As I mentioned in another post, our club recently went to a token system at our skeet range and on two of our traps. In order to shoot, you have to put in a token, which is sold at the clubhouse. If you are a member you can buy them for $3.75. If you aren't, then you can buy them for $5.00. Then you stick them into a machine, like at the car wash, and you get 27 targets for a round of trap or skeet. The two extra are for breakage. Up to six people can shoot at the same time at skeet and five at trap. The manager is trying to cut down the costs of shooting, and the token system should cut down on theft. Plus it will cut back on personnel at the club. I have heard of other clubs in the area are using them. Does your club use the token system? If so how is it doing?

Our machines have electronic counters....That place sounds like a quarter car wash.

We have the Briley coin system at the Spokane Gun Club. $4 per coin or 20 for $75. For the big ATA trap shoots the place is packed and all to spots in the RV park are booked years in advance. For the two NSSA skeet shoots a year one hardly notices a difference from a nomal day the club is open.

How much does it cost to install such a system? Seems like you'd have to stop a lot of walkaways before you paid for the system

What the tokens stop best are the shooters who seem to always have 30 shells in every box. You have seen them. They stand on a station and shoot two or three extra birds after a miss and repeat this one or two time a round. No harm in that, but then they shoot the rest of the round. So they get 25 birds plus two, three, four or more extra birds. Same guys want to clear the machine after every broken bird thrown. It is practice people, just shoot.

It takes 30 birds minimum to get the through a round with these shooters. Talk about a 20% cost increase for the club. So this system eliminates all these free birds. You get 27 and then you are done. Shoot them up on the first two stations if you want.

I shoot broken birds, they are different and more fun. Plus it save the club a dime. Slow pulls are fun to get and try to shoot. Better yet get a deaf puller that gives you a fast pull. That will test your ability to track down a bird. It is a game be safe and have fun.

real sportsmen shoot cripples. Broken birds are fun, if you are good try to get the pieces that are left.

We don't have to shoot broken birds. We don't have to shoot slow pulls. They have to fix the broken bird problem if they want to keep the token system in place, and you don't let the slow pull people have the button. Otherwise, the token system somewhat eliminates the thieves and the forgetful shooters. My club has had to go to the Briley system because of these people. It doesn't matter how much it costs if it puts all of us on an equal footing for cost per round. I'm about tired of guys who have to look at a bird and the same idiots who have to clear the trap after a broken bird. Don't they realize that this is just practice and this is their club? To be honest, some of these guys are my best friends, but they aren't thinking clearly when they throw a bird that they are not shooting at. In International Skeet, you get to look at one bird from each trap at 9:00 AM. If you want to look at birds, you have to be there at 9:00 AM, end of story. From that time forward, you shoot at the first high one you see, and it is scored, lost or dead.

Our club is an honor system. You record your targets and place the money in a safe. We do police it pretty closely with no tolerance.In fact a new member was recently dismissed for stealing targets.
The guys I shoot with have one creedo "If it flies it dies" so broken targets are just another challenge. I generally throw in a few bucks for the guys that just gotta "see a bird" or for birds that are broken.
Tournaments follow normal guidelines of course.

Our system has electronic counters. You get 27 targets for each token. Two are for breakage. You are not supposed to shoot the two extra targets when you shoot unless you need them. We were having a lot of drive offs for years. I personnally saw five people last Spring shoot a round of skeet and drive off. And like KY Jon said, you have the people who want to shoot extra targets all the time. Then of course you have the people who shoot trap with the voice activated speakers who want to stand and scream at each other while they are shooting and all the time birds keep flying out into the field- not being shot at. The token system puts a stop to that, too. Ours seems to work well. It just took a while for it to catch on. I remember a few years ago when everyone complained about the voice activated speaker system and said that it would never work either. But it has really caught on. With the token system you can go out to the club, even if no one is there and if you already have tokens, all you have to do is put it in the box and you can shoot a round of trap. With the skeet, you have to have someone to pull for you. On the days that the clubhouse is open, we do have a button/box that you can use for only one person. It has a delay switch, so all you have to do is push the button and wait five seconds and then it throws a target. But, our main concern was theft and the token system should correct that problem.

Jimmy, do you have the Briley system? We are testing the Briley box for the first time tomorrow morning. I hope it solves all of our problems. We not only have the Briley token system, we can audit the system with the counters on the Superstar machines.

Anything that keeps a gun club open and in a profit is fine with me. I like shooting broken birds. Slow and fast pulls happen and I shoot them also. Not required to do it but it adds to the game. Skeet is just a game and I like to take it as it comes. My serious Skeet shooting days are behind me. Heck, I am just getting back the use of my right arm.

If I am luck I will get to shoot a few ducks with my Lefever this year. 108 years old and it drops them like Thor's Hammer. I often wonder which of the Lefever boys or if the man himself held and worked on my gun. Like to think that they mounted my gun in the factory and tried to dream about all the game it would shoot.

Our club president pushed for a counter system on sporting clays but was voted down. They use a considerable number more birds on the 100 target course. He naturally blamed it on theft. True there is some theft. But when I go to a station that throws doubles and one trap repeatedly breaks targets that is 2 targets lost. If the boys are rough when loading machines that is more targets lost. When I see a pile of broken targets near a trap and there are a number of whole ones that the boys are to lazy to pick up I point that out to my members. They drive the loaded target carts fast over rough ground and that is more targets lost. Many targets could be saved by simple enforcement with the boys but I have not seen a word said. Hell if I was running it I would have them picking up whole targets for reuse. I guess we are just to good for that though. We wouldn't want to look like bumbs picking up cigarete butts! If I were dictator....

I am a member and stockholder of THE WINCHESTER GUN CLUB in Winchester, Virginia. My WGC uses a "voice release" system on most of our 14 trap fields. When I observe some of our best shooters shooting trap with a five man squad and I carefully count and score the targets I usually count 153 targets thrown and 125 targets shot at. Yes, that is correct, for almost every five man squad of trap at the WGC 153 clay targets get thrown to shoot at 125 clays. Recently I was observing a squad that was made up of Officers of the WGC Corporation and members of the Board of Directors of the WGC and the numbers were the same. This 5 man squad threw over 150 clay targets to shoot at 125 clay targets. These voice release systems should be outlawed. Our WGC officers that thought these voice release systems were a good idea should be held accountable for their foolishness. Our voice release triggers throw targets that were not called for due to several reasons and then refuse to throw a target unless you lean over and scream into the microphone. If you want to make sure a target is thrown have somebody shooting a K80 or a KOLAR or a few other types and after he shoots have him open his trapgun and when the ejector kicks the empty shell out of his gun a trap target will be thrown. Even our knowledgeable trap shooters cannot time the opening of their trapguns correctly to prevent the voice release system from throwing a target. Voice release systems and token systems just do not work in actual field conditions. A system that does work is the red boxes used at HHHSC in Pennsylvania and CVSC in Palmyra, Virginia. The box counts your targets and you pay for what you use. If a trap malfunctions and breaks targets you call it in and get it fixed. This stops the idiots that just keep pushing the button hoping for a miracle healing of the trap machine. So when I am KING we are going back to an extension cord with a button and kid from high school pushing it at the trap range and skeet field. Good Shooting To You All, Jent

I really don't know what kind of system it is, eightbore. I will ask the manager and find out. And I will also ask him what the cost was and I will have to get back to you guys and let you know.

We have never had the kind of problems that were this bad. I remember when we first got our voice activated system, sometimes someone on the next trap over would call for a bird and it would ocassionally throw a target on the next field over. This was corrected by putting landscaping fences between the traps and that pretty much took care of it. The voice activated system was designed to throw a target according to the certain pitch of someone's voice. I have never had any problem with my voice activating them, although I have seen guys with a higher or lower pitched voice scream into the mike and not be able to set them off. And I would just go on shooting with no problem and he would follow me to the stand I just left and have a heck of a time. This is when you have to either raise or lower the pitch of your voice to get the thrower to release the target. That usually corrects the problem. I hate to say this, but one thing I always loved to see was a guy having trouble with the mike when I was shooting against him. When he has to call for a target more than once, he often misses that bird. Usually out of frustration. I always make it a point to be ready for the target when I have to call for it more than once and I usually break it. I always felt it gave me an edge and I usually used reverse psychology on myself. Keep that in mind when you shoot and you will soon start wanting other people to have problems with the mike because you know you will break yours. But we have enjoyed our voice activated sytem over the years. We don't have too much problem with guns ejecting shells unless you hold them right next to the speaker. I watched my buddy shoot with his 11-87 Sunday, and he never set off any targets when he loaded his gun. Occasionally, you will see some old codger with a Model 12 slam the receiver shut his gun right next to the mike just before you call for your bird. That gets old after a while. And if you really want to have some fun with your buddy, wait until right before he calls for his target and just tap your mike with the barrel of your gun and set off his target early. After a few times he'll get all screwed up. That's always good for a laugh.

And another thing that might help you is that if the sound of ejected shells are setting off the targets, you have to time opening your gun when the mike won't pick it up. Try opening it right after someone shoots. The thrower won't reset that fast. And I have never seen Kolars or K-80s (or any gun)set off targets that much unless you are really slamming it right next to the microphone. And on my Beretta or any other gun, I hold the lever over, quietly close the gun and then let the lever go. On my Ljutic, you have to hold the button in while you close it because you will damage the gun by closely it without holding the button in. So, it closes pretty quietly anyway. I have never had any problem setting off any machines with my guns. Try turning the gun away from the mike if this is a problem and see how that works. You have to learn to open and close you gun quietly and that way you shouldn't have any problems.

I wouldn't assume that voice activated pullers are universally problem ridden. They have been used in International Trap for decades with success. Winchester VA microphones must need some repair or updating.

Another thing that you have to remember as far as broken targets go- (and I am saying this from experience, because we just had a four day trap shoot at my club and I was one of the reloaders who reloaded the traps) broken targets won't usually be broken when they are thrown unless they are broken when they are loaded into the thrower. I loaded two traps for four days and we never had any broken targets....... I also load our skeet houses all of the time and we don't get that many broken targets unless someone has handled them badly before they are loaded. So, unless your machines are really messed up, they should not be breaking targets when they are thrown. Except maybe ocassionally.

Just got back from our test run on the Briley coin boxes. They worked just fine, set up for 27 birds a round. After 3 rounds with five shooters each, we had 27 birds left on the counters. We had one broken bird in 378 thrown, one bird to clear, and one slow pull refused. We may be able to set them up for 26 birds a round if our Super Stars continue to throw at this breakage rate.

Jimmy, I am still kind of torn about the coin operated "car wash" trap Pat had installed. I liked the way it was ran. On the honor system. Take a trap, shoot what you want . Then go pay up. For some odd reason it made me feel good. Maybe it was the thought that everyone is as honest as myself.
I for one have trouble with the voice activated traps. I just about quit shooting ata targets after they went to them. They dont like deep voices. They are better now but at 1st they were bad.
But I can see the reason for doing it. Maybe they could of stressed the point of not shooting an extra targets. See if that may of stopped some of it. I dont think most people mean to do it. I just think they dont know what that target cost the club.
As far as shooting practice. I want to see a bird after a no bird. I am practicing what I would do at major shoot. If its for fun thats different. I will shoot anything.

Hello Greyduck. I know what you mean. I like to see a target again when I am shooting and don't get a bird. But I think people will get used to the token system. .........I did ask our manager what brand ours were and he said they were Monarch, made by Canterberry. So, they seem to be Ok, so far.

Made in China moat likely Jammy.

No bigger than your gun club is you'd think they could figure out who the dishonest people were.

Sometimes you know but still can't shame them into stopping.