American Trap ?

[THOR-HAMMER]

Hello,

May I ask for your recommendations on the following topics :

1.) Which shot size do you recommend for American Trap (singles) ?

2.) How much payload - when the choice is 7/8 or 1 oz ?

3.) Choke constriction ?

Thank you very much in advance.

THOR-HAMMER

[tightloop]

The Hot set up for singles trap is 1oz loads, hard 8's with a back bored barrel of .740, and the choke is modified....if you shoot handicap, you might shoot hard 7.5's and imp mod or full...

[benos]

3.) Choke constriction ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From the 16 yard line - if you're shooting for score (meaning you want the highest score possible and you don't care about where you hit each target) - Improved Cylinder (.010" restriction) is all you need. It will break targets all day long. But if you want to learn whether you're hitting the targets dead on or "just breaking them," Modified or even Full choke is better. You'll miss a lot of targets at the 16 yard line with a Full choke that you would have broke with an Improved Cylinder choke.

be

[JD45]

The main thing is to be sure and pattern each choke. For 16yd. singles, shooters of average speed usually pattern test at 34yds. You want a nice even pattern, not a tight core. And forget about finding a perfect 30-inch pattern. If you find a choke and load that evenly fills a 25-26 inch circle you've really done something.

I played with chokes for a long time. And open chokes can put more Xs on you score card in the beginning. But sooner or latter you'll want to start reading your breaks, and that will require tighter chokes.

The choke I use now is marked FULL, but with my reloads it patterns no better than an Imp. Mod. should. From what I see and hear most top shooters are using a .020" or tighter choke at 16yds. I've got a long ways to go but I have to say that use of a tight choke actually made the game easier for me and helped my scores.

[JD45]

Oh, for singles, number 8 shot is about standard. Really fast shooters can win with 8 1/2s or 9s, even in high winds.

I switched to a 1oz. load for everything last year. It's hard to see any benefit in a round or two. Shoot 200-300 targets in a day and you will feel the advantage of the 1oz. load.

[Greg Jones]

I left the sport of ATA trap several years ago however I was a AA-27 yard shooter when I did play the game. I don't know what choke the top singles shooters use today, but the hot setup when I was shooting was always a full choke on singles as well as handicap. One reason is to read your breaks, as has already been mentioned. The other reason is because an open choke only gives an advantage on straight-away or slight angle targets where the shooter is actually hitting the target from the rear with an open, short shot string*. As these targets are relativity easy to hit anyway, the advantage of an open choke is negligible. The harder targets are the angles, especially from posts 1 and 5. Here the shooter doesn't want to hit the target from the rear, rather the optimal break is where the shooter leads the target and it flies through the shot string where the longer string from a tight choke would be more desirable.

*The better shooters take their straight-away targets so fast that the target is still rising rapidly, so the longer shot string benefits them the same on all targets, regardless of angle. They want the straight-away target to fly up into the shot string. Less experienced shooters tend to shoot the targets as they peak in flight.