Knives
This could be a time consuming, recurrent job unless you are going to use the same clays for a while in your electric trap. All clays are made within laid down tolerances but in pratice you'll find that if your knives are set for one lot of clays and you put in someone else's there could be a problem with knives causing breakages. One of the most common systems for seperating a single clay in a rotating carousel uses one or more stainless steel knives which, as the clays are pushed round, are forced into the stack just above the bottom clay thereby holding the stack up and allowing the lowest to drop through the hole ready to be chucked out. Knives must be fairly accurately positioned both vertically and horizontally to allow a clay to pass underneath without putting downward pressure on the clay and at the same time holding the remaining stack up.
The easiest way to make sure everything is as it should be is to take off the carousel first. Use a single clay to adjust the knives so that the clay slides underneath without touching them but without the knives being high enough so they interfere with the bottom of the second clay in a stack. Put the carousel back on and put a short stack in one turret and turn it back and forward into the knives to make sure that the knives enter the stack without forcing the clays to one side or jamming on a rib which may be moulded onto the edge of the clays - move the knives sideways to do this. Once that's OK, put more clays in each turret and check again for movement of all the stacks as they pass over the knives. If there is excess room in a turret, it's stack can move sideways which can result in the stack falling off a knife or jamming and more breakage problems. You may find adjustment is a compromise if the carousel isn't true or it's been bent but the fact that the clays all fit in will mean it isn't so far out as to be useless - you just have to be more careful.
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This is a common knife system which will work without any trouble as long as it is |
Trapping
Anyone using a manual clay trap is said to be 'trapping' and is usually a designated 'trapper'. First off nobody should be using a trap without being trained to do so and they should also be wearing a hard hat in case bits of target land close as well as work gloves because traps are made of metal with sharpish edges, safety glasses are also advisable. Some or all of these may be an insurance requirement if the trapper is at an organised shoot. Make sure your trappers are familiar with their traps as each manufacture has his own ideas, they all throw clays but loading and firing could be done differently. For there to be consistent targets trappers need to be aware that the way they release the throwing arm has a profound effect on the target's flight.
If you get 2 trappers to use a trap the first trapper may use all his effort actually throwing the arm in which case the clay will curl sideways and travel further than it should whereas the second trapper will do the job properly and use the tips of his fingers to gently push the arm over centre when the spring takes over - this is how it should be done. It is also critical that the stack of box of clays being used should be kept on the safe side of the trap, usually on the left as you look at the trap from the back, or opposite to the side that the throwing arm swings.
When reloading, the trapper must remain seated on a portable trap with his feet on the front of the base so that he has enough leverage against the spring to be able to pull through the complete re-cocking stage to it's over centre hold point without releasing the arm; at the same time he must always be behind the arm so that if something does go wrong his chops are not in the way of the arm as it flies round. The same goes for a fixed trap where the trapper can use his whole body weight but always from behind, not in front. If a trapper is not strong enough for a given trap, don't let him use it - something like an adjustable double Bowman has one hell of a spring and can quickly tire the operator to the point of being dangerous, put him on a light sprung single Juba.
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This is a common or garden double arm clay trap that is cocked ready to throw. |
Manual Springs
A manual trap spring is a fairly mighty piece of kit which must be treated with respect or you will soon find that it will sting a bit when it does it's thing with body parts in the way. When we pull back the throwing arm to cock a trap the leverage we use is somewhere around 5:1 so it feels as if it's not that hard a job. I have found that a light single trap spring needs about 40kgs to extend it and a big double will need more than 110kgs; this is why the leverage is so important, most people would have no chance of cocking a trap by just pulling the spring. The lever and spring mechanism is also designed with another purpose; that is to hold the throwing arm and extended spring steady once the target is loaded and we wait for the gun to shout 'Pull'. It does this by incorporating a bent arm on the spring's end which wraps itself around the end frame of the trap so the spring is trying to pull backwards down the other side of the trap but is not allowed to do so - this is known as being over-centre.
Some traps use an adjustable anchor point for one end of the spring which also allows the tension to be altered to throw either single or double clays. This adjuster comes right out in most cases so changing springs is straightforward, on fixed post traps the easiest way to replace a spring is to use a piece of cord wrapped around a handle to ease the end of the spring over the post. Don't try to use screw drivers or tyre levers - you won't have any control over the spring or what it wants to do and it'll keep going where it's not wanted. A correctly fitted spring will still be stretched a little bit when the trap is at rest and should have about a 1mm gap between each coil; if the spring is too loose or weak the trap will flap about too much when it's thrown a clay and if it's too tight there is a chance you'll overload the steel and it will break - I've seen that happen and believe me it doesn't half smart when what's left of the spring swings onto your kneecap. Springs do break of their own accord but usually it is at the end where the coil has been bent outwards to form the hook, it's something else the responsible trapper will have in the back of his mind when he's trapping. Springs come in many shapes and sizes, some of which are inter-changeable between traps, just remember it isn't just the spring length that is important, it's also the number of coils and the thickness of the steel the spring is made of, a short double Bowman might fit on a Juba but it won't work for long. If you aren't sure if the spring is the right one ask the trap manufacturer, he'll make several different springs and will send what you need to do the job safely.
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This is the easiest way to replace a manual spring, just make sure someone is sitting on the trap if it's like a Bowman or sit on it yourself if it's like a Juba. |
Please come back soon to find some articles or ask me about traps.
Copyright of this page belongs to Andy, How to Break Clays.com - the website for the amateur clay shooter, July 2007