps a lot often forget to pump the pump, I've seem people do both. I've also seen pump guys shoot single targets with one shell in the gun and rack the slide after the first shot instead of just opening it, dang muscle memory!
 
Falconflyer said:
Muscle memory is a funny thing, often people who shoot pumps a lot still try to pump a semi or o/u and people who don't shoot pumps a lot often forget to pump the pump, I've seem people do both. I've also seen pump guys shoot single targets with one shell in the gun and rack the slide after the first shot instead of just opening it, dang muscle memory!
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I don't even know I am pumping is the funny part until there is no bang or someone laughs
When you see that you know the guys shoots a lot of rounds out of a pump and is real comfortable with it
Take care
 
Nicolas Berry is Canadian and runs a BPS at this US SC competition. He's really good... I use pumps a lot for hunting and you just cycle the action after the shot without realizing it as you can see in his slo-mo footage. If picking a pump for clays, I'd want a heavy steel one with a slick action. 870 Wingmaster, BPS, Win M12 would be the top 3 in any order depending on fit, with the Ithaca M37 in fourth just because it's a little lighter but it does have the shortest stroke for pumps. I say heavy cause it swings smoothly, has less felt recoil, and if the action is smooth your sight picture isn't perturbed while pumping as much. Also, certain pumps have raised ribs like the BPS and Benelli Nova.

 
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mosinmaster said:
Nicolas Berry is Canadian and runs a BPS at this US SC competition. He's really good... I use pumps a lot for hunting and you just cycle the action after the shot without realizing it as you can see in his slo-mo footage. If picking a pump for clays, I'd want a heavy steel one with a slick action. 870 Wingmaster, BPS, Win M12 would be the top 3 in any order depending on fit, with the Ithaca M37 in fourth just because it's a little lighter but it does have the shortest stroke for pumps. I say heavy cause it swings smoothly, has less felt recoil, and if the action is smooth your sight picture isn't perturbed while pumping as much. Also, certain pumps have raised ribs like the BPS and Benelli Nova.


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Nicolas Berry is French and lives in the US. He made the video of a Canadian shooter last year at the NSCA Nationals in NB.
 
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