Shotgun Penetration Question? (Not what you think it is)

[SourwoodJD]

Hello Friends,

 The family has acquired a Western/Olin/Winchester Trap machine.

Its a great old thrower that looks to be barely used.

It is a single load, trap boy has to hand load each clay. 

Being that, we got a good deal on it.

The auto feeder clay stacks are a very expensive add on so that's out of the question

unless we find a smoking deal on one.

 

What I'm wanting to do is mount the unit on a small trailer we have, so that we can shoot

at different locations. Probably with a deep cycle battery and an inverter or a small generator.

But somebody has to be on the trailer with the trap to load it 16 yds or farther in front of the firing line.

Not that we'll be shooting at the trailer but we must be safe.

 

So my question is

How would be the best /cheapest way to bulletproof the front of our trailer?

 

How many boards would shotgun target loads go through at 16 yds ?

Would a sheet of metal plus wood be better ?

Wood and bricks?

Hay bales?

I'm just looking for thoughts and ideas.

Thanks

 John

[peejman]

I suspect you'd need enough thickness with wood that metal would be more economical.  Either way, it's gonna be expensive to build one.  You must be mindful of angles so that shot typically won't hit the barrier straight-on, and such that anything that hits it will be deflected in a safe direction.  Best choice might be to pick a few locations and build an earthen berm to sit it behind. 

[Caster]

Bury the trailer and let them shoot over you. Other than that, no way I'd want to be inside.

[56FordGuy]

I suspect the cost of metal stout enough to work will be more expensive than the attachment for the thrower so nobody has to physically tend it. I wouldn't try any non-metal stop, heck personally I wouldn't even do this. I'd find a different plan. You got a deal on the thrower you said, so spend the savings on the correct attachments. 

 

If there's ever any issue with your shooting- and I mean anything from neighbors with noise complaints, someone steps in a gopher hole and twists an ankle, or heaven forbid anything worse and you end up in court the fact that you're shooting at/ over a person's position pretty much makes you negligent in the eyes of a jury no matter how unrelated the reason you're in court is. Hopefully it never comes to that, but this whole idea just makes me pretty nervous. 

 

Why does the thrower have to be downrange? I don't know much (anything) about actual shotgun competitions, but it seems to me there should be another way to accomplish this without putting people in front of the firing line. 

[RED333]

My $0.02

Do not even act like you are thinking about putting someone in the line of fire.

[bersaguy]

Back years ago when I spent a lot of time shooting Trap and Skeet I got to look inside a Trap house. It was buried below a berm ground level, made of 5 inches of Concrete on all three sides in front of shooters and the roof was 3/4 inch Marine type plywood with I think 1/4 inch steel plate covered with earth. They said the trap house had to be very very safe for the operator even though all of the shots that were made was with the Clay birds at least 25+ feet above the trap house. If your machine is commercial grade you should be able to put the machine just behind the shooters on one side or the other and still have a challenging bird flight. If it has the right bird flight the bird is moving at 90 Feet per second for first 5 seconds and is out of range in 9 seconds using low power trap loads. I do think like most folks on this one though. Best to not have the operator in front of the shooters in anything above ground..............jmho

[Dirtshooter]

Instead of spending money on a barrier, go buy a good 12 volt model with a remote control. Don't even consider putting anyone in FRONT of a person with a loaded gun. Believe me you will have a lot more fun when nobody has to get in FRONT of a loaded gun. Just think of the money spent as good insurance against an injury.

[SourwoodJD]

Thanks for the replies gentlemen.

 This was a brainstorm idea of setup and appears to be not at all liked by the community.

The earthen berm may be a future option, I'll have to crank up the old bobcat.

 

Bersaguy is right on about trap house setup. Our local club has a little cinder block building but its protruding about 2 blocks above ground.

They now have a auto trap but I'm not sure if its always been this way.

 

The reason for the 16yd line is that's the way the game of trap is played.

16 yds is the closest moving in 1yd increments/handicaps back to 27yds.

 

While as stated I would love to have the autoload option on our trap, but it's a $2,500 upgrade and that's a no go.

That'll buy a whole bunch of rounds at our local club and would not be economically feasible.

 

All this discussion has really got me thinking of shotgun penetration though.

What about pattern boards ?

Some clubs have large sheets of metal to pattern test guns on (at 30yds?)

and from the little I've read most are 1/8" to 3/16" thick ?

Has anyone had any dealing with them ?

[bersaguy]

Back when I was shooting Trap, that was the way I grew up shooting at Turkey Shoots. When I moved down here I went to a Turkey shoot and it was the pattern paper targets and I was a little disappointed it was not a trap shoot. I was a member of two different shooting clubs and shot at one or the other every Friday night. You mentioned the 27 yard back up in your club. We called them Block house shoots and we had 5 shooters at a time and if you missed you were eliminated from that shoot. My buddy and I won many of those shoots. I had an Over/Under 30 inch Full & Full Browning and my buddy shot a Winchester Model 12 Pump gun with 30 Inch Full.

 

At the 16 yard distance we both had to wait till the birds peaked and began their down float before we could bust them. Most of the other guys were shooting modified barrels. That is why we were able to win most of the block house shoots. The birds were still in their climb when we could shoot them. At those turkey shoots we would always come home with several canned hams and several Turkey's. I like what they called the meat shoots. There you could win a Turkey, ham, 8 lb stick of Bologna, or Salami. We would clean up on those shoots. Thing is we were both teenagers shooting against most grown men that had been shooting for years. Most everyone reloaded their own shells so it was fairly cheap for us to shoot back then.

 

I went to one of the Turkey shoots down here with my younger brother and I got to shoot only one round before my gun was disqualified. They let me have the first Turkey but told me I could not shoot again. Even though they could not prove my gun was sleeved which it was not they said I couldn't shoot again. I almost blew the center out of the target. I didn't argue it. I just hung around and watched my little brother win about 5 turkeys with my grandfathers old single shot 30 inch full choke 12 gauge. That Browning was one of the guns they got when they burglarized out home in 1988...................... :shrug:

Edited November 18, 2015 by bersaguy