doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Alternate Skeet materials

I like to shoot skeet and was curious if anyone in the industry had looked at an inexpensive alternative to lead and clay.

Given the large number of Skeet, Clays, 5 Stand and Trap shooters in this country, you would think that the various organizations would be investigating different shot and bird materials specifically for these sports.

Surely, some sort of bore safe plastic matrix combined with a suitable bird material could be developed. It is no different that the change from live birds to the early clay birds.

I am not talking about materials for hunting; I am looking specifically at the clay bird sports and the ability of my grandchildren to pursue them.

White Flyer has a biodegradable...
http://www.whiteflyer.com/targetbio.html

Pete

The cirle always comes back around. Use live pigeons; they're biodegradable and renewable!

Here, here!!!! Besides the vile things are vectors for innumerable diseases! Our club sells the frozen carcasess to the zoo for predator/'gator food. Sure are great sport. Best, Dr. BILL

Back in about the '60s, before steel shot was a government requirement, Winchester was making steel shot skeet loads. Before it was a federal requirement, steel shot was "easy and cheap to make", selling for about $2 per box at the Winchester trap and skeet franchise ranges. As soon as steel shot became a Federal requirement, it became very difficult and expensive to make. Is that a surprise? BTW, "clay pigeons" are neither clay nor pigeons. They are mainly composed of pitch, so I've been told.

The biodegradable ones are a joke. Must take them a LONG time to biodegrade, and in the interim, they kill all the grass upon which they are degrading themselves. Both clubs where I shoot use them, and they've killed a bunch of grass both places.

When the ethanol from corn craze dies down, we'll start making shot and targets from corn. Prices will stay up, farmers will be happy, shot and targets will be both safe and renewable.

No, you can get biodegradable "clay targets" the ones we shot at and sometimes hit at Flatwater 2007 looked a funny colour to me on the underside and someone said, Steve Voss, I think, they were biodegradable. Whenever I shot, my targets were the bio cast iron type, I swear, I belted them hard but no chips!
Glad you're back in harness, Steve,
Mike, new guns for Flatwater 2008. Should have my Willian Evans single trigger 12 bore back from Les Paul with lustrous Olde English satiny blacking of the barrels.
Mike

Our club had some of those white White Fliers for a few weeks. Biodegradation is probably the easiest way to break them. How about Simskeet-- wide angle camera in the muzzle and some electronics. Have to live with a Simbang; that wouldn't be very satisfying. How about MIRVed Taser in the convenient four gauge "Conversion Module for Antiquated Iron" (hot pink shotshell)? We could throw bricks.

jack

30 years ago on the box of clay pigeons it used to state "Do Not Use Where Hogs Feed". I don't know what is written on there now.

The pitch that was/is used for regular clay birds is poisonous to swine. The Bios do cause the grass and vegetation where thay degrade to die, as Larry said. The reason is that they are made mostly of sulfur, I am told, which degrades and is absorbed into the soil, lowering the pH to the point that the soil becomes so acidic that nothing can grow. Lime in sufficient quantities will raise the pH back to an acceptable range and the vegetation will once again grow.

Stan