748 
F O REST AND S T REAM 
The Lure of Trap Shooting is Irresistible 
It is a Sport That is Bringing a New Army of Red Blooded Men and Women into the Ranks and its Future 
Was Never Brighter 
By Fred. O. Copeland. 
FEW weeks ago a letter came to 
me from the hand of an old 
old friend and in it he assured 
me he was greatly elated at 
having shot at fifteen clay tar¬ 
gets and broken them all with 
a gun he had picked up at ran¬ 
dom in a sporting goods store. 
Shortly after I had assured him of my joy at 
his success a second letter was received and his 
heart was “full of sad” for he had been out to 
a gun club where things are done in a business¬ 
like way and had broken but half his birds, nor 
could he lift the average as long as he stayed. 
It developed that in the first instance he had 
stood near the trap and in the second case the 
targets jumped way out there sixteen yards and 
hardly could he get his gun and himself together 
after each shot before it was his turn again. 
But, mind you, he assured me he was going there 
again and find out why he could not hit more 
than fifty per cent, and I secretly suspect why 
things seemed so hurried. Little he dreams he 
has entered the fold, come home to the trap- 
shooter’s roost, .and will go again and again 
till we hear him speak out in terms of trap¬ 
shooting, calling the trophies, “junk,” saying, “I 
slobbered that second bird when only a piece 
fell out, and don’t that number two trap sling a 
rank angle.” 
Easy, indeed, is it to miss the Blue Rocks un¬ 
less one knows of the little things that count. 
Do you know how small a circle of seven and 
one-half chilled pellets you are throwing out 
there where they should collide with the target? 
If you shoot in as good time as you ought to, to 
be consistent, a fourteen inch ruler is long 
enough to measure the pattern’s spread. The 
usual gun stock is but a fraction over fourteen 
inches in length, it would not look over large 
hanging out there in the air. I fell to thinking 
this same thing over a few years ago and with 
the help of two other worthies to mark the dis¬ 
tance the targets broke by standing well to one 
side and facing at right angles to the fast fifty 
yard straightaways, we soon had the distance on 
a tape line. 
Measuring the same distance from a paper 
target I shortly had a pattern nicely on the paper 
when we all moved forward to scan the records. 
Three scared faces was the result. It is true 
the clay targets with which the distance had 
been gauged were broken in as fast time as that 
of a most hopeful and perspiring professional 
on a July day when the man from the other 
company is one behind, going strong and hittin’ 
’urn hard. Assuredly one illuminating thought 
shines high and clear as a result of this little 
experiment. Both eyes must be kept open, not 
only because you can see better, but because it 
brings out all your natural pointing instinct and 
by the same sign eliminates the personal error ot 
the “one eye” artist. Pointing alone can enable 
a man to so unerringly follow a sharp quarter- 
Good Health One of the Leading Symptoms. 
ing target that he is unaware that he has led 
it nor can he explain how he kept his gun mov¬ 
ing. At sixteen yards’ rise a man is not aware 
of leading a target but at the extreme distance, 
the twenty-three yard mark, he is quite con¬ 
scious of lead, and the careful judgment neces¬ 
sary to cut down a fast quartering target at this 
distance brings with it the highest degree of 
pleasure. Considering the fact that all the great 
Interstate classics are run on the distance handi¬ 
cap system there is too little of this shooting at 
the usual gun club. 
We have all read what the best weapon for 
breaking clay targets is like in all its four and 
now five types, i. e., double barrel, pump, auto, 
single barrel trap and in these last days over and 
under barrel gun. Many shooters are continu¬ 
ally trying to better their shooting mechanically 
by an ever changing array of guns. It seems 
rather a pity to tell a gun good-bye that has 
brought home even one trophy that is dear to 
your heart. It costs no more to buy a gun at 
the factory where you can be properly measured 
for it than the one that comes off the pile in the 
store. “Try-guns” are now being demonstrated 
at shoots by trade representatives. The stocks 
of these guns can be veritably moulded to any 
face or shoulder, and my word for it, in either 
case your line of sight will not be allowed far 
from the neighborhood of one-quarter of an 
inch over the breech, the place it should be. As 
you and your gun season yourselves together 
there springs up a friendship that is ever lack¬ 
ing in the often-change artist. 
Many are the times I have heard a man say, 
“I can’t, follow the trapshooting game. Why, 
the only time I tried it I shot only twenty-five 
loads and you should have seen my shoulder—it 
was black and blue from,”—and they will point 
all the way from their wrist, up the arm, over 
the shoulder and down as far as the waist. 
“So was mine, the first time,” you remind 
them, “but if you had had a length of stock that 
fitted you you would have soon acquired the 
trick of taking the recoil with your arms and 
in fact whole body, and could shoot all day till 
you sickened of it and never show a mark or 
feel any lameness.” 
The average stock is much too short; many 
would be surprised to know they could shoot a 
fifteen inch length. Some of us like two little 
ivory sights on our guns and we get laughed at 
a good deal about it, but it is we who laugh the 
loudest. 
“You never see those sights when you shoot, 
do you,” they’ll say. “Of course I never see 
them or I could never hit anything,” I answer, 
“but I can tell you this—at the end of a long 
hard day’s program when the light is bad and 1 
may be a little careless, they do seem very com¬ 
fortable nicely lining my gun for me just before 
I call for my target.” 
Because dense powder makes me snort like a 
draught horse is no reason why no one else 
should use it. A man will learn more about the 
relative merits of powder in a season of steady 
attendance at the traps than he will in a life¬ 
time gunning for upland game. In a one day’s 
program of two hundred birds he may do more 
shooting than in the full season after live birds 
