Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns My boy wants to join the high school Trap team

Skill comes before patterns.....

Give a top flight trap shooter a new gun and IC choke, and odds are he will run 100 from the 16 shortly.....

Mr. Don't pattern. Mr. Don't check POA vs POI. Again.

It is NOT just for safety though that is a good point.

O/U is also the gun you WANT for shooting clay sports of all kinds. They are not complicated and you can clean it right there at the range in 5 minutes. Cleaning semi autos every hundred or so rounds is a REAL hassle and then you've got the failure to feed if you use it on any of the other shooting sports where you are shooting doubles. They chuck your empties out on the ground unless you spend MORE money on a catcher. O/U you open it up and there they are. Take it out and put it in your bag and get another one to put in.

Go WATCH people shoot on a club trap range for and hour. There is a reason they do what they do and use what they use.

You don't have to spend big sums to get a decent entry level O/U trap gun. Not to say this is the BEST, just that it is one. I looked them over good and I liked the Weatherby Orion with an adjustable stock for instance. About $1000.

Definitely....and again.

However, you originally posted patterns and said nothing re POA vs POI...until now...

Have always thought patterning essentially a waste of time...but POI is something else altogether....

And there is also a reason that the young and older crowds often use a SA...

Only use it as a backup now, but an A400 like the OP just bought had 30,000 some rounds fired with 5 malfunctions total...and was cleaned internally perhaps another 5-6 times. The rest of the time it was only wiped down on the outside.

Addition: There have been Sporting Clay World Championships won with SA's, recently and it will happen again...

Battue experience with automatics is quite different than mine. A lot of high school teams don’t shoot a lot so maybe a auto will be fine. I’ve never seen a auto go anywhere near 200K with out major work. Matter of fact I never seen one go a complete season without a break down of some kind (average kid about 10K rounds).

No doubt something will break with 200,000...But the fix is easy..New trigger, recoil spring, gas valve, bolt may crack, firing pin...Mostly no big deal.

Then again, it depends on the brand...Beretta and Benelli are usually solid...

Krieghoff O/U recommends a maintenance function check at around 30 to 40 K and will be a $300 dollar bill...Had two Perazzi barrel mid ribs come loose from shooting them hot for extended practice sessions...$595. each...

99% of your shooting has been clay. 99% of my shooting has been game or pests. You would be one that would use #6 shot with cylinder choke on canada geese going for the "head" shot. I have always said POA vs POI . GFY. City boy. City boy.

Your experience is showing...And good chance I have knocked more Birds out of the sky then you....by more than a little. Maybe not, but that wasn't the issue...

Started out in Tidal, Pa...look up the population. Then moved to a small Pa mill town and grew up there...What else you have that is wrong and Bullsheet....Keep going, it is revealing on a couple levels....

Addition: Looked up the population and it isn't even listed....The post office did close however...........in 1940.

You can't fix stupid.

My apologizes, I never meant to insinuate you were stupid... Ignorant for sure, but you proved that without any help from me.

The long ago discontinued Winchester Super-X model 1 can go 200K rounds with ease.

Hello Battue, this thread caught my interest and I saw your name and had to write. A bit before the global lock down I found the sport of shooting moving clay targets great fun. As a result I bought 2 gas guns and an over/under ( I'm in my shotgun phase) so I could participate. As an absolute rookie, I made a couple of random observations while shooting trap.

My best score has been with the SA.

Seems with the O/U I get more of the target with better breaks and not just chipping them. Gun fit? 60/40? What would cause this?

The SA doesn't beat me to death, 75 birds with the O/U and I'm about done. Watched women's Olympic skeet, all using O/U's and I'm completely humiliated.

Bought the O/U new, it's one of the B guns and it was stiff as a board opening. Triggered my tennis elbow in my left arm it did.

It was nice to not have to walk around and pick up all my hulls.

Fast forward 2 years and now my daughter at age 12 is showing some interest ( I showed her the Youtube video of Dania Vizzi shooting skeet). Need to find her a shotgun that fits and was thinking a gas SA 20 gauge. Am I going down the right road or would you advise a 28? I need to develope and hold her interest on this one, dad needs a hunting partner.

Battue and I don't always agree on every little thing but he is spot on in this thread. I coach a team of kids and have for many years. Two of the boys I coached for several years are now shooting international trap at the very highest level. I run a bunch of Beretta semi-autos and every one of them has held up incredibly well. Not one has needed any sort of significant repair, and some have over 100K rounds through them.

The key to turning your daughter into a happy hunting partner is two things -- you MUST keep recoil to a minimum and you must get her good coaching. The coaching may be hard to come by but you can solve the recoil concern by getting her a Beretta A400 20-ga. For 12 yr olds I have a 391 and an A400, both 20-ga, that I enlarged the gas ports in the barrel (with a long drill bit), so that the gun will cycle properly even with very light loads, which is all I want them to ever shoot. I buy them Fiocchi 20-ga Trainer loads, which are a "28-ga load" (meaning 3/4 oz) in a 20-ga hull, with a low muzzle velocity. With the old 391s I had to also add a bit of weight to the front of the magazine tube to get them to cycle with small kids, but all the A400s need is the gas ports enlarged. Warning though, doing it wrong can result in needing to buy a new barrel. You might also have to buy another barrel is she ever wants to shoot big waterfowl loads in the gun. No big deal, spare barrels can be had for $300 - 400.

The 20-ga A400 with the Kick-Off (recoil reduction) system is WONDERFUL for bigger kids, and with one they can shoot regular 20-ga loads (which are cheaper and easier to find). However, on a 12 yr old girl the KO is probably not going to work (the kid does not weigh enough and the gun moves them back instead of working the piston in the Kick-Off). Nevertheless, if I were you I would buy her an A400 "Upland" 20-ga with the KO system and a 28" barrel. The beauty of it is that, unlike the older Beretta KO systems, which are on the butt of the stock, preventing you from changing the LOP, the Upland KO is in the middle of the stock. You can therefore shorten the stock if need be. Just save the piece of wood you cut off because you will want to glue it back on in a couple of years. And, sooner or later the KO system WILL work for her, and trust me, the way they reduce recoil (when they work) is very, very nice. There is a price to be paid for that recoil reduction, and that is that the gun with it must be cleaned more often than a regular A400 without one. Not a big deal, and well worth it.

As for "chokes," all she is going to need (whether shooting trap, skeet, sporting or pheasants) for at least the next 12 months is an IC choke. I do not like the extended chokes because unless I LocTitle them in they shoot loose too easily, and a loose choke can result in a destroyed barrel. The 20-ga Upland comes with flush chokes (IC, Mod and Full) which stay in a hundred times better than the extended ones do.

Good luck, and enjoy the journey.

The SuperX model 1 is a city boy shotgun. Have 4 of them..

Recently received the last issue of Clay Target Nation-mostly comes to us here in the cities💪-and there were two articles that had pics of shooters using SX Model 1’s. Discontinued 40 years ago, and still out there shucking shells..

I guarantee you will never regret that choice! He MAY want to upgrade to an O/U in a couple of years, but I still think shooting a S/A for at least a year is the way to go. And, if you ever do want to sell it you will get most of your money back, as Beretta S/A's hold their value extremely well.

Now do two things -- first, take the stock off and flip (or exchange) the shim (between the stock and the action) to where you have raised the comb to its maximum and have just a smidge of cast away from his face (to the right for a right-hander). The gun will come with 2 shims -- one in the gun and one out. Most likely you will need to just flip the installed one over, and perhaps invert it, to get the setting you want.

It is, of course, not possible for me to fit a shotgun to someone I have not even seen, but, what I have recommended will be optimal for about 90% of boys out there.

Second, order and install the Briley Mfg. bolt release for the gun. You do not need the after-market bolt handle they also sell, but he will need the bolt release, as the factory button is a thumb-killer.

Bartman,

Rimfire answered your questions much better than I ever would have.

Rimfire,

About the only thing I’m not in agreement with you on would have to do with stocks cracking....other than that, you seem to have the experience to validate your opinions.

Since dad does not really know much about this stuff, how about letting the coach worry about those things?

Also, your childish insults are tiresome.

That was just a case of your experience being a little different from mine, and it is not a big deal anyway because I would certainly never tell someone to not buy a beautifully figured stock just because I think it would be a little more likely to crack than a plain-wood stock.

Coach...And there is one of your best points..

Nothing will get a new shooter-young or old-breaking more targets consistently than a good coach..Not 2inch extended chokes, not even the newest gun for the game..A good coach starts one out with the fundamentals of how to hit, and without a solid foundation consistency will always be the Dog chasing its tail. A really good coach will make stock adjustments on the fly. A good coach will read your breaks in the sky and tell you how your pattern is for the game you are playing. A good coach will tell you how to use your eyes to the best advantage. Something most never figure out on their own.