
Trials of a Tyro Trap-Shooter 
When a man has been a reasonably good 
shot in the field, and, eventually, takes to trap- 
shooting, he has, like the little bear, all his 
troubles before him, The shooting itself is by 
no means as easy as it looks, and the man who 
can kill a dozen snipe straight will find it in- 
finitely harder to break ten targets without 
skipping one. The mark is about the size of an 
English sparrow, and the tyro, at least, will 
hardly catch it ere forty or perhaps forty-five 
yards have intervened between the gun and the 
object. Now, at forty yards it requires a pretty 
good gun to make a pattern that will not allow 
one out of five of those thin, elusive, saucer- 
shaped things -to slip between the pellets, 
escaping the fate that should have been theirs— 
for the time being, at least. 
Then there is the dislocation of the nervous 
system, a malady akin to buck fever, from 
which the beginner is sure to suffer when he 
stands out before his fellows and finds that he 
is the ‘“‘cynosure” of all eyes. After due 
deliberation, he cries ‘‘Pull,” in a voice filled 
with emotion, and, at once, a tiny platter speeds 
on its way with the rapidity of a blue-winged 
teal going down wind, and unless he is a re- 
markably promising tyro, his shot is just a 
trifle too slow for good work. 
But trap-shooting is, after all, somewhat 
mechanical, and there can be no doubt that 
many men excel at it who would not be phe- 
nomenally successful in the field. A combina- 
tion of trap-shooting in the spring and summer 
with steady doses of field shooting in the autumn 
should, however, bring out all the latent skill 
a man may possess. 
Eyesight counts for more in trap-shooting 
than in most other diversions. The target 
leaves the trap so swiftly and emerges from 
behind the screen in such a tremendous hurry 
_ that a slow eye is badly handicapped. All good 
shots get their eye on the target at the earliest 
possible moment, and follow it until it begins 
to slacken, then they cut loose, taking care not 
to slacken their swing in the least while pressing 
the trigger. Even so, unless the gun be point- 
ing well ahead when the shot leaves the muzzle, 
a miss must result in quartering shots. These 
require a lead of at least six feet and sometimes 
half as much again. This means at forty yards 
a muzzle swing ahead of at least two inches. 
All of which is very easy to figure out, but the 
bearing of such observations lies in their 
application. 
The tyro learns as soon as he takes to trap- 
shooting that there is a vast difference in guns, 
and a much greater difference in loads. He 
realizes, as he never realized before, that the 
shot should be strictly proportionate to the size 
of the object at which he is shooting; that the 
powder must be wisely chosen and accurately 
weighed, and that there is wadding and wad- 
ding. He becomes suspicious of ‘“‘cheap”’ 
shells, and absolutely hates the good old 
cylinder that so often made up for his erratic 
aim by scattering the shot all over the middle 
distance. Nothing but a full choke is of value 
when a man faces the fast-flying target, and 
this means close holding, as the killing circle 
is not much over twenty-six inches. One finds 
a certain divergence of opinion even among the 
trap shots “‘ whose names are household words’’; 
yet on many points there is unanimity. For 
instance, all seem to use No. 74 shot of some 
350 pellets to the ounce; few choose shells 
shorter than 23 in.; the lowest charge of powder 
is 3 drams, or its equivalent, while many use 
3 to 34. A good §-inch of wadding is inserted 
between the powder and shot, though the wad 
combinations are endless. These loads with 
modern shells and guns do very regular shoot- 
ing—and yet, sad to say, all this may be ren- 
dered null and void by some such trifle as a 
welsh rabbit after the theater on the previous 
evening, or a too heavy luncheon just before 
going to the mark. 
We have had a lot of letters from revolver 
cranks, and now I hope RECREATION will be 
favored with some trap-shooters. As _ for 
myself, I don’t go in much for homicide, though 
I think there are plenty of people who should 
commit har-kri (spelling not guaranteed), 
while I do take a lively interest in the shotgun 
and think trap-shooting worthy of encourage- 
ment. At any rate, trap-shooting promises to 
do away with the ancient and horrible chestnut 
—g-g-grandfather’s old muzzle-loader that 
