Remington “Blue Rocks”

[Bruce P Bruner]

I picked up 3 cases of “Blue Rocks”, I don’t know when Remington discontinued them but for $5 each it was okay. I haven’t even opened them so I don’t know what color they are. They used to have “Orange Dome” stamped on the cases but I can’t find anything on the boxes except the stamp in the photo. Any idea when they were made? The YD in the code may be for yellow dome and perhaps the 71 could be manufactured in 1971. The price tag’s say $2.99. I think it would be sort of nostalgic to dust them, or try to.

[Dave Noreen]

After 1963, as the address has a Zip Code.

Blue Rocks were a product of the Chamberlin Cartridge & Target Co. from the 1890s, first in Cleveland and then later at their factory in Findley, Ohio. In August 1933, Remington Arms Co., Inc. acquired Chamberlin and the Findley factory.

https://www.remingtonsociety.org/produc ... d-ware-ii/

I don't know when they moved to Ada, OK.

[Dave Noreen]

Found a little bit more. In 1966 clay target demand exceeded the Findley plant capacity and they bought a building in Ada, OK. Production began in Ada in 1967. On Trapshooters.com they said Remington got out of the clay target business in 2008.

[Phil Yearout]

All clay targets were "blue rock" in our part of the world; "wanna go shoot some blue rock?". Cool find!

[J. Scott Hanes]

I ran the Remington clay target business from 1991-2001. The boxes you have are older than that and your guess as to what is in the box is right on. They are Yellow Dome and made in 1971.

During my tenure in that business I sold over 3 Billion of them! When the "Pat Trap" came along for the trapshooting game, the Blue Rock was too fragile for those machines with the high-volume stacking and machine vibration. In spite of all that was attempted to remedy the situation, we could not find a formula that would prevent around 10% breakage.

White Flyer, which made a tougher target, went through the Pat Traps with little breakage and they, of course, dominate the Trap game today.

At one time Remington had three plants; Findlay, Ohio, Ada, Oklahoma and Athens, Georgia. The Athens plant was closed before 1979. As noted, the Findlay and Ada plants closed in 2008.

[Mills Morrison]

I bought an early black one but it crumbled, unfortunately. Handle with care. All of this stuff from the old time is cool

[Bill Murphy]

American competitive skeet shooters preferred Remington targets because they seemed to break easier than White Flyers. This is the first time I have heard that Remington knew or cared about the breakage. Very interesting comments from J. Scott Hanes. The coding on the boxes "YD----" indicates yellow dome.

[J. Scott Hanes]

The rest of the code was the shift and the month. The number 28 was the day of the month. All the targets will have a die code on them, numbered from 1-40 something. Can't remember how many dies in a set. Findlay had three lines, Ada one and Athens had one.

[Kevin McCormack]

What is a "Pat Trap" and where does that name come from?

[Bill Murphy]

Stuart PATenaude, the proprietor of the company.

[Chuck Bishop]

Loved shooting Remington targets back in the day. When you centered them, nothing but black smoke! Then something changed around the year 2000. Don't know if there was a target shortage or what but we shot Remington targets at the Grand and they must have not been cured properly. If you didn't center the target, you could see it move but no pieces came off. Many targets were picked up with multiple holes in it but not broken. That was the end of shooting Remington targets.

[J. Scott Hanes]

What is a "Pat Trap" and where does that name come from?

Kevin,
As Bill Murphy noted, it was a clay target throwing machine specifically made for Trap shooting. It holds 400+ targets in a turret, throws either doubles or single targets at random angles with minimal changeover. Most importantly, it allowed the removal of a target setter from the trap house. The old Winchester hand-set machines had seen many "stung" fingers and numerous injuries to the setters and it was just a matter of time before there would be an OSHA-type mandate disallowing a young person being subject to such 'danger'.
I would venture a guess that at least 90% of the current Trap-shooting clubs use the PAT trap today.

[Bruce Hering]

What is a "Pat Trap" and where does that name come from?

Unless I am way off here (I dont think so) Pat traps are now hydraulically activated from an electric switch. What this means is the arm is cocked and the machine rotated via electrically triggered hydraulic pumps.

Quite different then all electric traps....