doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ed's new Parker book

Post deleted by Run With The Fox

There are pigeon rings, to my knowledge, in the good ol' US of A in Pensylvania, NY, MD, VA, NC, and IN. There is no greater sport than standing alone to the mark (everyone starts at 31 yards). And everyone else is watching. You say, "Trapper ready?"

"Ready..."

"Pull"

And a dun grey projectile springs at random from one of the array of nine traps spaced 5 yards apart and "drives" for the nearest 18-inch high boundrary fence about 15 yards from the traps (or sometimes comes right at you!).

Bang! Bang!

Two shots required (even if you blank him with the first barrel), or the traper will mark him "lost bird." Kill him in bounds and you score; A dead bird outside the fence is as much a "lost bird" than if you missed him clean. Kill 5 birds in a row and step back a yard for your next 5 bird round. "Races" are usually 20 birds, although some venues hold 25 bird competitions. Kill 23 of 25 and you probably win it outright. Twenty-five in a row is almost unheard of.

This is a tough sport with no 25-, 50-, or 100-straight patches awarded. As a minimum, each "pull" costs $7.00 or more, so it's not for the financially challenged. And then there's the mandatory stakes and side bets (although some mitigation for seniors and women). This is not a "personal best" or handicap-type sport. Everyone starts even at 31 yards, and steps back a yard according to proven excelence on the given day, by going 5 straight. While not for everyone, I find live birds (euphemistically called "flyers") as a refreshing break from the "machine shooting" of Trap and Skeet, where the targets are a far cry from real life presentations of wing shooting, shooting on the wing, or "shooting flying," which started this tread. The variations of sporting clays, five stand, and ZZ Birds have added interest to shotgun competitions, but, still, the targets start out fast and get slower, the exact opposite of real-life shooting flying.

As for pigeons being a "precious wildlife resource," beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but in most major cities the pigeons rank with rats and cockroaches on the wildlife hit parade. Different strokes... EDM

Thanks Ed- especially for confirming why (IMO) barn pigeons and crows with the gun(s) you hunt game birds with-are the best practice for the wingshooter- your analysis of clays losing velocity over distance and time-at odds with the black spurred old Rooster fezzant you boot out from a half-frozen cattail marsh in late Nov- or when the scaups and buffleheads strafe your sets of Schmidt and Soule "foolies" on Saginaw Bay at Thanksgiving week-end, or (and this is guestimate, as MI will have a dove season when Hell Freezes Over apparently=-mourning doves in flight with a tailwind moving them into Mach range- I didn't know that many States had live bird rings-or about the yardage- I had heard somewhere about the two shots mandatory- is that because some live bird guns (a la Nash Buckingham's Bo Whoop Becker-Fox) had no safety, and by firing both barrels, even though the "flyer" may have dropped like a rock inside the fence, then the shotgun is considered to be "in a safer mode" than if only one tube was fired? Your knowledge and insight into the shooting sports is like the Mississippi River- both deep and wide, and I thank you for sharing it so generously here. RWTF

Guys used and still use no safety guns for pigeon shooting because there's so much money involved. When just one fumble on the safety could cost you the purse in the match. Buckingham was a live pigeon shooter but I think the lack of safety on the Becker guns was just personal preference more than the fact that he used them on flyers.

The two shot thing is just a safety issued, they don't want somebody walking off the mark with a loaded gun. I believe it's really a carry over from muzzle loading days that's just stayed with the sport.

Destry

What is failed to be said, is that most of these shoots are held in secret. Not that there's big money walking around, it's live targets as targets.

I wouldn't necessarily call them "secret", they don't hang big posters up announcing the matches that's for certain. I mean that's just asking for the roads to be lined with bunny huggers and bleeding hearts.

The last big public match was the Labor Day Tournament at Hegins, PA. They shot that one on the baseball field for years until the PETA peckerheads finally wore the city officials out and they told them they couldn't have there anymore. The tournament still goes on and still draws a crowd but it's shot on a private club now.

Sorta makes me think about a page from an older vintage Gene Hill article- names for groups of critters- if memory serves, Flock of Geese, Pity of Doves, a Pride of Lions, and, as I love to obliterate "Black Ducks"- a Murder of Crows- to which I add my call: "A Shitload of Pigeons" PETA- "Peckerheads Exhibiting Tightning *&^holes" . You ever shot "flyers" Destry? Any restrictions on bore and load size. A friend said the best premium loads money can buy are the nickel plated International Pigeon loads-He shoots a Perrazi 12 O/U- one of the few O/U's I've ever held that felt like a lively shotgun in my hands- the other was a 20 gauge Woodward- both out of my pocketbook range, but a man can dream for free, right?? RWTF

Oh yeah, shot flyers quite a few times. I've got a match against Mr. Kimble coming up in January out at the Philadelphia Gun Club actually.

I've never heard much about load restrictions but you can't shoot 10 gauge guns anymore. And at Philly you've got to shoot club shells (bismuth only) because their ring faces the river.

A close friend is a member so I get an invite sometimes, otherwise they'd never let me anywhere near the place. First club I ever went to that you had to wear a jacket and tie just to walk downstairs in the clubhouse.


Destry

When each "Pull" costs $7.00 and up, it's easy to spend $600 or more for a day's "targets" and ammo, without miss-and-outs, bets and side bets. I have been with the "good ol' boys" who have one or two rings and I've been in the presence of greatness...7 rings, country club-like, gratis food for the epicure and an open bar, card playing rooms, and a calcatta Friday nite, taking into account Thursday's and Friday's scores plus the reputation of the shooters, where first choice can cost upwards of $16,500 and, according to my guesstimate, they raised a quarter mil, cash, 85% to the winning bidder, and 15% to his choice shooter.

When you consider that the greater mass of trap/skeet shooters reload their own shells and pay a relative pittance for a 25-clay round, I'd say that $7.00 per flyer is on a whole different level, so much so that a great many shooters use 1 1/4-oz Hevi-shot loads at $2.00 each, which computes to $11.00 for every released bird. This is the sport of kings, and King Juan Carlos of Spain is the patron of the sport. I am 67 years old so I slide by the mandatory betting as a senior, and being blind in my right eye (after a lifetime of right-eye-dominant right-handed shooting), I am not competitive as a lefty. Nevertheless, I pay the price once or twice a year just to match myself against some of the greatest wing shots in the world. There's a picture in my new book of Howard Miller (now deceased, of Miller SST fame) drawing a bead at Hegins PA, with my Parker GH pigeon gun (Miller SST, of course). Howard was a great shot in his day.

This is not a "secret" sport but a very private sport. One must be invited. I love it. I wish I had discovered "flyers" when I was young and in possession of all my hand-to-eye coordination. Now my "winnings" are simply to be in the presence of some of the best latter-day knights of the trigger.

Money can magnify importance. Think of the drooling idiots on that TV program where,with great drama, they simply open suitcases. Suppose the top-dollar suitcase held $100; would anyone watch? Now suppose a top gun steps to the mark with real money on the line; a whole different sort of tension than for some handicap shooter who chances to be "right at the right time" at the Grand American Handicap lottery. EDM

ED, I got your books yesterday and boy, are they great. Thank you for another great book on Parkers. Frank