Pump gun shooting trap - how do you work your action?

[PapaG]

Proper protocol, or etiquette if you will, is to stand at your post with your action open and a shell laying on the carrier or lifter while awaiting your turn to shoot. After the person on the station ahead of you shoots, you close your action, raise your gun (often simultaneously), take your position, call, shoot, and then open the action and catch or let your empty hit the ground. Don't pick it up now. Drop another shell in the action, wait with it open until your turn unless you are ready to move to next station. Don't move from station to station with a shell in the gun.
Most clubs specify not to close your action or raise your gun until it is your turn to shoot.
There is an ata rule specifying not to do anything that disturbs the previous shooter.
On the trap field, skeet field, sp

 

[kev778]

I think those who are so inherently bothered by what is going on either of side of them have simply missed the point of clay sports. If those kinds of things bother you maybe you should look into a hobby that requires just you to be present. Or maybe start up your own range with an O/U only rule and have at it.

I have been hit in the head from an auto-loader/pump ejecting a shell on the trap and wobble line and frankly I don't care because I'm not shooting yet. As far as it throwing another bird that's BS, either the sound activated thrower is set to be entirely too sensitive or the shooter is purposely holding the gun right on the machine. I have never made a target release by opening the slide and I have shot at over 500 targets in the past 3 months.

When it's my turn to shoot... I have my action open, but shell in hand not in the chamber.. the shells would have fallen where they did and while that "terrible catastrophe" is ongoing I put my shell in, close the action, take 3 seconds to focus on my upcoming bird, and BLAM, the target is destroyed. That's all I am thinking about.

But if you are really not in the mood to deal with a d-bag and you want to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".... Using a pump, as I said before, one can easily catch the shell with your trigger hand before it flies all around and allegedly screws it up for the whiner next to you that clearly isn't concentrating on anything but his or her 3 foot diameter personal space. Get real!

But if you want to really irritate them keep shuckin' shells till they leave

 

[cfullgraf]

Sounds like single trap shooting is the prima donna shooting sport.

I didn't realize there was a sport so overwhelmingly sensitive to other shooters even dealing with their arm the way they felt comfortable for the second it takes to rack and then clear a pump shotgun.

When I was shooting competitive skeet in the early 90s, trap shoots offered some serious prize money. That tends to make folks focused. I do not know if it is still that way.

Skeet is a mental game as the shots are the same all of the time. If I let my mind wonder or think about future shots, I'd miss.

I always worked to ignore distractions, but some just can't be blocked out.

Skeet matches tended to be fairly laid back although there was a level of courtesy expected and delivered.

 

[toivo]

As far as it throwing another bird that's BS, either the sound activated thrower is set to be entirely too sensitive or the shooter is purposely holding the gun right on the machine. I have never made a target release by opening the slide and I have shot at over 500 targets in the past 3 months.

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't make it BS. I've seen happen many times. Maybe the machine is too sensitive, I don't know. I'm just reporting what I've seen. It seems to happen on closing the action rather than opening it, but that's what the OP is talking about doing: open, close, open.

 

[benellimax4]

The voice activated trap throwers at Prado go off all the time early do to talking, a bolt going forward, or someone working their pump action.

Other times, you have to scream at them multiple times to throw the bird.