What Year Did They Make The Targets Easier?

Having a discussion at the club over the weekend with some of the older shooters who were claiming when they shot the Grand at Vandalia that the targets were faster and wider than the targets thrown today. I know this has been talked about here a lot, but I could not find out any time frame when the change happened. Was it when the Grand went to Sparta?

 

Damned targets were typically much narrower than 3hole long before the move to Sparta lol,
Time to troll elsewhere & on to more important subjects! The damned ATA is locked into easy targets, easy scores & participation awards!
Everyone knows this and nobody can change it except by quitting which will only help them to indoctrinate more youth to thier agenda

 

I'd say sometime in the 70's but some must have better memories than mine so it may have been in the 60's. Anyway, targets in the East are always tougher than anywhere else based on scoring so maybe they're too wide.

 

legit question.
I have a clay collection and some old and new targets are indeed different O.D.
as far as 3 to 2 hole? im not sure. some will know.

 

The older guys at the club told me that local clubs and state shoots (KY & OH) threw pretty identical targets until the state shoots started throwing puff targets in the late seventies. That time frame seems to fit with the ages of these guys. I don't know how anyone really gauges this but I do know that two clubs I frequent (Tri-City Sportsmans in KY and Fairfield Sportsmen's Association in OH) throw totally different targets with Tri-City being wider and faster.

I suppose local clubs only use target setting standards as a suggestion and not a hard and fast rule. I really don't have a problem with how they set their targets as they are the same for everyone shooting so I don't understand what the problem is. But I have only been shooting trap for ten years now so I don't have vast experience of most of you guys.

 

Everyone knows targets West and Southwest of PA are much easier. Conditions at local clubs probably dictated what a fair target looked like.

 

I always thought targets at the grand in Ohio were better than what I normally shot. Always shot better scores there for whatever reason. I believe the targets even when 3 hole were more skillfully set than what I was used to. I was shooting off of a windy hilltop in WVa at that time. After moving to Florida I also learned that most of the shells we had to shoot back then (compulsory) were hotter than the run of the mill loads offered by manufacturers. Club manager bought all the leftovers he could get from the grand (they were always marked in some way). He told me that these were the shells to use for caps as long as I could get them. I later chronographed some and he was mostly correct. Seems that for a time the manufacturers wanted to supply the winners and were fudging on the feet per second in hopes of gaining an advantage. Kind of goes contrary to the Frank Little/Remington fairytale that pops up occasionally. Lots of other small bits of info of what went on that I’ve been privy to mostly after the fact. I had my best year at Vandalia when they supposedly threw some of the worst targets. The year they used Racer targets my scores were noticeably higher. Even won a shoot off and trophy that year, which at that time was a pretty big deal for me.