Mini trap

Guns Magazine, Feb, 2009 by Chuck Wilson

I have tried a lot of the factory rolled handgun shotshells from the major makers, but I never got a lot of satisfaction out of shooting them. In addition, my indoor gun ranges does not permit its use on the range.

However, 50 years ago I was at Boy Scout camp in the mountains of Colorado enrolled in classes for marksmanship badges and archery and passed an area where someone was shooting on a .22 trap range. The shooter had a smoothbore bolt action .22 and was shooting the crimped .22 loads pictured in John Taffin's Handloading article (December 2008). I stopped, tried it and was totally thrilled. You had to hit a miniature clay pigeon almost immediately or it was out of range. I was determined to get a set up like this but at 11- or 12-years old, my resources were limited. Before I could get into this, I had my very own Remington Model 870 the next Christmas. I still think the .22 caliber trap set was really neat.

I was hunting jackrabbits and prairie dogs by age 8 or 9. In high school, my best friend and I had shotguns, .22 rifles, and Ruger handguns. For reasons I don't understand, we still built zip guns in the shop. Go figure!

Chuck Wilson

Atlanta, Georgia