doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com your reccomended "home" electronic clays thrower?

I wish I could see a picture or diagram of how it was built exactly. I can't seem to understand what launched the clay itself. Could you explain it a little more, damascus?

SRH

Me too, Damascus, even though I can pretty much picture the contraption as not much more than an arm acting as a tray for the target(s) to rest on that was affixed to the starter motor's armature at an upward angle and doubles merely being two targets loaded in tandem. I'm seeing simply an electrically powered scaled up version of a Ritz cracker thrower's arm. Still, it would be fun to see a photograph of one of the actual machines in use.

There are a couple of similar games here, in places. One was most frequently found as a trailer mounted mobile game known as 'Crazy Quail' that pre-dates today's 5-stand and was a trap that was set to rotate a full 360 degrees. Some of those set-ups used elevated wobble traps, others did not.

We have a game at the club called 'Powder Pigeon' that is located on a fixed field that consists of a modern carrousel trap w/interrupter mounted on a 360 degree rotating powered base located in a concrete pit with an elevated cinder block wall out in front so that none of the pit nor machinery is visible. Perpendicular to that wall is a concrete walkway starting at 19 meters [roughly 25 meters from the actual trap]. Playing by the strict rules, the shooter is given one shot per target starting at the 19 meter mark. Targets are shot in groups of 5 w/a slide based on the score for the next 5 targets. If the shooter breaks 2 or less they must stay where they are for the next 5 targets; if the shooter breaks 3/5 then he must slide 1 meter back for the next 5; break 4 and he must slide 2 meters back for the next 5 targets and should he break all 5, then he must slide 3 meters back for the next 5 targets. It is the single most difficult game we have. That, in turn makes it the least popular, but it sure is fun if your ego can stand the drumming. Targets are screamers with the trap's spring wound tighter than a two dollar watch and the field is surrounded by mature Burr Oaks and brush with the targets being thrown so that they go above those 80 foot plus trees where the wind is frequently way different than what is going on at ground level. Playing by the rules, a score of 17/25 or above is a VERY good score. It remains almost as tough for those wishing to shoot two rounds at each target &/or stay at a fixed distance.' House birds', those coming directly overhead allow zero time up close and going away targets can easily be 85 yards out if one hesitates.

The original 'Powder Pigeon' game, two club locations back [1950's time frame], consisted of a single Western hand cocked trap mounted on a greased turnstile w/a steel tractor seat affixed for the 'trap boy' to ride as he spun around on it. There was a low cinder block wall in front of it and a flyer sized ring surrounding it. A cotton tuft was affixed to the underside of each target and that had to land inside the ring to be scored 'dead'. Shooters shot from a regulation walkway.

W/apologies for the thread drift, but its a fun subject and I expect many of us shoot a lot more clay targets than game birds these days & challenging targets are always good fun .... even more so if they may be shot where the dog isn't present or at least not paying much attention.

As I have said I was not keen about this clay thrower but I have had a word with some shooting buddies and still waiting replies from one or two others who are old enough to remember them and some information on their construction. At this point I should say my friends feelings on the subject of the �Whirly Bird� are the same as mine and some chose to describe it as the �devils clay trap� another �not that God awful thing� and �have you lost your senses or has your brain gone soft� all accompanied with some Anglo Saxon four letter expletives I could not possibly use in this post.
From what I can make out of the conversations so far the thrower has a couple of variants but they still work on the same principal so as we say over here I have started working on the back of a �Fag packet� drawing of the expletive! Thing!!!
Though I am a little surprised that another Brit member has not come in on this post which has started me thinking this thrower was only used locally in Cheshire during the 1970s, also up to now no photographs.

Thanks. I really would like to see how it was constructed. I will be waiting with bated breath.

SRH

A million years ago when I was in college I was into English sport cars and that meant I spent a lot of time under them fixing them. The cars were from the 50's and early 60's. I recall the starters were different than American cars in that they used a centrifugal system to engage the starter gear to the flywheel whereas American cars used a solenoid to push the starter gear into the flywheel cogs. Maybe that will help in the understanding of how the English thrower above described by Damascus works. Or not.

Best,
Milt

I would firstly like to say I personally have never built one of these launchers but with the help of friend�s memories I am sure we have managed to put together how they were constructed but I am sure there will have to be some trial and error effort invested to get the launcher to function correctly. Now after talking to friends about these launchers I have come to the conclusion they were put together without any thoughts as to safety in operation so the design I have come up with is as safe as I can make it. There are two nuts and bolts in the construction of the spinning plate (for stop adjustment) all the other assembly pieces on the spinner plate must be welded as must the motor shaft to the plate also the tray pivot bar ends should be drilled through and fitted with two split pins at each end about a quarter of an inch apart one as failure backup. These whirly bird launches where always surrounded on all sides by hay bales to stop any chance of a person being injured by a broken clay or a part of the thrower that may come adrift, so it should go without saying no person should be in the hay bale protection area when the launcher is in use. I cannot stress the importance of safety with regard to building or using a launcher of this design if a tray or the top plate or any large part come off when running at full speed it will have the potential to decapitate you at worst and at the very best put you in hospital for some considerable time.
From the drawing you will see that the heart of the Whirly Bird is an automobile starter motor (now builder described the old type Brit motor with a Bendix gear on the shaft which engaged though I should say chewed the teeth on the fly wheel periphery) but like your good selves all the automobiles here now use the pre-engage type motors using a solenoid. So firstly you need to remove the pre-engage solenoid and put it to one side because it can used on a more devilish variant also you need to disable the motor switch that the solenoid acts upon to switch the battery power to the motor, you need to do this so the motor will spin as soon as voltage is applied. Now one thing about starter motors other than they have massive amount of torque but without the load of the engine the terminal no load speed that they can reach is awesome so find yourself a well made heavy duty type with lots of torque. Next the motor is mounted with the motor shaft pointing vertically upwards, I will just say the older motors had a steel casing that enabled four �L� shaped brackets to be welded to the side of the motor for mounting onto a base plate. The construction of modern motors are many and varied so some amount of ingenuity will be required to enable a strong firm motor mounting.
Next a steel plate (the spinner plate), now we think it was approximately 8 inches long by 5 or 6inches wide with a hole at the centre allowing the motor shaft to pass through so it can be welded to the plate for safety reasons it is imperative this union is welded also welded along each of the long sides is a suitable length of steel angle to mount the clay trays and mounting bar for mounting the stop�s and springs etc. which also must be welded. You must make efforts to mount the plate at right angles the shaft to keep vibration to a minimum, and with every subsequent piece you apply to this plate you must do your best to keep it in balanced so it spins as true as possible this is extremely important and cannot be emphasised enough.
The way it works is extremely simple at each end of the spinner plate are the clay launcher trays and a tray stop bar to limit the trays travel to the horizontal this is a safety precaution in the unlikely event that the clay has not left the tray before it reached the true horizontal position, at each side of the spinner plates centre line are the two vertical anchor bars for the adjustable stops and the four tray springs. The inner stop bars are the trays vertical limit stops and you will see that one tray is positioned off centre this off centre position will mean that the clay in that tray will leave the thrower first creating a delay for the second clay. Also on the spinner plate you can see a series of holes so you can move the trays closer to the centre which will also adjust the timing clays leave the trap. One last thing it is the strength of the tray springs that determine how fast the spinner plate has to be traveling before the centrifugal force is enough for the clay to exit the tray and travel through the air.
The more sophisticated versions uses the motors redundant pre-engage solenoid to make a target release on command unit but still utilising adjustable tray angles though they are permanently fixed in use. The electrical release versions let the motor reach terminal speed before the target is released increasing its flight speed, also the electrical control circuitry is arranged to disconnect the voltage supplied to the motor as soon as the target release button is pressed.

And finally as you will see I am not the world�s finest technical drawing exponent also I must admit I started to lose the will to live when switching on my scanner it immediately decided to take up smoking. So I photographed the drawings, also they are not working drawings just overview drawings though I am sure if you really want to construct one of these devilish things there is sufficient information for you to do so.

I have the Atlas AT-50 with wobble base, with the whole works mounted on a small 40" X 48" trailer. There is enough room for the battery and a couple of boxes of clays as well. This is all set up to tow behind my ATV.

The wobble base has separate motors for azimuth and elevation, and can be switched on or off as desired. They are not in sync, so the angle changes constantly. Of course, you can set any angle you want and fix it if you are training beginners.

I built my own foot release, but need to modify it as the trap keeps throwing as long as you hold your foot down. It's kind of hard to remember to take your foot off when you are trying to concentrate on the birds.

I have not had any problems with this unit so far, and don't expect any.

Send me an email at jim.n.wooten (at) juno.com and I'll send you a photo or two.

HHH

damascus,

Sorry to not reply yesterday but I was out shooting doves. Saw your reply this morning. Thank you for going to the effort to do so. I understand the construction completely, and this looks like a good winter project. Your drawing is very clear and understandable, and not at all like I had pictured it in my mind.

Thanks also for the well written explanation of construction and use.

I can just see a bunch of Ga. rednecks getting ahold to one of these.

SRH

Damascus,

Having spent the better part of 40 years in or around various engineering companies and drafting rooms, I must note that when making a sketch it is imperative you throw in the phrase " take a section" .

One question do the clay pigeon trays require any type traction component (rubber) on the edge to impart spin on the bird?

Thanks,
Ken

There is no reason to increase the friction between the clay and the tray Ken because the centrifugal force will keep the clay tight against the opposite side of the tray to the spin direction this will in effect cause the clay roll out rather than slide. Also it produces one of the hardest targets to hit because you will have no idea before you see the target what part of a three hundred and sixty degree circle it will appear at every time. And unless you make the electrical release version there will always be a varying time delay from �pull� to the clay appearing. This was the reason for their fall in popularity no matter how good a shot you are the odds are always stacked very much against you and that does take the reward out of clay shooting rather. It did not earn the name the �devils clay trap� for nothing.