"Easier Targets".... Please Explain ??

I was reading in the Dan Bonillas thread about him mentioning how he felt the targets have been made easier over the years. How so? I've heard other experienced Trap shooters say much the same.

I've been out of trapshooting for the last 20 years. Now that I'm retired, I'm getting back into it again. Can someone explain this? I'm not understanding the difference between "2 hole" and "3 hole" targets and such. Thanks in advance.

 

The 2 hole & 3 hole relates to the width of the target pattern. The greater the number the wider the targets will be thrown. The old trap machines had a plate with graduating numbers going all the way to 5 if I remember. A 5 hole target would give you an extreme hard left & right. The difference in a 2 & 3 hole is not very much in my oppinon. Also the wider the target is thrown the closer it is to the shooter. In a sport that tries to equalize ability by moving the shooter further from the target it makes no since to me to have a wider angle that puts the target closer to the shooter. I have only been shooting 45 years so my take on the targets being easier would be that voice pulls have made trap shooting easier in that you get a target on time 99.9 % of the time. Try shooting a round that does not have voice pulls and you may understand why I say this. Also, when the 3 hole targets were used handicap averages increased. I have other oppinons, but this is enough for now. Best Regards and good shooting. J.R. Long

 

BULLSHIT!!!
OK send in the rest of the clowns.

And you sir are somewhat mathematically challenged!!! Did you have off spring?

 

J.R. Do you do auctions? Roger C.

 

Yes Roger I am an Auctioneer. J.R.

 

Yes smithy I have off springs, why do u ask ? J.R.

 

What would Dan Bonillas know about trapshooting?

 

My only easy targets are the ones I broke. just my .02

 

And to think back in the day of ''reading traps'' to eliminate the hard angles and turning down hard angles which one guy was notorious for doing, had it all wrong...hmmm

 

How can you "turn down" a perfectly good target because you don't like it? Cracked or broken, yes. Not launched when called for, (late or early), yes. But otherwise???

 

Now with that said, the target is closer, but now there is more room for error, cause now you have more gun movement coupled with sometimes the hard angels will get a jump on you as they exit the house. Kay Ohey comes to mind, ''The less gun movement you have, the better your swing to the target''.

 

I agree with you, but many of the kids working at the Grand before modern voice actuated calls were easy to fool, or intimidated, or just didn't care .

 

I should not said '' many '', only a few.

 

billt,

The easiest way I know of answering your question is to direct you to the History Buff section and read the Evolution of Flights & Angles 1 & 2.

You might be surprised to learn that the ATA rules once identified a legal target area of 65° on the left and 65° on the right of the center stake. That's an area of 130° Today, shooters cry "illegal target" if it's wider than 17°.

Did you know that ATA rules once required the left & right double targets to be thrown at 35° each side of the center stake?

With all the improvements aiding higher scores, the wisdom has been to reduce the difficulty. Some believe this adds to the monotony of the sport.

Angles requirements have been narrowed.
Distance requirements has been shortened.
Height requirements were narrowed.

HB

 

History Buff,

Has any of this occurred since the late 90's?

 

In 1996 a majority of the Board of Directors voted in favor of reducing the angles to less than a straight-away from Posts 1 & 5. The new rule took effect for the 1997 target year.

​

 

This is from the 1946 A.T.A. Official Rules:

​

Enjoy Our History!

 

"I've been out of trapshooting for the last 20 years."

1999 was 20 years ago. As HB posted, the "official" year of the change was 1997 so you shot those 2 hole targets for at least 2 years. Probably earlier than that since some clubs were trying to get their attendance up and threw easier targets before that.

Do you remember seeing any difference back then? I would assume you at least heard of it back in 1999?

Not trying to jerk you around and I'm pretty sure HB doesn't mind taking the time to post this AGAIN but really? You didn't know about this back when you were still shooting?

 

First, we should understand Kay Ohye's handicap average went UP .5% the year we mandated the return to 3-hole targets. Next, we should realize the target distance requirement went from 48/52 yds. to 49/51 yds.-nothing outstanding there. Third, the introduction of voice actuated systems certainly made the game easier. Last, the quality of the equipment, including adjustable combs, adjustable impacts and even more visible targets helped change the game in our favor.

 

[QUOTE="oleolliedawg, post: 75439, member: 146" Last, the quality of the equipment, including adjustable combs, adjustable impacts and even more visible targets helped change the game in our favor.[/QUOTE]
No question those have made it easier to achieve better scores, but has making the targets easier to hit been in our favor?

 

To be honest back then no. But today YES. Both my wife and I were members of the Lake Havasu City Sportsman's Club back from 1992 until late 1997. We shot there, as well as in ATA tournaments up in Bullhead City. We then moved to Phoenix in late 1997 and were members of Litchfield Park Trap & Skeet until they closed. (I believe it was in 2000 sometime). The last ATA shoot I participated in was the Spring Grand there.

My Trap guns were silent until I retired, and we moved back to Lake Havasu this past July. I rejoined the Lake Havasu City Sportsman's Club a few weeks ago, and have resumed Trapshooting. Now YES, I have noticed I'm not getting hard right angle targets from 5, or hard lefts from 1 like I remember back then.

I never paid it any mind until I started reading the Dan Bonillas link, where he talked about the targets being, "made easier". Then it started to make sense. Hence why I started this thread.

 

Dawg gets it wrong again!!!

But that does not mean he shot 3 hole targets! Dumb Dawg didn't mention the All Americans were still padding their averages by going to clubs that were throwing 2 hole targets or easier!!!! Why would they shoot anywhere else? They were all doing it.

Cheating was the norm. All Americans had great averages until they got to harder shoots.

 

Dumber, than dumb. Do you really believe Kay restricted himself to shooting at those clubs that violated the mandatory 3-hole target year? Just started shooting last year I see as that would be completely impossible. Please tell us if you know for sure!

 

No question those have made it easier to achieve better scores, but has making the targets easier to hit been in our favor?[/QUOTE]
Look, I've only been shooting trap since 1963 so I probably know just a little about target setting. Let me assure you most clubs in Eastern PA were shooting 2-hole targets since the 70's. There were few holdouts. Those of us who set targets on those old Western hand set trap machines usually set distances at 48 yds. knowing that they'd eventually travel an additional yard or two as the traps warmed up. Many of the great shooters of earlier years were also great trap readers. That negated shooting wider angles too. We have a league around here that drew over 800 shooters at one time and the high scores needed to win haven't changed in nearly 60 years. Good shooters are relatively unaffected by wider angles.

 

Y’all hear that. Dawg is old. He knows more than Bonillas and Dysinger combined. Cause he is old.

You can look at the GAH champs. They were not shooting from the 27. But the all Americans had handicap averages.

Dawg has a better chance finding his teeth than getting the facts.

 

Poor Smithy doesn't understand the difference between facts (Kay's average went up) and all the rest being conjecture. These newbees tend to neither believe nor understand history-simply because they weren't there. If I could stupidly believe making angles a bit wider would fix what ails trapshooting I'd be all in. By Smithy's logic the best way to fix Trapshooting is by widening the angles-if 3-hole is good then a 4-hole is even better. Silly Smithy!

 

Dawg...go for it. Post the shoot venues Kay shot at and then come back with the crap that averages go up when the targets get harder. I like how you assume anyone with their teeth is a newbie Bonillas is wrong.

I am sure he shot down at the bottom at PA and shot 100 because the targets were harder. Put your teeth in and get us some real data.

 

No one has yet answered my question: has making it easier to achieve higher scores been good for our sport?
It may be good for the individual ego, but how about for the sport in general?

 

Mudpack, NO, It has not been good for our sport. Check the attendance at the shoots from the 90's and now. We have lost many of our shooters. The easier target coupled with many dumb changes made by the EC has decimated our sport. Most trap shooters liked the older target settings, we came into this sport because we liked the challenge and competition.
The cheaters ruined this game, and the owner, managers of the clubs enabled them because of greed.
Every trap shooter wants to shoot better scores, but shooting better scores with out improving their ability was not one of their priorities. There are many reasons for the sport being hurt, but I guess the EC having failed the members is the major one. Roger C.

 

Got it. Kay shot nearly all his handicap targets in Utah. They actually set their targets in the one hole and ignored the 3-hole target mandatory target setting. I got all that information from my great aunt in NJ who got her information from her ex-husband's sister in Cali who supposedly got most of her information from some diseased former ATA president (diseased). There ya go Smithy, all the information you'll certainly find believable.

 

Let them all shoot better scores! Who cares what shooter wins a pewter plate, belt buckle or flashlight trophy from the 16 yd. line. Move the fence farther back and hope the money returns to the Handicap event again. Everything else means nothing!

 

I went to the 96, 97, 98 average books to take a look at the handicap averages of the top shooters. I started with the ten or so top handicap shooters in 96 and then compared their averages for the next two years. These guys are some of the best shooters of the day and all had plenty of targets so that one or two scores wouldn't alter their averages that much. Also, several were All Americans and probably shot at a lot of the same shoots.

As you can see most of their averages dropped in the 1997 year (3 hole targets) and the improved again in 1998. The ones in red actually improved during the 3 hole experiment. The aforementioned Kay Ohye actually shot worse HCP scores in 97 than 96 contrary to what Oleolliedawg posted.

This is pretty small subset of data so not sure if there is much validity in it. But is does show that the best shooter's averages did drop during the 3 hole period.


Shooter 96 97 98

Ray Stafford 96.28 95.09 95.43

Daro Handy 95.46 95.54 96.02

Dan Bonillas 95.33 95.24 96.10

Leo Harrison 95.31 93.30 94.88

Terry Bilbey 95.01 94.24

Hoffland 95.00 93.60 94.42

Sean Hawley 94.77 95.52 95.39

Seidel 94.61 91.56 94.20

Peterson 94.40 94.76 94.75

Brad Dysinger 93.70 93.37 93.73

Kay Ohye 92.90 93.65 92.27



94.80 94.17 94.72

 

Iowa guy, To bad you can not do the same research on the average shooter. The top guys were challanged . But the average shooter was hurt more. So if the EC in their infanate wisdom do not add yardage, the game will never reclaim the blue collar shooters. Two hole verses three hole is not as important to equalizing the handicap as longer yardage is. Very few shooters would ever attain the 30 yard line. Most on the 27 should not be there. Roger C.

 

Roger, I did start to pick some ‘regular guys’ out but I quickly found that it was tough to pick people. Just using my numbers 82,90,86 on about 1000 targets per year it became clear that I wasn’t going to get much useful data. At least in the sample size I was willing to develop.

In my case I don’t know what caused the huge improvement. 1996 was a down year, but 1997 was pretty good for me. At the time I shot most of my targets at the same club. I know we were throwing 3 holers in 97 because I helped set the traps. Large swings in averages could be weather related. We had 4 two day shoots from April to August and I shot every target. One year the April shoot might be 60 and sunny while the next it could be 30 windy and snowy.

 

Pretty easy to "turn down a perfectly good target because you don't like it" now. Ever heard of the FTF rule? Course, you can only turn down 2 of every 25.

 

It seemed at the time it would be good for our sport. As several here have noted, many, many shooters would only shoot at clubs that threw soft targets. Padding for All American status or just for ego. The clubs that continued to throw "3 hole"-51 yard targets got very little draw. So, most clubs went to 2 hole - 48 yard targets. Then the ATA mandated it to make em all equal and, they thought, to boost participation. But it backfired. BORING. (And, throw in the FTF rule for good measure.) Those softer targets have been part of what has/is killing the sport. It just isn't very interesting anymore.
In come the sporting clays.
Jake

 

No. Not until now. And I've never seen anyone use it.

 

As a trap setter back in the sixty's I didn't see too many good shooters shot very many extreme angles. Then they came out with the interrupter on the trap plates. I think that made a difference.