Clay Pigeon Experts, a Question.

Horse Plains Drifter

My daughter and I went for a quick afternoon of shooting clay pigeons today. The pigeons we had were White Flyer brand that came from Wal-Mart and are 12-18 months old. An honest 25%-30% broke leaving the thrower. The thrower is an Outers if I remember correctly, and is mounted on a spare tire and tripped with a lanyard.

My question is: Do we need better quality targets, or are they too old, or just what gives?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Laredo Lefty

There is always a certain amount of breakage with clay targets, but 25 to 30% is too much. Age is not so much a factor as how they were handled in transit.

Make sure your thrower has a good arm with cushion for the targets.

Mk 19

It sounds to me like the targets were cracked before being placed in the thrower, it is very easy to crack clay pigeons in transit, or they could have been handled roughley by the stock boys at the store before you bought them.

bobski

all it takes is one drop off a shelf and youll crack them. and then, you wont know until you throw them that they were cracked. box is marked 'fragile as eggs.' sounds like someone in stocking dept must have dropped them.
in the old days, clays came 135 to a box because the trap machine held 125.(enough for a squad of 5 to play one game of 25 birds each.) that gave you 10 for breakage per box. thats what is normal. anything over is damaged in shipment. bring em back. its walmart. they wont question it....if you have any left.

geeguy

MT - while the above is the most likely reason, the other area to check is to make sure the bird is sitting square and nested against the arm. You are mounted on a tire (good mount method)and movement of that could be creating a problem also. Before the auto feed traps there were a lot of broken birds due to the "trap boy" not mounting the bird correctly.

Better luck next outing.

OleDuk

Before you put them on the trap arm, give them a GENTLE tap on something solid. A good target will "ring" and a cracked target won't. You can believe an old trap boy from about 1946.
Cheers,
OleDuk[:)][:)]

Mort4570

My guess is you had too much tension on the trap apring. I had one like that,and had to pay attention to the direction that said 'adjust the spring tension nut until all slack is removed.

It SHOULD have read 'AND NO MORE'.

Busted a lot of clays until I read the not-so-helpful instructions.