FOREST AND STREAM 
()7(J 
Reforming Trap Shooters’ Conditions 
An Article Wherein is Outlined a Means of Enjoying the Sport Alluring at Small Cost 
Once there was a misguided elevated railroad 
that allowed a baking powder company to tack 
tin advertising signs on the “risers,” the vertical 
portion of the stairs on every flight on the rail¬ 
road system. The signs stayed up only three 
months, then they had to take them down. Every¬ 
body was kicking against them. (Goak) 
The present trap conditions are like those tin 
signs— and it looks as if they would have to 
take them down too. 
The Interstate Association sent out return 
postals to everybody suspected of being impli¬ 
cated at any time in trap shooting. Said postals 
inquire whether said suspect would prefer the 
distance increased to 18 yards, or the shot charge 
cut down to IJ4 oz. 
Now there are a lot of folks who will merely 
say “Fudge!” in reply to said postals. The 
changes suggested are not worth the postals they 
are printed upon. 
Let us consider together the things that are 
not as they should be in the trap game, and then 
how they are best made sweet and holy. 
First, the game is too easy—for some people. 
If you didn’t add this qualification some fellow 
with a memory of two birds broken in twenty 
shots would kill you off. This here long run 
business is nearly run into the ground. In no 
shooting game should the mark be such that 
it has not gotten something on the shooter. Here 
in the shooting game, when Captain Richards 
went to work and managed to stick 14 bulls out 
of 15 shots in the three foot at 1,200, divers 
crabbers wanted right away to stick the target 
back to 2,000 yards. Apparently they are afraid 
Richards would do it again. 
Never a thought did they give to the sixtv- 
seven hundred, five hundred and forty-seven 
fellows who could not make 14 bulls out of 15 
shots at 800 yards, let alone 1,200. Anyhow, that’s 
the way they are in the rifle shooting game, 
they want to make the bullseye inaccessible, re¬ 
served, very hard to commune with even by such 
a shark as Captain Richards. 
In the other game, where they holler “Pull!” 
and got pushed good and proper the next in¬ 
stant, they’ve got things on the other basis. They 
want to break them all. 
One professional has a record in the last five 
years of something better than fifty runs of 100 
birds straight—and some of the runs went up 
to the 200 bird mark. 
It’s got so 90% is nothing, it would hardly pull 
back the price of the entry and ammunition in a 
big shoot. When it gets to such a point that 
you can’t sort out the sheep from the goats 
short of say 200 shots, then it’s time to make 
thines harder. 
The second indictment is that the game costs 
like sin. Counting in the clay, the trapping, and 
the shell, each statement of pull by a competitor 
costs him about 4 cents. Out on the coast it 
costs nearer 5. It is not etiquette to refer to 
such unfortunates in print, but nevertheless there 
are a lot of fellows that like to shoot, but that 
cannot segregate five sheckels for a hundred 
birds from the family funds twice a month, and 
not find out about it when it comes to buying 
that new suit. No man with a family and mak¬ 
ing around $100 a month can afford to buck 
the trap game in very earnest fashion. The 
statistics show that among the lower classes— 
not naming you and me—there are a whole stack 
of fellows who don’t grab more than said $100 
from the paymaster. 
The third indictment is that the present loads 
kick unduly hard. Either the gun must be heavy, 
and therefore hard to handle speedily for a day’s 
program, or else it pokes the little man all 
round the shooting yard. This being thus, the 
big man has it on the little fellow, because he 
can handle an eight pound, 34 inch cannon, and 
get by with it. Also he is not pushed clear back 
into the grandstand when he pulls the trigger. 
It is not good medicine to make any shooting 
game such that size counts for anything. 
Colonel Colt made all men the same size in the 
shooting game, and it is up to the Interstate not 
to undo the Colonel’s work. Size seems to be 
mainly an accident, or perhaps heredity, and filial 
affection should be enough to prevent the little 
trap shooter from going around and kidding his 
dad’s pistol pocket up between his shoulder blades. 
These three things being true, then where lies 
the sense in talk of increasing the distance? In¬ 
creasing the distance cuts down no recoil—in 
fact it is quite likely to lead to still stiffer loads. 
Increasing the distance lessens no cost. Increas¬ 
ing the distance six feet would not even serve 
the purpose of making the game more difficult. 
These sharks would merely quicken their time, 
and besides dozens of them have already broken 
the century from farther back than 18 yards. 
Increasing the distance would serve to make the 
outcast, usually known as the “donator,” still 
more helpless and more assured of never being 
in the prize money, while it would worry the 
professional and the shark not at all. 
You can stand off all day and throw bouquets 
like “sport alluring,” at the great and money¬ 
making game of trap shooting, but the proposi¬ 
tion before the house is to make the game the 
sport alluring, which it most decidedly is not. 
Now that the Interstate has awakened from its 
lethargy it bad better make a job of it, and con¬ 
sider the fellow that would rot touch trap shoot¬ 
ing with a ten foot pole, so long, as it costs 
him 10% of his income to play at even half¬ 
heartedly. Then they can als i feel for the man 
who is subject to gun headache, and who like 
most human beings is not entirely impervious to 
several hundred blows of thirty foot pounds each. 
Then consider the other alternative—to reduce 
the shot load from i x 4 oz. to i : /£ oz. This is 
surely one huge and unbelievable reform move¬ 
ment. In effect they propose, for the cure of 
all the evils listed herein, to cut down the shot 
charge 10%! They allow that the game still 
(Continued on page 672.) 
Consummation of the Sport Alluring. 
