Wet, Cold & No Birds.

[Freddypip]

Just quick question and comment of my own.

Shot Northampton on Sunday and there were a noticeable number of no birds which given the snow/rain that morning did not surprise me. Personally I think they did well to get the shoot on etc. As it was a CPSA Comp, the only issue with the no birds (for the shooters) was the break in concentration which was, to be honest, a welcome addition to my learning curve.

Been to Doveridge (Derbyshire) this morning and there was also a noticeable number of no birds – both dead or slow traps (presumably flat batteries) and also broken clays (presumably ice etc). Doveridge has introduced a new pre-pay system so after 100 clays (between two of us) with at least 20% no birds we came away – no point wasting our money and I had lost track remembering the trap & stand numbers. I can understand a pre-pay system helps the ground but it does pass the issue of no birds back to the shooter.

I can’t remember no birds being such a winter thing and wondered if other people are seeing the same issues.

This is not a dig at grounds but more to get an understanding of the wider issues.

 

[mpmilo]

Seem to be a few more no birds on the grounds I go to on practise days, always seems to be the same after a few frosts or in exceptionally hot weather. I must admit I have always been asked if I have had many no birds when I go back to clubhouse and have always had them removed from the total.

I was stood behind a couple of lads one day that shot 180 clays in total and were trying to claim 85 no birds when they were asked for payment, God loves a tryer.


On a concentration point, when I started back, I used to go to grounds that had 5 pairs deliberately to make sure my concentration didnt waver. I seem to notice on a lot of easier stands on comps it will be 7th or 8th bird missed, so found 5 pairs to be beneficial to me in sorting my head out.

 

[Will Hewland]

Title of this thread sounds like a bloke with no appeal to ladies has gone winter camping with a leaky tent

 

[bordergun]

I humbly apologize for showing my ignorance (again) but with solar chargers, carousel covers and correctly adjusted knifes edges on the machines, should there be that many no birds?

 

[Will Hewland]

I humbly apologize for showing my ignorance (again) but with solar chargers, carousel covers and correctly adjusted knifes edges on the machines, should there be that many no birds?

I’ve only ever seen winter carousel covers at one ground and that closed years ago. British clays tough it out.

 

[donna]

Shot Barbury on Wednesday in the freezing and damp cold weather and didn’t have any no birds throughout the whole squad.

 

[bostonmick]

while there are some who will try and claim ridiculous amounts of no birds there are grounds that I have come across that claim they do not have any no birds.if I get two no birds that is what I claim if I get twenty then I expect those deducted if not that ground will not see me again.

 

[bordergun]

What Donna and bostonmick say is correct. These days, there should be no excuse for no-birds. Good target handling, correct trap adjustments, solar chargers and carousel covers should prevent it. All of it. Ground owners should be responsible enough to provide that, out of respect for their paying customers.

But as Will says in the post above, no carousel covers, "British clays tough it out." Yes Will, probably because some the ground owners you refer too didn't really care too much about their customers and as I said in my earlier post:- "ignorance really is bliss."

 

[Richard59]

Not a ground owner nor any financial interest in any, but I dont imagine for a moment that they are any happier than the shooter with no-birds, each is lost money to them whereas for us its mostly little more than simply annoying, Solar chargers, we are not blessed with a great amount of sunlight, and lots of grounds have / are heavily wooded which affects performance? Do not have a clue how much they are & maintenance / repair bills, as some are bound to suffer some issues, no doubt the 30/40/50 or more units will attract a discount but such an investment will hurt any grounds bottom line, ditto with those covers.

 

[bordergun]

Richard59. Here in the US I put SC courses in as far N as Montana (-50) and S as far as Texas where we can get grapefruit sized hail.

In the last decade, solar has improved dramatically and the panels work in wooded areas in almost total shade. Also, panels are very inexpensive here in the US. Not sure about the UK but on recent visits I see lots of panels for domestic use on roofs?

 

[bordergun]

Richard59. Here in the US I put SC courses in as far N as Montana (-50) and S as far as Texas where we can get grapefruit sized hail.

In the last decade, solar has improved dramatically and the panels work in wooded areas in almost total shade. Also, panels are very inexpensive here in the US, a 10 Watt panel which is enough, is about $20 here. Not sure about the UK but on recent visits I see lots of panels for domestic use on roofs so I guess solar works ?

And you can make your own carousel covers very easily by stapling builders "Visqueen" plastic damp proof membrane into a cover. Probably about 3 GBP per machine? I was doing that 30 years ago at Annandale Shooting ground and Clifford farm, my grounds in the UK.

 

[Freddypip]

Thanks for your comments. Sorry about the thread title.

I suppose I was a bit ticked with the pre-payment system meaning I needed to tell them and then ‘argue’ the point – Most of the grounds I know ask at payment and generally everybody has the same problem so they are aware.

I did also wonder if batteries die etc in cold weather – my solar panels (fitted June) work very well in bright light but very poorly on cloudy winters days – 1.4Kw so far today !!.

Doveridge have the English Open next year so hopefully my visit was one off.

 

[bordergun]

Freddy. It really doesn't take much to keep a battery on a sporting clay machine topped up and you can see the panel size we use here:- www.claytargettowers.com They even power the hoist system on our towers. Even in shady areas with the correct voltage regulator they are very efficient and solve a lot of problems.

 

[Macc Ladd]

Just quick question and comment of my own.

Shot Northampton on Sunday and there were a noticeable number of no birds which given the snow/rain that morning did not surprise me. Personally I think they did well to get the shoot on etc. As it was a CPSA Comp, the only issue with the no birds (for the shooters) was the break in concentration which was, to be honest, a welcome addition to my learning curve.

Been to Doveridge (Derbyshire) this morning and there was also a noticeable number of no birds – both dead or slow traps (presumably flat batteries) and also broken clays (presumably ice etc). Doveridge has introduced a new pre-pay system so after 100 clays (between two of us) with at least 20% no birds we came away – no point wasting our money and I had lost track remembering the trap & stand numbers. I can understand a pre-pay system helps the ground but it does pass the issue of no birds back to the shooter.

I can’t remember no birds being such a winter thing and wondered if other people are seeing the same issues.

This is not a dig at grounds but more to get an understanding of the wider issues.

I hope you told the ground!!
They need to know and your chance of getting some Clays credit!

 

[chesterse]

Seems to be a link between the new eco clays and the amount of no birds?

 

[bordergun]

chesterse You could be correct with your assumption. But if the knife edge separators are adjusted correctly, any clay target will feed perfectly without breakage. It is an easy fix but problems occur when targets are not handled correctly or target brands/manufacturers are changed and the knife edges are not re-adjusted. It doesn't take but a few minutes on each machine but it always surprises me because some grounds don't bother to do that. IMO the prime consideration for ground owners should be good target presentations for their customers.

 

[Bavarian]

Seems to be a link between the new eco clays and the amount of no birds?

We use these Eco Clays in Munich:
https://platosvivaz.com/en/No problems so far. Used for olympic trap and skeet in 85 machines (Mattarelli) in total.
No birds are rare.

 

[bordergun]

Bavarian. That's the way it should be. I installed Promatics for 27 years and they are good machines but I now install MEC. No birds are very rare. The only targets that sometimes still give trouble are battues which warp like old 78 gramophone records after a few days so we make covers from reflective windscreen covers. Don't think you will have that problem in the UK though!

 

[FESkent]

chesterse You could be correct with your assumption. But if the knife edge separators are adjusted correctly, any clay target will feed perfectly without breakage. It is an easy fix but problems occur when targets are not handled correctly or target brands/manufacturers are changed and the knife edges are not re-adjusted. It doesn't take but a few minutes on each machine but it always surprises me because some grounds don't bother to do that. IMO the prime consideration for ground owners should be good target presentations for their customers.

As a club secretary maintaining several makes of traps the biggest cause of no birds is the throwing arm adjustment and or the throwing arm rubber strip in poor condition, knife edge adjustment is seldom an issue.
As for solar panels keeping the trap battery topped up we do charge them that way during the summer months but they are not sufficient during the u.k. cold winter months with only a few hours of poor or weak sunlight.
So then we use a generator as we have no mains electric.
Big difference between Texas and Kent in the weather then we are only a small not for profit club with limited resources keeping clay shooting affordable for the members.

 

[bordergun]

Feskent. We install all over the US, not just Texas. Never, ever had any problems with solar regardless of the area. Having said that, it depends on what machines/solar chargers you have? I'm only familiar with Promatic and MEC and both those machines if adjusted correctly will not throw no-birds. Just one broken target will usually result in the breakage of the next three and nothing tears arm rubbers up quicker than broken target fragments. Most problems we encounter with numerous no-birds is poor knife edge adjustment because of a change in target manufacturer or poor target handling.