Category: Vintage

Vintage Articles by Derek Partridge

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shotguns, Skeet, Sporting Clays, Training, Vintage

Not so long ago, we have published a series of vintage shotgun related articles written and contributed by Derek Partridge. Mr. Partridge hails from Great Britain, is a veteran International shooter, and has been widely published in various magazines from 1962 to 1995. Here are all the articles from our Vintage Weekly series in one place.   Think Safe » International Style Clay Target Shooting, 1976 The Challenge Of Olympic Trap » The American Shotgunner, January 1986 Confessions Of An International Trapshooter Part 1 » Popular Guns, November 1971 Confessions Of An International Trapshooter Part 2 » Popular Guns, November 1972 Championship Clay Busting » International Style Clay Target Shooting, 1976 The Trapshooter And How He Stands » Gun Digest, Annual 1973 A Rifleman’s Conversion Kit To Shotgunning » International Style Clay Target Shooting, 1976 Claybirder’s Survival Kit » Gun World, November 1970 The Eyes Have It » Shotgun Sports, March 1987 Up-Tight Overchoking » Gun World, August 1970 Release Triggers […]

Championship Clay Busting

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shotguns, Skeet, Tips and Tricks, Training, Trap, Vintage

An International competitor gives a guided tour through the complex simplicity of breaking one clay – the only way to break 100’s. Competitive clay busting is one of the loneliest games in the world. “What?” you say, “with all my buddies around me?” Yes, they’re there to talk to of your hopes, their fulfillment – or, your excuses! They’re even with you when you’re shooting. But are they really? If they’re serious competitive shooters and not just out for fun with the boys, they, like you, should be in such complete isolation that even if one dropped dead on the line, the only thought of those remaining should still be the next target. Such is the degree of oblivious concentration required on the firing line during your “moments of truth”. An extreme example, I admit, but that detachment is what it takes to be a top clay buster. I have often shot through a day with out knowing that a […]

Confessions of an Int. Trapshooter – Part 2

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shotguns, Training, Trap, Vintage

Author shows correct stance and hold for International-style clay-birding. A shotgunning champ describes the toughest, most frustrating of all smoothbore shooting matches – and discloses clay-busting guns and methods! I hear many reasons why more American trapshooters don’t attempt to shoot International trap. They range from the claim that it’s too expensive and requires special equipment, to an admission of a general ignorance of its existence – what it really is – to a lack of facilities for it. And so on. I have no doubt as to the real reason for most trapshooters. I lived with the reason for many years in England, which is one of the very few other countries that shoot a form of American trap – the others being some of England’s former colonies and those countries where American troops are currently based. The rest of the world shoots International. The reason is simple and based firmly on the delicate nature of human ego. Sadly, […]

Confessions of an Int. Trapshooter – Part 1

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Skeet, Trap, Vintage

Author’s pet trap gun is this Perazzi; note detachable trigger assembly. Here’s why the world’s greatest shotgunners become addicted to “skyrockets,” “grasscutters,” “jet-propelled aspirin tablets”. “Pu-u-ul”, I yelled. I had got about as far as “Pu…” when jet-propelled aspirin was ejected from a barely visible slit in the ground out in front of me. Just about the time I was completing “…u-ul”, what I had to presume had been a clay pigeon was smashed – by its return to earth! I lowered my unfired gun, turned around and somewhat shakily informed the world in general: “You must be joking!” That was my first International Trap target, back in 1958. At that moment, on the beautiful grounds of the Circle du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, my whole shooting world fell apart. My reputation disintegrated, my confidence vanished! I had been hunting since 1950 and had won a reputation for naturally speedy reflexes when hunting the canny English wood pigeon – a […]

The Trapshooter And How He Stands

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shotguns, Tips and Tricks, Training, Vintage

Some champion claybirders spite of their bad form mounting. Our European shows the way to better the fundamentals of good bust ’em well in and worse gun smoothbore editor shooting via stance and style. As in other aspects of life there are many shooters, including some top-flight competitors, who shoot well in spite of having basically bad stances and gun mounting techniques, rather than because of good ones. As the success of each shot is largely determined by these two factors – before you even call for the target – they are of vital importance. Under “normal” conditions such faults can be got away with, but in bad weather, bad visibility, or when heavy competitive pressure is on, these faults can begin to tell – with disastrous results. If, however, you have a firm base in these fundamentals such additional strains will have far less adverse effect. Most new shooters develop their stances and mounting forms in two ways: untrained […]

Fine-Tuning The Perazzi

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Shooting Equipment, Shotguns, Tips and Tricks, Vintage

Author (left) is shown with Daniele Perazzi and Ennio Mattarelli at Perazzi factory in Italy. Behind them is photo of Mattarelli’s 1964 Tokyo Olympics gold medal win. “Italy’s best shotgun” caught my eye in a magazine article I read while I was working in Los Angeles in 1968. Roger Barlow described a high-quality, competition gun, designed purely for ISU Olympic Trap (bunker). I handled one at Pachmayr’s and it felt like a magical shotgun capable of breaking targets all by itself! By coincidence, a few days later, I flew to Milan to shoot a second series of sporting TV commercials for Fiuggi mineral water… and I was on the way to my first Perazzi. Daniele Perazzi, a lithe, smiling, energetic 35-year-old, met me at Brescia station and we were off to tour his kingdom. That was where I watched chunks of wood and metal being transformed into my dream shotgun. I described Daniele then as a “shirt-sleeve dynamo, who appears […]

Think Safe

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Safety, Shooting Equipment, Shotguns, Vintage

While it may be easy to make mistakes such as the one being illustrated here, think of shotgun safety as common etiquette; consider others as you would have them think of you. Accident-free gun handling is the responsibility of every shooter, but here are some gentle reminders! There’s really nothing new to safety, but there are always new shooters and youngsters who don’t know the rules and a few others who don’t practice them. So, a little repetition can do no harm and hopefully, some good – especially at a time when there is the specter of further gun controls. Sadly, there are always plenty of stories about hunters shooting people they thought were animals. No one, worthy of the name hunter, ever just thinks before taking the responsibility of releasing a lethal load into the countryside. He makes damn sure first and if there’s the slightest shadow of doubt, for any reason whatever, he doesn’t shoot. So you lose a bird […]

A Rifleman’s Conversion Kit To Shotgunning

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Shooting Equipment, Tips and Tricks, Training, Vintage

Rifleman (left) holds thumb alongside stock, squeezes trigger with first joint of finger. Shotgunner (right) wraps thumb around grip, finger “pulls” trigger. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” An angry, but almost more amused voice brought me to my senses and I stopped rapidly: on the 26 yard line at a state trap championship. Now you might reasonably conclude that there’s nothing particularly unusual in that, in fact, there was only one slight irregularity – I was still in my car! I had been completely mesmerized by the confirmation of what my first glance had transmitted to the unbelieving recognition center of my think box: a man was shooting 16 yard clays with a telescopic sight mounted on his pump gun! With true British aplomb, sangfroid and all that sort of thing, in an embarrassing situation, I proceeded to back cooly off the firing line – and almost mowed down the astounded squad of trapshooters – I’d been […]

Perazzi… Ferrari of Shotguns

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shooting Equipment, Shotguns, Vintage

Hand-engraving of Perazzi guns is carried out in a special top-floor atelier under full daylight illumination. After 20 years of of shotgun shooting and amateur gun smithing, coaching and general involvement with firearms, quite a number of guns have passed through my hands. As most of those years were spent in England and Europe, many of them bore the names of the elite of the shotgun world: Purdey, Boss, Franchi, Beretta, Merkel and Sodia, as well as Parker and Ithaca from this side of the pond. When I first read about the Perazzi, my senses, including that monitor of them all, the sixth one, told me I was being introduced into something more than a little out of the ordinary. The author’s enthusiasm for the gun shone through and between the lines. Events moved rapidly. The next day I went to see if all the rhetoric was justified. I had only to take the Perazzi over-and-under trap models in my […]

Release Triggers

Posted Fowler ShotgunningPosted in Olympic Trap, Shooting Equipment, Shotguns, Trap, Vintage

An Allen Timney release trigger for the Remington 1100. It works like a charm and is cleverly “uncocked” by just pushing a button he installs. Release triggers are enjoying a constantly growing popularity, so we’ll examine the reasons for their use and present some expert views on their technical requirements. The release trigger was originally designed in America to overcome a tendency among some trapshooters to flinch when pulling the trigger. Flinching seems to be virtually unknown among bunker shooters in the rest of the world, so it seems flinching is in some way peculiar to American trapshooting. Release trigger specialist Allen Timney of Cerritos, California, defines the reasons for flinching as, “…the combination of recoil, noise of the gun and perhaps the gun not fitting properly and kicking the shooter in the face.” While I don’t totally disagree, it must be pointed out International trapshooters used to shoot far heavier 3-3/4-drams, 1-1/4 oz. loads and still frequently fire two […]