Trap Gun for youth.

pfosted

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Looking for a good shotgun for youth trap shooting.
10-17 years old.
our club is interested in getting a few for youth to use.
preferably in 12 gauge, but any sugestions would be helpful.

PFO
 
A 12ga for a 15-17 yr old may work ok, but if you want a 10 yr old to ever come back you may want to have something a little lighter (in gun and recoil) available. A Semi in 28ga might work better for a child 10-12, and 20ga for 13 and over.

A good gas semi really helps with the recoil. An O/U generally requires less maintenance. My club went through (and effectively destroyed) two semi's before we picked up a few O/Us (a 12ga and a 20ga which are still working well) .

Brad.
 
Beretta makes an excellent youth trap gun with the 391 Parelle Target RL. It comes with two recoil pads to allow for different LOP's. They are pretty pricey though. Personly I'd look for a couple of well used BT-99's , older Beretta 303's or 870 Trap's. They can be found for a few hundered $$ or less if you look hard. Then I'd add an adjustable LOP to them which the hardware can be had for about $60 US. To keep recoil down Kent sells 7/8oz and 1oz loads that are 1200fps and very soft. Keeping a few plastic blocks of different thickness's with the different shooters name on them will alow for quick changes in LOP by slideing them between parts on the adj. LOP. That way each shooter always has a gun that will fit them. My 12yr old shoots the 391 I mentioned but started on a modified 870 with 7/8oz loads just before he turned 11.

Tim
 
the problem with buying "hunting" use guns is that typically the pattern will be 50/50..... which is fine fore hunting, but for trap I like a dedicated trap barrel that shoots a 70/30 pattern so you get those rising birds.

for a club, stick with 870 Wingmaster or the express model but suggest to them they switch out the factory barrels for the remington 30" trap barrels......

even the 26" - 30" VR express model 870's will work fine and require less learninf curve then a semiauto....

stick with 1oz super lite "AA" loads in #8 shot and you will have a great gun for kids.... remember to buy guns with WOOD stocks so you can cut one or two down to a 12" LOP for women or small boys.
 
Baikal makes a single shot 12 "Trap gun" has silver reciver, ported bbl, ventilated rib and choke tubes I think they can be had for around $300 or so.

I was going to get one last year but they were about $100 cheaper then.

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Red Star said:
20ga would do just fine.. smaller kids 28ga -.410 would do fine!
There is one major problem with .410. I will never recommend it as a beginner's gun. The .410 has light recoil but it is an expert's gun, kids who start out on 410 will appreciate the low recoil but will be quickly discouraged by not hitting anything. I have seen this many times.
 
bill c68 said:
There is one major problem with .410. I will never recommend it as a beginner's gun. The .410 has light recoil but it is an expert's gun, kids who start out on 410 will appreciate the low recoil but will be quickly discouraged by not hitting anything. I have seen this many times.
+1
I've seen seasoned shooters nearly quit because of the .410. You wouldn't think there would be so much difference between a 28ga at 3/4oz and a .410 at 1/2oz.... but that extra half oz seems to make a world of difference.

Brad.
 
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