1926 Trapshooting Video

[Ed Blake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRoRQHgmvc

This was posted on the Trapshooters forum. The original American Vintagers. Were those the days or what?

[charlie cleveland]

looks like they were having a fine old time...really liked the fur coat and that old car.... looks like they were shooting several differant type of shotguns..believe i seen autos over and under and aside by side....thanks ed.... charlie

[Robin Lewis]

I wonder how the trap worked? I see the guy in the "hut" behind the shooters working a long lever which I assume runs the trap somehow.

[Frank Cronin]

What year do you think this video was taken? Clues would be the cars and dress attire of the era.

What looks to me Charlie talks about an over/under is at 5:53 of the video. If it is, who made it?

EDIT POST:

gawd... if I just read the title, there is the answer. 1926! :banghead:

I'm not with it today...........:knowbetter:

[scott kittredge]

I wonder how the trap worked? I see the guy in the "hut" behind the shooters working a long lever which I assume runs the trap somehow.

that reset the trap for the next bird to be put on by the "trap boy" when i was a kid my father would shoot at trap feilds that had that for a set up.:shock: a MWSA in barrington you can still see the pipe just sticking out of the ground that ran the trap cocking lever. scott

[charlie cleveland]

what kind of powder do you reckon them fellas was burning....lot of smoke for smokeless powder...could be semi smokeless or is itblack powder there using....i woulda figured that trap shooter by 1926 used only smokles but who knows for sure... i think im gonna go back and re watch it again.... charlie

[charlie cleveland]

that camerman must have been given a hatfull of that brew he was purty shaky at the end... this time i seen single barrels doubles and auto s and definately a oved and under at the last of the film... i could not make out the old car i wanted to call it a pontiac but im not sure... them boys definatly had a good time.... charlie

[Jim Akins]

As Scott said, the lever cocked the trap, it also released it by pushing it forward. A club I shot at was still using them in the late 1960s on some fields. We modified them to work with a button switch and a motor driven contraption that mounted behind the trap. Still required a trap boy to set the target on the machine. OSHA would scream if they saw one today.

[Jack Kuzepski]

There was a man in Hockessin Delaware that had one of those traps set up behind his house. In the 1970's he would let me and a few friends use it on occasion. It was a far cry from the push button jobs!
Did you notice toward the end of the trapshooting segment that there was a SXS with a cross over stock leaning against the clubhouse to the left of the doorway?

Jack Kuzepski

[Jack Cronkhite]

i could not make out the old car i wanted to call it a pontiac but im not sure... charlie

Took some sleuthing. One fairly unique feature is that "both" the front and rear have "suicide doors". Most you see of that era it is only the rear doors that open like that. So with that and the very round barrel like engine cover, Google images was searched and searched, to no avail. A check with Canadian Hot Rodders got a few intrigued. Some suggestions but then pay dirt, I think. Franklin was suggested as a possibility. The 1925 model sure looks close. The bottom two images are taken from the video.
Cheers,
Jack

http://vft.org/Museums/FranklinMuseum/1925FranklinSeries10_7994.jpg

Image Source (http://vft.org/Museums/FranklinMuseum/Franklin.html)

[Dean Romig]

I suspect the O/U might have been a Marlin Model 90

[David Hamilton]

The second picture is not the same car, I can;t help with that ID but look at the square radiator. David

[Jack Cronkhite]

David: Agreed. Also looks like a soft top. Hot-rod guys said same thing. Too blurry to hope to i.d. at least for my old eyes. The boys did have a pretty new car to transport them to the shoot.
Jack

[lee r moege]

I just watched the video and the O/U I saw I don't think was a Marlin as I never knew one to have ejectors. You can see a puff of smoke from the breech but the shooter didn't pull the shell first. In 1926 it had to be European or and English gun. BTW has anybody heard of an Ire, or Ira Eyler who was shooting trap in the Baltimore area along about the same time. Lee.:bigbye:

[Bill Murphy]

Lee, did you ask me about Eyler before? Eyler, father and son, lived at 5313 Reisterstown Road, Baltimore. Reisterstown Road is Route 140 I think. In 1926, Sr. had a .9207 average on 1400 birds. Jr. had an .8886 average on 1150 birds.

[Bill Murphy]

'25 Franklin sedan had the rounded hood and suicide doors front and back. By '26, the rounded hood was gone. They were air cooled.

[lee r moege]

Bill, Thanks! Yes I did ask about Eyler on the Ithaca forum as Walt gave me info that he was the consignee on my Ithaca Victory Grade Knick on 9/14/25. It must have been a backup for something else as it is virtally unfired. I was able to find reference to him and his son in a 1930 Baltimore city directory but nothing else. It came to me from North Carolina supposedly from a grandson of the original owner, who told the dealer I got it from that it had been under a bed or something for years. I don't have, and can't seem to get his name from the dealer, but then we all know how these storys go. Thanks again, Lee!!!:bigbye:

[lee r moege]

Re: The car: There isn't any chance it may have been a Fox Automobile is there? The pix of same in Mac's book look kind of like it, but then all the old sedans seem to look alike to me. After all I didn't come along till '38. Lee.

[Bill Murphy]

Tom Kidd's Fox car is pictured, I believe, in the DGJ index in the article on Tom. I don't know if the article is in Volume 1 or Volume 2. I believe the over under in the video is a Merkel or Simpson. I got one kind of a look at the reflection of the extension ribs at about 5:59 or 6:00. However, the reflection could have been the brass of his shell.

[lee r moege]

Bill : Agreed on the Merkel/Simpson. I have had in years past, had examples of both of that vintage by dates and proof marks and I think VL&D and Antoine and Detmold were importers for both in that era as perhaps The Shoverling and Daly group. Ineteresting!!!! Lee:bowdown:

[Michael Murphy]

Nice film. I was however,struck by the apparent absolute lack of gun/shooting safety rules being observed. Walking around with closed actions, drinking while shooting, etc.

[Bill Murphy]

Fun to watch, huh? That's the way it was. Oh, that's the way it was ten years ago in some areas. I have been at drinking shoots, don't approve of them now, but then, it was what they did and I was free to go home.

[Bill Murphy]

By the way, I looked at the pictures of the Fox car in the DGJ Index article about Tom Kidd. Kidd's Fox car has a rounded hood like a Franklin, double suicide doors like a Franklin, and an air cooled engine like a Franklin. I have nothing more to say. Investigation continues. Who was first, the chicken Franklin or the egg Fox?

[Francis Morin]

Nice film. I was however,struck by the apparent absolute lack of gun/shooting safety rules being observed. Walking around with closed actions, drinking while shooting, etc.--I never caught the Trap or Skeet "bug' but the Queen City Gun Club didn't allow alcohol on the premises- whether you were shooting or just watching. Wonder what these 'sports in suits' were drinking- I was going to guess "Old Overholt" but as some of these "Babbitt-look-alikes were wearing topcoats- perhaps as it was 1926 and the ill-advised Volstead Act was in force (or in farce)- it was maybe a fifth of "Old Overcoat" and the Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton look-alikes made both the shooting and the yachting party scenes great-- Lessee here- if Charlie Chaplin was shooting a 1926 mfg. Ithaca side-by-side at clays- would he then be "The Kid with a NID"?? If Fatty Arbuckle was shooting Trap with the second series of Ithaca SBTs- would he be "The Hick With a Knick" and the beat goes on!!!:rotf:

[Bill Murphy]

Francis, my Grandfather's pigeon ring was run in conjunction with his "cafe". He didn't close down either until 1927, eight years into prohibition. I would assume that, as with most pigeon operations in Northeast Pennsylvania during prohibition, the selling of alcoholic drinks was part of the business. Read Canfield to get a feel for the time and the place. It is a great book, available at less than five bucks on amazon.com.

[Brian Dudley]

Not to mention the pointing of the guns at the camera man.

Is that a Parker SBT that is being shot in the forground of the man at 1:25 in?
Maybe and Ithaca perhaps.