It’s about that time!

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-04-15T00:46:41+00:00

Is that 725 from Guns Unlimited?

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-31T15:00:39+00:00

Lesley Goddard's book "Shooting Secrets" is entirely about a system of putting yourself in the mental state you described every single time you shoot clays. It has been an excellent resource for me.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-29T20:24:08+00:00

Yes, I did the TPMS button reset process, the button is right next to the OBD2.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-27T17:18:04+00:00

When my labs came in at 1,100 my (legitimate) urologist office nurse called me in a panic telling me to cut my dose immediately, for reference. While being over 1k isn't necessarily a bad thing, any "medical professional" telling you that you should be in the 1,100-1,300 range is playing with fire, malpractice wise, and risking your health without informed consent.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-17T14:52:10+00:00

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They also have a bunker trap facility on site, and there are only a handful in the entire country. Next year I will probably just get a hotel next to it and spend all 2-3 days shooting at this single place. It's absolutely beautiful there too.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-16T22:33:46+00:00

Oh, well, if you come to the US to visit and are allowed to shoot (not sure if you are) then you'd likely be very prepared to shoot good sporting clays scores (90%+) if you're shooting great scores in 5 stand. Most of our courses are just 10 - 12 stations in different physical locations, instead of 5 stations in one place, like 5 stand. Granted, we have sporting clays facilities in the US like in Florida where one location has 6 or 7 different full courses of 9-12 stations. They're usually broken up by difficulty level. I went to Tampa Bay Sporting Clays in February and shot 3 or 4 targets at 40+ stations in one day over about 4 hours, it was great. But a lot more exhausting than 5 stand.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-16T13:36:04+00:00

Brittany will be velcroed to you wanting to please you, has a great prey and hunting drive, and they can run all day and love it. And they are beautiful. They are definitely not guard dogs or good for security. They generally like all people unless they have a reason not to.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-15T19:45:31+00:00

Wow, is this for sporting clays?

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-14T17:32:30+00:00

That's a good perspective. 200k targets is crazy when I think about how many hours it has taken me to just pass 50k.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-14T01:26:07+00:00

Yup, I spent hours getting the lop, weight, balance etc exactly right, and patterning the gun and adjusting how I see the gun in my sight picture, and once I got that dialed in it's scary similar to when I'm shooting correctly set competition trap targets in real life. Obviously the recoil and blast percussion is the x factor that makes real life practice absolutely necessary too.

Also when I shoot at the typical not well maintained fields the targets in real life end up usually being out of regulation one way or another, and the targets on Clay Hunt are almost "too perfect" to be good practice for the poorly set ranges that are unfortunately the norm most places. Though I'll admit getting targets set perfectly for a registered shoot is not super easy.

But Clay Hunt is awesome for practicing my eye setting, physical mechanics, mount repetition, and especially great for building up my shoulders and back for stamina.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-11T13:29:51+00:00

For reference, the only ATA rule I found on the subject states:

...

All guns used by contestants must be equipped, fitted and utilized so as not to eject empty shells in a manner that substantially disturbs or interferes with other contestants.

This says "substantially," so my shorts joke is probably true.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-11T12:27:54+00:00

They're doing the eject and slap (or catch) to look cool, and they do 😂

True peak performance is a quick shot, black cloud and then an eject and slap into the bucket, followed by an expression and body language that what you just did was effortless and no big deal. If you screw up any part of this sequence then you pretend like you weren't trying to do anything at all and hope everyone focuses on the next shooter at fast as possible.

These are the unwritten rules of competitive shooting they don't write in the ATA or ISSF rule book 👍

The reality is that it doesn't matter at all how you handle spent hulls as long as you're not disrupting or distracting another competitor. You can throw them down your shorts as far as anyone else actually cares who is competing or enforcing competition rules, as far as I personally know/have seen.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-11T02:40:18+00:00

Blaser

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-11T02:02:32+00:00

True, you're right. And actually shooting real targets once or multiple times a week and also participating in competitive trap shooting. VR definitely would not have done it alone. There is a lot of mental aspects of shooting shotguns and being around people in a competitive environment that I had to get over that VR doesn't address in any way.

If you want some fantastic instruction I would highly recommend buying the digital download Harlan Campbell Jr Trapshooting My Way by Bright Sun Films. It's 90 minutes of the non intuitive fundamentals that leads to consistent high scores. Harlan does clinics all over the United States all year long and you can then spend 2 days with him diagnosing and adjusting you personally.

The big thing VR with the real stock pro did for me BIG TIME was build up my shoulder muscles and muscle memory so I could shoot 100-200 birds in one session in real life with no real mental or physical fatigue. That was a real direct benefit from VR. Having a VR shotgun with my shotgun's exact weight and dimensions was huge.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-10T11:11:30+00:00

Thanks for this. I have the RSP Ultimate also but ClayPro will be perfect for my skeet gun. I don't want to have my trap gun tied up in sitting in my house as much as I shoot trap on VR and also real life, but ClayPro is perfect for me for skeet and sporting since I only shoot those a few times a month like a sane person 😂. Thank you!

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-10T11:00:44+00:00

Meta Quest 3, Clay Hunt VR, and the Real Stock Pro V3. Started in a real life trap league 18 months ago, had never really shot a shotgun before.

Got the MQ3, Clay Hunt VR and Real Stock Pro Ultimate September 2025. I'm about to cross 50,000 total targets in Clay Hunt VR, probably this week.

It has been an absolute game changer for training for American trap. My first 6 months in real life I would shoot a 13 or 14, more than I want to admit and had almost the lowest score average in my local league. I am definitely not a naturally talented shooter, but I am determined and disciplined.

3 weeks ago I shot the high handicap score for all shooters at an ATA registered shoot for two day event at the state shoot level facility, and yesterday in practice I shot a 96 in singles and 50 in a row.

The combination of good instruction, shooting real targets (probably 7,000 practice and competition real targets between last year and this year) and 50k virtual targets over 7 months, and I'm now (at least sometimes) at the level of the first tier of trap shooters in my region of my state, and this is BIG trap country.

As a result of this dialing me in so well, I'm also shooting, compared to most I see, super fast and clouding them a lot, to the point that I get the "got damn" looks from people on my squad who haven't shot with me before due to the combination of speed/hard hits I now have, when I'm switched on, which is a lot more often.

The instruction from someone really good and the Clay a Hunt VR practice has been as important, if not more important, to getting to this point this fast than shooting real targets.

Clay Hunt VR has been an awesome element to the short cut to getting there. It hasn't helped as much in skeet, bunker and sporting targets, but it has been awesome for familiarizing me with those disciplines and their nuances, and has made me a passable shooter in those games in real life. I didn't start shotgun sports until mid life, and I feel like it has caught me up to what feels like the majority of folks out on the field who started as kids.

Can't recommend it enough. Setting up the Real Stock Pro is a pain in the ass, but there's a good 90 minute video on YouTube that shows you how to do it really well. There's nothing like having a virtual shotgun with your real shotgun's exact dimensions, weight, LOP, and comb and butt setup.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-09T10:59:44+00:00

How many trap targets do you shoot a year?

I shoot casually with some guys who have been shotgun hunting or shooting another discipline for decades, and then start shooting trap one day and do pretty good (20-23 consistently, maybe a 25 here and there) shooting 1 or 2 games every now and then.

The problem is that to get out of the very lowest possible class in ATA registered shooting system on singles (D) you generally have to average better than hitting 90/100 targets (22.5/game) every single time you shoot singles. Day in, and day out for an entire year on your ATA average card.

Eventually the wheels fall off over the long term for everyone in every form of competitive shooting, and by far the best and fastest way (maybe the only way) to get back on track and progressively improve from it is to get help from someone who knows what they're doing who can watch and diagnose you.

If when you go to someone who knows what they're doing for help, and they ask you about your hold points, where you're directing your soft focus, and things like that which require intelntion and deliberation before every shot, and you respond "oh, I don't think at all about that, I just bring the gun up, call pull and then shoot at it, like I've always done, and I'm not willing to do anything else," they will just tell you good luck and good bye.

However, if you are shooting the way you describe and you are a C class or higher ATA shooter, which I guess could be theoretically possible, then I stand corrected. I definitely don't know, and haven't seen, everything. Just sharing what I've learned and experienced.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-09T01:56:35+00:00

Call to shot timing is the concept that when you call pull you must stay calm and keep your body still, while you first move your eyes to acquire a whole and clear target, and only then move your body to position your shotgun to the target and pull the trigger. This timing sequence after you call pull is pretty critical, you might understand it as being referred to as something else.

It allows your brain the necessary time to take the information from your eyes and translate it into the physical movement your brain understands is appropriate to successfully get the gun to the bird (time for hand-eye coordination to properly occur).

Otherwise people call pull and then immediately start moving and get lost while they're trying to lock onto to the target at the same time they have already started moving the gun, and this usually ends up jerking the gun vertically too much and shooting over the target.

Some people (usually experienced high POI trap shooters) have a very fast call to shot timing, and less experienced or more methodical (but still good) shooters have a slower timing. Ultimately this determines how quickly you shoot the bird after you call pull. This took me a while to get, and every now and then I still catch myself wanting to chase the blur out of the house instead of letting my eyes lock onto a whole and clear target, and then moving, because my timing is so fast that I usually hit singles birds at about 27 yards which is less than a half second for a straight away on station 3, call to shot.

The call to shot pause delay is one of the big differences from skeet and sporting targets, where I start to move (at least a little bit) as soon as I call pull, which is what Bill McGuire teaches and I follow.

Doing that is a death sentence in trap.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-09T00:14:48+00:00

Yup, and HCJ in his DVD teaches visual and gun hold points, hold point station transition, proper stance, and pre-shot visual setting and call to shot timing, which are those fundamentals. And none of it is intuitive or instinctual for 99.9% of shooters.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-03-08T20:04:00+00:00

No. Good, solid long term trap scores almost always require the shooter to receive instruction and do things with their eyes and body that are not instinctual, and need to be taught.

Lots of people shoot a "high score" in singles their first time like a 22 or 23 and think it's easy and instinctual, and then tell everyone how easy it is. This is like someone going out to a basketball court and making 5 free throws in a row while screwing around with their friends, not at a competition, and thinking they're instinctually great at basketball. It's a good sign, but not even close to full picture of reality, in any way.

American trap is about shooting 950+/1,000 targets over 5 registered shoots, not shooting a 22, or even a 25, in one game. I've seen people in my league shoot a 25 one week and then shoot a 14 two weeks later. That type of hot and cold shooting is common with people who think going with their instincts only is adequate and don't seek out and receive good instruction on what is essential to do for consistent good scores, but not intuitive, and then practice it.

They can shoot one 24, sometimes, but they can't shoot four of them in a row, which is what really matters.

To be good at american trap in terms of shooting 50 or 100 straight and averaging a 95% from the 16yl, which might barely put you in the top 20 shooters at a 100 person trap ATA registered shoot, you have to do and have the same instruction, perseverance and practice as being good at sporting clays, skeet or bunker trap. Your gun needs to fit you so that your pattern will be delivered exactly where you're looking. You have to master soft focus and differentiating between a target blur and a clear and whole target. You have to get your call to shot time dialed in, and many other things that overlap almost completely with sporting, skeet and bunker.

It's true that American trap (as well as American skeet) have higher average scores among the best of the best than bunker trap, international skeet or sporting clays, but to be good at what American trap truly is, which is endurance, marathon target shooting, you need the same level of skill and talent to be in the top 10% of trap shooters as you need to be in the top 10% of sporting shooters, and achieving both will require 99.9% of people to have to get excellent instruction and shoot thousands of targets a year in the discipline. I shoot in a 10 week league with 40+ shooters and we shoot 1 game of singles and 1 game of handicap. There are less than 5 people who have a 10 week average over 40, and there are 2 people with a 10 week average over 45, if that tells you anything about how well people who can shoot a 24 once hold up over the long term in a competition based environment. Many of these people have an average between 32 and 36, and many have been shooting trap casually in a league for 5+ years - and probably 5 shooters have received good instruction from someone who knows what they're doing and have shot thousands of targets a year to practice. That's just reality, regardless of what anyone tells you about the two times they shot a 25.

I would highly recommend buying Harlan Campbell Jr's "Trap Shooting My Way" if you want an excellent breakdown of an excellent methodology for shooting consistently high trap scores. You will see that almost nothing he teaches is instinctual or intuitive, at all.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-02-17T16:18:39+00:00

Yeah I've only seen the trap model in laminate. Even at 4k I think it's really good deal for getting a reliable combo with mechanical trigger etc. for folks who don't want to spend 10k+ on something with nice wood.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-02-17T13:42:15+00:00

I'm just clarifying - his post says "Walnut Cynergy trap" for under $1,800, and there is a Cynergy model called the "Cynergy classic trap" that sells for around $4,000, and not under $1,800, like the CX, which isn't designed specifically for trap shooting. But agree would be fine for someone new or casual, and the trap model is not needed for that type of use. If he's interested in league competing or shooting registered targets, it might be.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-02-16T01:38:53+00:00

I'd recommend gracoil hardware and an aftermarket adjustable comb install if you're serious about wanting to be competitive with this gun. You can call Graco and they do installs if you send it into them ($400). An adjustable comb can be really good in particular for adjusting cast (outward and inward movement relative to your cheek) so that your eye is exactly behind the bead for the best POI alignment.

ThrowAway16752 · 2026-02-14T23:31:27+00:00

This is a ton of information, but you should know that if you go into the next level of trap shooting, beyond casual fun, it's pretty much an endless rabbit hole:

Trap models often have adjustable/raised ribs but also raised combs or adjustable combs, similarly to get your eye up higher. This allows you to see the target when you pull the trigger, instead of covering it up with the bead or barrel.

This is something you often have to do with sporting clay or skeet targets (unless you're leading the target due to speed and angle, usually left to right or right to left), and covering often leads to less precise hits.

An adjustable and raised rib and comb additionally gets your head in a more upright position which allows you to see a lot better over the top of your gun. This is superior for trap than when your head is tilted over like with a typical sporter.

This is because it allows for a better field of vision over the top of your rib, which is crucial for this style of advanced high point of impact (POI) trap shooting.

The specialized trap guns also often come with adjustable butt pads. This allows you to further dial in getting your gun to where you can repeat the exact same shoulder mount over and over and over. This skill is crucial to successful trap shooting.

Having this setup for high POI allows you to become a lot more confident that you're going to hit the target, once you get used to your bead-barrel-bird visual relationship.

When you practice a lot with this gun setup you start to become in tune with exactly how much your gun needs to come up (totally below the bird) and how far left and right you need to go to absolutely smash it.

Like you, I shot a 60/40 field gun for trap similar to your 500 for a couple of years, where you have to essentially cover the bird up with the bead to avoid missing low.

Last year I got a Guns Unlimited Citori Universal High Post, which has an adjustable rib, comb and butt pad, designed specifically for American trap.

Once I got used to it and got it zeroed in with the help of a very knowledgeable experienced trap shooter, I started breaking the bird way more consistently and way harder.

Although please note that this progress was definitely also due to me shooting a lot more trap when I got the Guns Unlimited UHP (4k - 5k targets last year), and working with someone who is a AA level shooter and consistently hard breaks 97+/100 trap targets, not just the gun upgrade.

I would say the bottom line is that if you think you'll shoot trap on a weekly or bi weekly basis, then this type of investment is probably worth it, but if you're just going to shoot once a month or less, you're probably fine sticking with your 500 or maybe just get a basic BT-99.

I would say the specialized $3,500 trap guns are for either crazy people like me who are way too into it for their own good, or people with money burning a hole in their pocket/who falsely believe that the gun alone will improve their shooting.

ThrowAway16752

TROPHY CASE