Seems to me to be important for each shooter to work out for himself what will give him the most pleasure from each shooting outting and which gun is most likely to deliver said pleasure. He needs consider if he will be happiest with a beautiful/stylish gun, one with some personal connection, one that he finds easy to shoot, or is he looking for the highest score possible. An understanding of the available guns will aid the selection.
On big guns - I shot well at the VC with an Ithaca NID 4E trap gun. It has a recent CSM 1 1/2" pad and two 5/16" spacers to make the 13 1/2" stock fit me for LOP. Drop of 1 1/4" - 2 1/8" is OK, but it needs some cast-off. It weighs in at 9# 2oz, balances 5 1/2" in front of the single trigger, has an unmounted swing of 2.95, mounted swing of 11.73, and a HWR of 12.24. As I said - a big gun. Curiously, I shot the 130+ targets over some 3 hours without fatigue. In this case, I wanted to shoot a high score (for me) to support the Carolinas Vintagers in the Chapter Challenge. So, the (possibly) higher score than I likely would have shot with a more stylish gun made for a more fun day. Anyway, that is my story and I'm stickin' to it.
