Shotgun shell catchers?

[Holland&Holland]

Anybody using a shell catcher on their semi-auto for trap? Youngest starts spring trap at school in a couple of weeks and the coach wants semi-autos with a shell catcher installed or use rubber bands. Looks like Cabela's has the Birchwood Casey wire looking thingie. Anyone use one? Does it work?

He knows his gun well but it does not malfunction so clearing malfunctions is not something he has a lot of experience at so I do not want to introduce something that does not work well with the gun. (I know I should induce some for training but time and kids...)

Shotgun is a Stoeger M3000. And yes whatever we get we will try out a round with this weekend.

Thanks

[shooter115]

I've been using a Winchester Super X2 for about the last 8 years for trap and use the same Birchwood shell deflector you speak of. It works, it is not 100% consistent, some shells fall on the ground and some get bounced back into the reciever. That said, it does stop the shells from hitting the guy on your right which is a must. Nothing more annoying than trying to focus on your shot while getting pelted with someone else's ejected hulls.

[old guy]

I've used them for several years on my 1100 Rems, I had one of the stick on wire one on one gun for along time, placement and adjustment is important with that one, a little bending of the spring may be nessesary.
None work 100% but the last time I took my Grandson out for trap we both shot 3 rounds (150 shots) with 1100s and I don't think we dropped 1 case.

John

[Holland&Holland]

Follow up question. What choke do most seem to use for trap? I know one needs to pattern to know how a particular choke is functioning but in general.

This would be from the 16 yard line only. I have IC in his gun now, shot a sporting clays course last weekend and he did pretty decent.

[usnret]

A modified choke would be the best for a beginner.

[Holland&Holland]

A modified choke would be the best for a beginner.

Can you expand a bit on the reasoning?

[LumberZach]

Basically a modified is right on the middle. You definitely want more than an IC, but most people use modified. I like using a full or something a little tighter, but once you have some experience you can decide that. Sporting clays generally are closer and moving faster so a more open choke works better, but for trap you want to keep that shot column together enough that you can get a solid piece off of it.


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[crbutler]

The idea is how far out are you breaking the target?

Less than 25 yards, I use Skeet.

25-30, ic

30-40 mod

45 on up, full.

If you are shooting from the 16 yard mark, you will be breaking them around 30, depending on your reflexes.

When I shoot trap now, I am starting from low gun at the 27 yard handicap line, so they are out at about 45 yards or so for me. Thus, using full choke in it.

Basically, you are looking at pattern density. If you are not getting 3-5 pellets in a clay bird, it may not break, and look at the patterns from a IC choke at 45 yards. It may get the required number of hits, or it may not, the patterns are a bit spotty.

[Holland&Holland]

The idea is how far out are you breaking the target?

Less than 25 yards, I use Skeet.

25-30, ic

30-40 mod

45 on up, full.

If you are shooting from the 16 yard mark, you will be breaking them around 30, depending on your reflexes.

When I shoot trap now, I am starting from low gun at the 27 yard handicap line, so they are out at about 45 yards or so for me. Thus, using full choke in it.

Basically, you are looking at pattern density. If you are not getting 3-5 pellets in a clay bird, it may not break, and look at the patterns from a IC choke at 45 yards. It may get the required number of hits, or it may not, the patterns are a bit spotty.

So young shooter (16). Was thinking IC for a wider pattern but maybe mod is the best compromise. He was doing so well with the IC on the clays course I was hating to switch it on him.

[crbutler]

If he shoots quickly, then the IC may be a good choice.

Make sure he is using #8 shot at that distance. 7.5 is for handicap.

I would use modified or light modified if you have it. Smoking the target as opposed to just breaking it is a tremendous confidence builder if you can do it reliably.

The easy way to tell is use the IC for a few practice birds and if he is having just a piece break off or the target wobbles more often than not, then go to modified or even improved modified.

Of course, the best way is to pattern the gun and load at the desired distance, but that takes a lot of time. Truth be told, the difference in IC and modified is probably not that big, it's just missing when you did everything right messes with your head.

[shooter115]

Myself and most others I know use either a full, light full or improved modified for trap. IMHO, IC is way too loose for trap. I've personally used full for the last 10 years or so. I also switched from 8's to 7.5's about 6 years ago when our club went to biodegradable birds which were way harder to break than the old standard clays.

[old guy]

I don't know any trapshooter that uses IC, that is too open even for 16 yd, unless he is a very fast shooter he should start out with full or imp mod and as his speed increases maybe drop back to modified.
The last years I shot trap I was shooting 12000 to 15000 shells a year and I was one of the few that used mod. choke, most used imp. mod. or full.


John

[Holland&Holland]

Follow up to this post.

So made some purchases and headed out to Buffalo gun club this afternoon for his 1st real round of trap. He is not new to shooting a shotgun but he has never actually shot a true round of trap before. All the shotgunning he has done has been a handful of times at the Horse and Hunt sporting clays course or using a spring thrower on our hunting land so I wanted him to get the sequence of trap before the season starts. Hopefully we will be able to get back out a couple more times before the official start of the season. Would have shot more today but they were only open to the public from noon to 3 and we had a hour wait to get in our first round with a pretty good backlog filling in behind us. Saw vests from 4 different schools there so everyone looks to be doing the same thing and tuning up before the season.

Point 1, I did order the Beechwood Casey shell catcher on line. Ordered it Thursday and it showed up on Saturday. Gotta love Amazon sometimes. It is all that it claims to be. Installed easily. Worked, I will say, flawlessly. Had 2 shells that it did not catch but they landed at his feet so it basically did. The others caught and looked just like on the advertisement pic. Easy for him to operate and did not get in the way of functioning the gun.

Point 2, I removed the IC from his gun based on the discussion here and some follow up discussion I had with a trap shooter out at Oakdale. I had a Mod choke already and was going to go that route but wanted to have options and I had a cabela's coupon burning a hole in my pocket. (alright the truth is the coupon required I spend $500 and the LC9s I bought was on sale for $389 so I needed to find other items and one can never have too many chokes right?). So I bought a full and a IM for his gun. The IM was extended (only one they had for his gun) so it looked Trap-ti-cool so of course I started there. WOW! All I can say is I have not seen pigeons turned to dust so completely since I had to clean out an old farmers pigeon coop on a farmstead we bought when I was a kid. My plan was to have him try the IM and then try a round with Mod and Full and see if I could tell a difference but he did great. I think this is probably the right choke to keep him in for a while. He shot a 20. I figure not bad for his 1st real round.

Point 3, I may have gotten a bit too excited about his participation, coach emailed me tonight and by the end of the exchange I ended up as an assistant coach for the team. I may need some pointers guys. I am by no means a trap expert.

[shooter115]

Good on you for getting involved. I'm also a volunteer coach for our high school trap team. To me this is huge. The fact that a shooting sport has become a mainstream school activity, that a participant can letter in, actually shows some hope for the future generation.