Trap Gun Dilemma

The odds that he'll be happy with the gun are really in his favour !! Kind of like buying a Ferrari and wondering if it'll handle like a sports car ....
 
the spank said:
Unfortunately no....expensive experiment!
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Part of the fun with any new firearm doubly so when it's being sent to you and you haven't even laid eyes on it. There is a unique and exciting combination of eagerness and trepidation when you begin to open the box that showed up at your door.
 
BJP said:
The odds that he'll be happy with the gun are really in his favour !! Kind of like buying a Ferrari and wondering if it'll handle like a sports car ....
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I think you may be right?! ;)

Claybuster said:
Part of the fun with any new firearm doubly so when it's being sent to you and you haven't even laid eyes on it. There is a unique and exciting combination of eagerness and trepidation when you begin to open the box that showed up at your door.
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Agreed! :)

And I am not in a hotbed area of local trapshooters so it's impossible to even see these guns let alone try them unless I travel to the bigger shoots in the US and that is presently not in the cards. Hopefully soon?! :)
 
No....:(
We have been so busy at work due to this oil spill and everyone getting in their year end projects/maintenance out here that we are very short staffed. I haven't even had a chance to get out goose/duck hunting either and my hunting partner is slaying them!! :(

The weather has turned quite cool too. By the time I get a few days off to try out the gun I am sure the fellow in charge will have decided to shut the club down for the season. Last year it was closed before October 1st.
 
the spank said:
No....:(
We have been so busy at work due to this oil spill and everyone getting in their year end projects/maintenance out here that we are very short staffed. I haven't even had a chance to get out goose/duck hunting either and my hunting partner is slaying them!! :(

The weather has turned quite cool too. By the time I get a few days off to try out the gun I am sure the fellow in charge will have decided to shut the club down for the season. Last year it was closed before October 1st.
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Frank that sir is a terrible excuse! ;) I think you are just gonna have to gimme the shotgun and I'll take it through its paces! I promise not to scratch it up too bad! ;)
 
the spank said:
No....:(
We have been so busy at work due to this oil spill and everyone getting in their year end projects/maintenance out here that we are very short staffed. I haven't even had a chance to get out goose/duck hunting either and my hunting partner is slaying them!! :(

The weather has turned quite cool too. By the time I get a few days off to try out the gun I am sure the fellow in charge will have decided to shut the club down for the season. Last year it was closed before October 1st.
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Just shameful.
 
I personally would never let such a trivial thing as work get in the way of any type of clays shooting !!! I'm lucky in that our club is open 365 days a year.
 
BJP said:
I personally would never let such a trivial thing as work get in the way of any type of clays shooting !!! I'm lucky in that our club is open 365 days a year.
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Unfortunately I don't have that option any longer and my work hours overlap the clubs hours. The club is only open monday evenings and once the daylight hours leave only an hour from club opening time 5-530 pm) until too dark to shoot they close it down. :(

Edenchef said:
But, just drooling on it is even worse than dings & scratches.:stirthepot2:
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I made sure to put a good coat of wax on it! The drool doesn't penetrate the wood grain or discolour the metal that way! :xes
 
It's 8:38 pm here in SK. I just got in the door. I raced home after work since it wasn't raining for a change, grabbed my gun, vest and shooting bag and headed to the trap range. First thing I did upon arrival was head down to an empty field with a couple shooting buddies and we set up a makeshift pattern board from two 8' 2"x2" stakes with about a 40"x40" sheet of carboard stapled to them, drew the all familiar 4" black dot in the centre and set up 30 yards away as manual stated for the adjustable poi rib. I put the gun together, pulled out a caldwell shooting bag, set it atop my truck hood as a rest, loaded up, took aim at the 6 o'clock position of the target as my manual stated and fired the 3 rounds suggested in the manual then checked the poi. My pattern centre was about 12" high of the 6 o'clock position of the dot and a foot left. I discounted the left poi as we had a pretty hard wind blowing from right to left at about 80 degrees to us. So I sat down with he gun and manual, followed the directions and adjusted the rib hoping to drop the centre by 6". New cardboard stapled up we repeated the shot scenario and sure enough the poi had dropped exactly in conjunction with the stated graduated notches in the rib end to the stated amount of pattern centre movement. The wind had died considerably by this time and now I was only about 4" left of centre. Now that I knew the indicator marks on the rib did exactly as the manual stated I tweeked the rib to drop the centre by another 3" hopefully putting my pattern 3" above the black dot. However instead of shooting 3 more rounds at the cardboard I moved onto the next step, eliminating the cross firing issue my optometrist diagnosed as one of my issues. So following the doctors method my buddy helped place a shotdot on my glasses while I gave him directions which way to go with it while sighting down my gun. Next I grabbed a box of shells, dumped them in my vest pocket and waited to join a squad. Ten minutes later I was standing on station 4 with the new 687 with the 34" unsingle attached with the full choke in place and proceeded to try out my new gun in turn. I ran station 4 clean, station 5 clean, station 1 clean then messed up on station 2 with a real rookie mistake, jumping the target right out the house and shooting over top of it. I dropped two more targets both straightaways on station 3 ending my first 25 through the new gun with a 22. I sat out the next squad and junped on the one after that and broke another 22 before calling it a night. So not a super start but a fairly solid start with the new gun and the shooting dot. I believe the dot needs a slight tweaking as 3/6 targets I dropped I shot down the left side of and was able to note my sight picture had changed slightly in the swing to the target. Now my first assessment of the gun. I was quite happy with the feel in hand. The gun feels light considering it weighs 8 1/2 pounds. It swings quite smoothly and the 34" barrel was on the target quick. I was shooting Kent 1 oz 8's @ 1200 fps and the gun seemed to be shooting pretty much to where I was looking. If anything I may have adjusted the poi an 1" or 2" too low. Next time out , hopefully thursday evening I will raise it one notch which is about 1.25" at 30 yards. Most of my hits were good solid centre breaks that inkspotted the target but a few straightaways I shot the bottom edges off. Now this was also the first rounds I had shot since June so I am sure I am quite rusty too. Anyways so far in the first 50 rounds I am pleased with the gun. Its very soft shooting with the light Kents, the trigger is just the right feel for me. Nice and crisp, not too heavy or too light and no creep. Patterns on the test board with the full choke at 30 yards had about an 18" -20" heavy centre core with about a total spread of 24" that was quite evenly distributed. There were no holes or gaps. Once the wind died out completely it was easy to see the patterns that printed left had been pushed by the strong winds. Quite an eye opener to see how far that load of 8's gets moved over in a wind and at only 30 yards. Shooting handicap from the 27 my pattern would have moved a foot already by the time it cleared the traphouse!! :sok2
 
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Always have. I like a tight choke. Lightest I ever shoot is an IM. I'll drop down to it next time out. And who knows maybe I'll do a bit of patterning and experimenting with the other chokes? I SOOO like ink spots though. They are confidence building and put my mind in the groove!
 
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Glad you're having a good time with your new toy !

Sounds to me like you need a tad more cast-off and a bit more comb height (attained via the adjustable comb) . Dialing the POI in from a static position is one thing, but the dynamics of shouldering, mounting and swinging the gun at the line can introduce a few new variables. We seldom can get everything to line up so firmly as we do from a good rest as to the gun mounted from a standing position while standing on the pad !

Full or even I/M at 16 yds. can be unforgiving ... why not go with Mod. until your running some straights and then tighten up ? You should be able to get very good breaks (maybe not "smoke") at 16 ... then break out the 7-1/2's and the I/M and Full for Handicap. 100 targets, crushed, still beats 99 inkballs. ;)

Resist making too many changes until you run a few flats down the tubes !!!
 
I plan to head out tomorrow evening weather permitting and run 4-6 boxes through it. I was toying with the idea of using a mod choke. I may put the mod in and put a few rounds on paper first to see what the pattern looks like? From behind the gun the targets to me always appear to be further away than where I am actually catching up to them. Those behind the line figure I am catching them about the 32 yard mark? Looks like 52 to me with my new eyes!! LOL
 
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