Will a trap gun be ok for shooting sporting layouts?

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Will a trap gun be ok for shooting sporting layouts?

Trap guns are specialised bits of kit designed to cope easily with rising, going away, targets .

By John Bidwell

Thursday, 02 October 2008

I've just got my first shotgun certificate and I've bought a 12-bore over-under Beretta trap gun. Will this be okay for shooting sporting layouts?

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JOHN BIDWELL says:
An experienced, competent, shooter might manage to post reasonable Sporting scores with a gun like this but my advice to a novice like you would be to use it for the job intended of it and buy something more suitable for English Sporting.

Trap guns are specialised bits of kit designed to cope easily with rising, going away, targets - and this is achieved by fitting the action body with a stock and/or barrel assembly that places the shot pattern higher than that from a Sporter.

Trap guns also perform to their best when they are premounted prior to the target being called for whereas the stock on a Sporting gun is shaped and designed to be brought to the face and shoulder after you call 'Pull' and when the target comes into view.

Mounting the gun in this fashion not only creates useful momentum which helps deliver the forward allowance needed to break a moving clay pigeon but it also allows you to watch the bird without the barrels interfering with your view of it.

Unlike trap targets, those encountered on a Sporting shoot are presented at all sorts of speeds, distances and angles so the gun you use needs to be able to accommodate each and every one of them.

This is best done with a gun that shoots to the point of aim - ie where you are looking.

You might decide to part exchange your Beretta for a Sporting model but if you can afford to keep it, do so: the various trap disciplines are great fun in their own right and, as a novice, you owe it to yourself to try as many as possible.

In fact, shooting going-away targets can't help but improve your scores at Sporting - especially when you encounter a shoot that's short on space and throws a fair percentage of quartering-away targets of various descriptions.