The strangest thing happened over the past winter. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
After the Iowa State shoot 2006 Iowa State shoot I switched to a Release trigger because I developed a flinch shooting trap. I purchased a Precision Gold Double Release trigger from my long time friend Jim Coons. It took me about 500 targets to get use to it and shot it fairly well. Because of some medical issues last I was experiencing last year I didn’t shoot very many targets. My ATA targets were down by 2/3′s and I only shot some league targets at Buffalo Gun Club last year. When the winter Jackpot season started I only shot 3 or 4 events for the winter.
With all the bad spring weather we’ve had this year I didn’t shooting many target until the end of May. My scores were very erratic one round I might shoot a 21 and the next a 23. But what started troubling me was, when I’d start a round, check to see everyone was ready, look at a target, mount my gun, call for a target, move to the target and THEN I could not release my trigger. I would open my gun, close it, and go through my start routine again. This time I would move to the target asoot ballball it”. I continue on with the round and somewhere in the middle it would happen again, my finger would not let go of the trigger. It got so bad, I managed to create a “divot” in front of post three on trap two at BGC. At this point I quit, put my gun away and decided I had to figure out what the hick was going on with my shooting.
After thinking about it for a couple of days, I remembered reading, sometime in the past, about someone else having the same problem. (No I don’t remember who) But their solution was to revert back to a PULL trigger. I figured what could it hurt to give it a try. Since Neil Winston and I were filming some target spin tests at Metro, I could give it a try as we usually shot a couple of rounds before filming and no one else would be around in-case going back to a pull trigger didn’t work.
Well, I pulled the release hooks out of my trigger and shot 4 rounds with it. To my amazement I didn’t flinch once. Next I tried it this past weekend at Buffalo, Saturday I shot 200 singles and it went very well. No flinching and had a 96 & 97 for the 200. Sunday I figured was going to be the challenge, DOUBLES. Pulling the trigger once wasn’t a problem now but what about twice? After shooting a double release for 5 years if anything I would probably have problems with the second target. I totally amazed myself, not once did I flinch and for the most part I was able to get the second target. Although at the start I did shoot a few 2nd targets before I got to them.
I guess after 5 years I’m back shooting a pull trigger and it actually felt comfortable shooting it. Maybe I can be competitive again. I’ll update my pull trigger status sometime next month. Until then, I’ll be posting about the “Boy’s of Summer” the Twins.
Until next time….
Rock On!!
