Gentlemen: Before I began competing full-time in matters of business at a time that now seems to have preceded the end of our last Ice Age, which was a little after that time when as a young teen, I bought a "Special Trap" model Remington 3200 in 12-bore. A beautiful, impressive and well-engineered gun, and a thoroughbred competition piece, to be admired by all in my unfailing hands. As an avid sports-kid and club and field shooter since the age of eight, I had read with appreciation about its excellence in the shooting press and how advanced it was over its predecessor, the elder model 32 Remington, and even its more expensive doppelganger, the foreign-made Krieghoff.
I took my prize gun to the local gun club and found disappointment. No matter how much I squirmed or twisted into position, or how firmly I mashed the side of my face into the stock and pressed my cheekbone down onto the comb, I missed almost everything at which I fired. Dumbfounded, I took emergency instruction from other shooters, which provided no improvement in my performance. In hapless despair and still trusting in divine intervention, I took the Remington to the family gunsmith, a classic-looking elderly man wearing a machinist's skull cap, who peered at his work through thick-lens-ed jeweler's glasses with several other thick lenses affixed by metal limbs to the frame of each eyepiece, and had ungainly hearing aids brandishing from both ears, presumably the unhappy result of not wearing ear protection over many decades of shooting (probably competitively).
The gunsmith skillfully reduced the butt-stock's comb height, I think it was 1/8-inch, and removed the factory's rubber pad and replaced it with a plastic butt-plate. The length of pull was then 14-1/4 inches, if memory serves. I remember him muttering to himself as he worked about the "danged" tough "RKW" wood finish Remington had used and how difficult it was going to be to remove it before applying his more appropriate lacquer finish. I took it back to the gun club and missed even more targets than previous before realizing that the gun's single sight plane, as complemented by its high rib, was not working and that this sighting system would likely never work for me (My custom Merkel has since proven this precipitous thinking on my part.). This could not be my fault; the gun had sullied its reputation and with it my budding competitive shooting career on its own.
A sympathetic club regular offered to let me try his son's 16-bore Winchester model 39 single-barrel hammergun. I hit everything that rose before me with it. Next, he handed me his Remington ribless model 870 field grade pump-gun, also a 16-bore with a full choke, with which I performed tolerably well. The son wanted his Old Man to buy my trap gun for him; he offered terms, which I rejected. I advertised my Remington trap gun in the local newspaper and eventually sold it for a fine profit. My new calling, from that moment forward, became business competition and profit-making, which spirited competition I confine to the office, and ended my stillborn career in competitive shooting before it could commence. Then the ice melted...
Best regards to all,
Edwardian
