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LopeHunter said:

Nice!

My family business had a trap house just for us on one of our pastures and had concrete lanes. If we hustled after work in the summer we could shoot a few rounds of trap. The thrower had to be loaded one bird at a time and as a younger family member I would do two sets of 25 in the trap house then could shoot a set of 25. Until you broke 25 of 25 singles at 16 yards then you only could shoot at 16 yards. The hard left and hard right birds were my kryptonite where I was about 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 most sets of 25. Finally got a set of 25 with only one hard right and I broke 25 straight at 16 yards. I should have stopped. I never broke 25 of 25 at any further back yardage and shot 500 rounds some weeks leading up to dove season. Shot the 30 yard line a couple of times and would break a dozen or so. Humbling when could slay from 16 yards. I started with an old Model 12 where was simple to catch the ejected shells after a shot and later got a new Winchester Super X1 that I had drilled to hold a thin bent wire at the receiver so the ejected shell was caught. I filled the hollow part of the X1's stock with birdshot to cut down on the kicking.

My father did not shoot much but saw how much we were paying for cases of trap loads so he got a progressive reloader. The issue was sometimes the primer would not pop out on that style of progressive and if you were not careful as you lifted the handle to take a second go at popping the primer then a second load of powder would hit a shell and a second dose of shot in another. The extra shot would be easy to spot as would not crimp. The extra powder would crimp just fine so you had to be sure to grab that shell out and pry the top open and recover the shot then pull the plastic wad then recover the powder. My father would overlook a double powder shell about every 3rd box. The price was right when he reloaded but I am lucky the one of those doubles did not peel the barrel back or explode. My teeth would rattle and the gun would recoil so almost pointing straight up in the air. I later borrowed a 10 gauge single shot one weekend to hunt geese when was late in the season where the birds were Denver geese (mile high) and that gun was like shooting a double powder in the X1. No thanks. My turkey gun likes 3" 12 gauge shells just fine and have no desire to go with the longer magnums or the 10 gauge.

Good luck this summer and hope you hit a long streak of broken birds several times!

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