1927 Skeet? shoot

[Dave Noreen]

Here is an interesting video on Youtube --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqLKRlOwiNM&feature=youtu.be

[Scott Janowski]

It is a Trap Video. Very Cool!

[Dean Romig]

There are a couple of familiar faces there.

[scott kittredge]

I remember sitting in the trap house loading birds. The part that sucked about that was, When the round was over they would forget come to get you and you did not want to sick your head up out of the house to see what was going on. :shock:

[Dean Romig]

Absolutely 'been there, done that' Scott!

[Chuck Bishop]

It's definitely not trap although they are shooting over a standard trap house. It looks like a 5 team flurry, they are all shooting randomly. The trap is not osculating so it's trowing the same target path over and over again as fast as possible.

I recognize Sparrow Young with the round glasses and the suspenders and Mark Arie. Mark Arie was one of 3 who won Olympic gold in trapshooting for the USA. James Graham won in 1912, and my friend Don Haldeman won in Montreal in 1976.

When I was a teen, I set trap at my local club. I'll always remember that Winchester trap had a half moon platten and a skinny throwing arm. There was a pin driven by a solenoid that would come up and stop the arm rotation allowing you to put the bird on the trap. This damn pin would sometimes not come up in time and the arm would not stop. Scares the hell out of you when this happens. You learn real quick to come straight down from overhead when you place the bird on the trap!

[scott kittredge]

It's definitely not trap although they are shooting over a standard trap house. It looks like a 5 team flurry, they are all shooting randomly. The trap is not osculating so it's trowing the same target path over and over again as fast as possible.

I recognize Sparrow Young with the round glasses and the suspenders and Mark Arie. Mark Arie was one of 3 who won Olympic gold in trapshooting for the USA. James Graham won in 1912, and my friend Don Haldeman won in Montreal in 1976.

When I was a teen, I set trap at my local club. I'll always remember that Winchester trap had a half moon platten and a skinny throwing arm. There was a pin driven by a solenoid that would come up and stop the arm rotation allowing you to put the bird on the trap. This damn pin would sometimes not come up in time and the arm would not stop. Scares the hell out of you when this happens. You learn real quick to come straight down from overhead when you place the bird on the trap!

or if someone keeps there finger on the button :eek:

[Randy Davis]

Chuck, here is a pic of the 1920 United States Olympic Team...

RD

[Drew Hause]

Thanks Randy. The 1912 & 1920 Olympic reports are here
https://docs.google.com/a/damascusknowledge.com/document/pub?id=185YOyQl7GIB9OYLs9Hr3tnMLHqs4rjEdR4j_E9l4HL w
Troeh used a Smith; Arie a Marlin repeater.
Arie used a Parker SBT as an industry rep in 1921 but returned to the amateur ranks after one year. At the 1921 Grand, he tied for the professional championship.

More on Troeh here http://www.traphof.org/Inductees/Troeh-Frank.html

He used a Model 12 for most of his career. Here with Bart Lewis who was Amateur Championship of the US with 195x 200 at 22 yards at the 1913 GAH. He used a Crown grade Smith to win the Grand American Doubles in 1926

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL1373/6511424/17127707/410682588.jpg

[charlie cleveland]

love the shell and pictures...charlie

[Scott Janowski]

PA SXS, This is definitely Trap shooting not a Flurry. In the pictures you are looking at two Trap fields running at the same time. The target variance was caused by where the target was placed on the arm. There were no electric motors oscillating the machine back then. The 1937 catalog for the Remington Wonder Trap features the fact that it is manually rotated by the trap boy.

[Randy Davis]

Here is a shellbox insert of the American Champions... It came out of a box of Western Record shells.

Trap3

[Chuck Bishop]

Scott, thanks for pointing that out. Do you or anyone know if in the Olympics back in 1912, they shot American style trap or had they modified it to something similar to Olympic bunker as we know it now.

[Randy Davis]

Chuck, this is from June 1911 Sporting Life...

On the subject of the shooting rules to govern the Olympic games, an interesting communication from Mr. Edward Banks, the noted du Pont man, is appended:



Wilmington, Del., December 9. Editor "Sporting Life"

I have noticed from time to time brief notices of the plan to take a team of amateurs to Stockholm, Sweden, to attend the Olympic Games next year. So far, however, I have failed to see any special reference to the conditions that will govern trap shooting contests at the above meeting, and it has occurred to me that probably it will be of interest, not only to those who are thinking of crossing the water to fight for trap shooting honors in behalf of the United States, but also for those who are compelled through business or other reasons to stay at home, to know just what the conditions are under which those competing for the individual and team championships will have to shoot.

On the other aide of the Atlantic they know next to nothing of automatic traps, and the Sergeant System is a stranger to them. They have five firing points in a straight line, five yards apart, just as we used to have tbem years ago. Instead of having only one trap in the pit at each firing point they have what might be called a battery of three traps, so that, say, for instance, if a man at No. 1 position calls "Pull" and a target breaks in a trap, he can call "Pull" again immediately and get another trap from the battery of three at that point. In other words, there are 15 traps instead of five, as we used to have them, i.e. they have three at each firing point instead of one. The main point for intending competitors to bear in mind is not so much the fact thiat the targets are thrown fully 60 yards, which is further than they are in this country, but the most important feature of all, namely, that all competitors must adopt the "gun below the elbow" style of shooting. This looks like going back almost, as it were, to the principles of the Middle Ages, but as a matter of fact, in England and on the Continent of Europe, trap shooting is looked upon not so much as a recreation in itself and a sport to be pursued as we do over here, but rather as practice for game shooting, so that the "field position" has been selected to prevail in the Olympic contests to be held at Stockholm next year.

In a copy of the "Sporting Goods Review," published in London, England, on October 10, last, there is a little over two columns of notice given to the booklet recently gotten out by the du Pont Company entitled "The Sport Alluring," which is criticised quite favorably in, an editorial way, and in which, when comparing trap shooting conditions in England and on the Continent with the conditions prevailing here, particularly with reference to the Olympic contests next year, the "Sporting Goods Review" makes the following notation:

The conditions of the Olympic competitions at Stockholm are, in the main, those usually adopted in England, there being 15 traps to the five marks, but a point which is of considerable importance, and will need careful attention by the competitors of all nations, is that the “gun below the elbow” position is insisted upon. Game shooters, on first taking up clay bird shooting, invariably decry the “gun at the shoulder” position. If they continue to take part in competitions they end by adopting it, because there is no doubt at all about its advantage when conditions are “known traps” and what might be called the “flushing point” of the bird can be covered.

It is my impression that this "gun below the elbow" idea in connection with these competitions is something new, and that no such restriction prevailed when Walter Ewing, of Montreal, Canada, went over to England three years ago and won the Individual championship for his native country, the Dominion of Canada. I have written Mr. Ewing asking him to advise you by mail as to what the conditions were when he shot for and won the championship at the Olympic Games in England. Yours truly,

EDWARD BANKS.

[Pete Lester]

When the round was over they would forget come to get you and you did not want to sick your head up out of the house to see what was going on. :shock:

This reminds of me of a very scary moment. While shooting in an ATA trap shoot at Pelham NH in the '90's when trap boys were still in use. Pelham had a red light on the back of the trap house that the trap boy could activate at any time. That signaled the squad to cease shooting and safe guns.

In the middle of a round I readied myself for shot. I hold low gun just below the forward edge of the roof. I called pull and instantly the trap boys head appeared above my bead. He never activated the light. I don't remember why he needed to come out of the house, but I missed the next three birds because I was so shaken up by it.

[Dean Romig]

I remember as a "trap boy" the occasional charge of pellets strafing the steel roof of the trap house where I sat feeding the trap machine. I would never consider sticking my head up until someone came to tell me it was okay to come out. I remember once waiting nearly fifteen minutes after the shooting had stopped before someone remembered I was still in there.

[Chuck Bishop]

I used to count the number of pauses as the shooters changed stations. When I got to 5, I knew the round was almost up. The problem was is that if there was an interruption due to a gun malfunction or something similar, you could assume the round was up when it wasn't. Could be dangerous!

Also, back in the 60's or 70's shooters were allowed to take a shot prior to the start of an event to check their guns for proper operation. You would shoot off to the side of the traphouse. Again, very dangerous if the trap boy would suddenly come out of the house. A new rule stopped that.

[Steve Cambria]

Awesome clips, Dave. Couldn't help but watch one of the adjacent videos of "King George" and his Perazzi, smoking crows in Sussex. That's one dude I wouldn't want to be backing-up. It would be a loooooong wait to burn some powder!! :bowdown:

[Randy Davis]

Frank Troeh`s book " How to Shoot Traps" and Frank posing with his Smith double... 1928

[charlie cleveland]

them were the days....charlie