Creating memories
“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”
Albert Einstein
There’s nothing more important than making memories with your family and friends. I love a Sunday morning shoot. Crisp Autumn air, smoking barrels and wood fire all contribute to the relaxing aromatherapy of the countryside. Whether it’s smashing some clays or the promise of a sausage butty, you know everyone is going to turn out and have a good time.
Prep needs to be quick and easy because, as we all know, life is hectic! That’s where the Supermatch 1 and Compact 150 come into their own. Light and portable, I can lift them into the van with ease. A couple of boxes of clays, 2 x 85amp hr batteries and a sporting 2 radio and the shooting is sorted. To be honest, the food takes more preparation!
I get enormous pride knowing people are socialising together and enjoying the outdoors with our equipment. As a family business, it’s our core value to build strong and reliable equipment for this exact reason.
The Supermatch 1 we used was mounted on a mini barrow to keep it light and portable. The ground on the field is flat, so the trap is easy enough to pull into position even in the winter months. We mounted it on a compact oscillating base and placed it 40 yards in front of our shooting position for an incoming target.
The trap elevates all the way up to springing teal, so I was able to put on a full target that stalled nicely at its peak for the kids to practice on. The oscillation was ideal to challenge the more competent amongst us and add some nice variation. We only used the standard hopper on this occasion to keep the targets simple.
The Compact 150 was also mounted on a mini barrow, however without an oscillating base for a fixed target. We placed the 150 at the top of the field, at our shooting position for a going away target. We changed our shooting position around the trap throughout the shoot to vary the shooting angles. This meant we were able to shoot directly at the clay and change very easily to shooting quartering and crossing targets.
We used a Morris sporting 2 radio which gave us the perfect hands-free control of both traps. With this radio we could fire both traps individually for singles / pairs on report or use the pairs button for a simultaneous pair. In this scenario, we had less time on the going away bird so, we shot that first before taking the high incoming clay from the Supermatch 1.
For the guns we had a Beretta Silver Pigeon 1 12g, a Lincoln Premier 12g and a Lincoln Premier 410 junior. A special shout out to Roy Martin Gunsmith who lent us the 410, 100% something I am going to invest in, soon.
This was the first time my daughter was at an age where she could have a go at shooting (although she loves buttoning) and it was great to have a 410 to try out. Having the auto safety was a nice feature which made the whole experience feel very safe. I knew even when the action was closed nothing was live until I was completely ready and the safety could then be switched off. To be honest, we all enjoyed having a go with the 410, it really was a lot of fun to shoot, very pointable and added an extra level competition knowing you had to be more accurate.
The Lincoln 12g is also a great gun to shoot, being a game gun it is light and manoeuvrable with fixed chokes at 1/4 and 1/2. It has simple engraving and is budget friendly for getting into clays. The Silver Pigeon is Berettas entry level model, a heavier sporter with multi-chokes, it helps absorb the kick from the cartridges. We were using 24g Fibre wad and also recommend a lighter 21g for easy going shooting.
Teaching proper trap and gun etiquette is important. You can see the yellow safety rings fitted to the traps which provide a visual reminder of the danger zone.
A couple of hours shooting, good food, hot coffee and quick whip around to pick up any unbroken clays (there were a few more than we would like to admit) and it’s a wrap. The traps are stored away for the next outing and batteries go on charge.
We were very lucky with the weather for this time of year and its something we should really do more often! At a time where social media and mobile phones are taking over, we can become disconnected with the outdoors, and I found this to be very rewarding on many levels.
If you have access to land and think this is something you would like to get involved in, please get in touch. We will be happy to give advice on getting started.
To take a more in-depth look into the traps we use for our family shoot please click on their product links below.
There you will find all the features of the traps including add on accessories.
We also have a dedicated page for popular bundles, if this interests you, the link is below.
