Questions?

[Mrserenity]

Hi what is the youngest a person should expose a child to trap shooting?  I have a 14 yr old son and I was thinking about taking him trap shooting, is that an old enough age?  Also, what type of hunting do some of you do with your H&R and NEF?  What do you hunt with your 20 gauge and your .410?  Thanks

[Rustyinfla]

A friend of my Dad's took me trap shoting for the first time when I was 12 years old. I had a Mossberg 500 12 gauge with a polychoke. Not exactly a trap gun by the standards of those at the club but I did OK.
  After a brief lesson of about 10 birds flying straight away I was off and running. Today a lot of clubs have what they call a wobbler trap which is a great teaching tool. It will have all the birds go straight away with only about 10-15 degrees of variation.

           Rusty <><

[Graybeard]

I started my oldest son at age 10. Bought him a Remington 870 in 20 ga. and had the stock cut off short enough for him. I owned a skeet and trap range at the time. I stood him on top of the trap house and let him shoot at the outgoing trap targets until he got decent at hitting those. I then took him to the skeet range and let him begin shooting skeet singles only. First from stations one and seven and later from all stations.

He never took to trap shooting that much but did a lot of skeet shooting with me after that beginning. He was Alabama Sub Junior State Champion a couple years.

The one thing I noticed early on with him was that the single shot .410 and later single shot 20 ga. had such heavy trigger pulls they were keeping him from hitting even a stationary target. He would pull off the target trying to make the gun fire. That's when I dumped them and went to the Remington 870 pump gun. What feels reasonable to an adult on a trigger maybe too heavy for a young child.