Thread: Mid canterbury trap clubs

How’s it ,
Looking at getting back into trap shooting after a long period of not shooting .
Shot 15 years ago in north island.

Located around Mount Somers and wondering what the best club would be to join .
Just looking briefly it looks like the price of trap ammo has gone up over double since I last shot !
Used to get slab of falcon for 80 bucks now it’s looking like 200 bucks

Keen to get back into it

Cheers

Methvins a good club with a great social atmosphere, or at least it used to

Methvan the most active club in your area , Ashburton club still going but short on members
Mead Tepirta club at Raikia bit the same.
Timaru club once strong about buggered.
If you like sporting shoots, Geraldine not far from you.
Falcon ammo at any of those clubs will be around $155 per slab

Cheers for that !

Originally Posted by Skeetshooter

Methvan the most active club in your area , Ashburton club still going but short on members
Mead Tepirta club at Raikia bit the same.
Timaru club once strong about buggered.
If you like sporting shoots, Geraldine not far from you.
Falcon ammo at any of those clubs will be around $155 per slab

why are those clubs declining? Is shooting just too expensive these days, or are there not sufficient numbers of younger shooters coming through to replace the fudds?

Combination of all those things,older members dying off etc
School shooting is great, introduces lots of kids to the sport, but once they finish school not many continue, especially once mum and dad stop paying.
Still several other clubs in the Canterbury area doing well, good membership numbers and well supported.

Got to be honest, I did enjoy shooting at the local club. Not NZCTA but a group from the local workies that had set up a proper trap and had a clubhouse.
As such fees were pretty good, clays and ammo were about as cheap as it gets.
Got screwed over by the landowner and ended up merging/joining with a local affiliated club.
Yeah a bit dear. I had been struggling at times to shoot at the workies group and it's dearer again.
Went 12 months back to pay membership and haven't been back since.
Whilst i will say that apart from the coin I'm just nowhere near as good with the full choke A5 as I was 20 years ago.
The style of shoots first thing on Sunday morning ( about the only ones I could attend-they do heaps) do not lend themselves well to that shotgun and how good I am. Financially I can't see me doing more than a couple a year if any at all

I shoot mainly skeet, normal programm at local clubs is 2 rounds(50 targets total) on a Saturday or Sunday morning.
Targets and other costs approx $30 plus 2 pkts shell another $30 so for $60 I get a morning out, a catchup with my shooting mates and the chance to win a meat pack or a pkt of shells, priceless

Here the unaffiliated clubs are doing well, they capture the age groups missing at NZCTA clubs. Maybe it's because they aren't constrained in what they do by a national program, maybe it's because they offer shorter more affordable programs, maybe it's their family friendly social atmosphere.

The biggest club in the south island is the Canterbury Handloaders Club with over 300 members, unregistered club.
These are all the guys and girls who don't want to be part of the NZCTA regime, which is fine, although I suspect a lot of them don't realise what they are missing out on.
I doubt they save much money on club fees etc compared to a NZCTA club, and they miss the chance to travel around the various local clubs,
But everybody to there own

The only club that offers frequent skeet shoots in my travel area charges $85 for 100 target comp. Shoot costs $85, $5 optional sweep, $60 ammo, $11 for a large Lion Red afterwards, and about $60 petrol there and back. So, a Sunday shoot is about $220. If I shoot well, I might get $40 sweeps back. Chuck in about $100 for a mid-week 100 target practice ($10/25 targets plus ammo) at the local farmer's skeet field and it's a $300/week habit.

My club charges $65 for 100 targets and entry, no sweeps
Prizes 1st 2nd 3rd in each grade usually meat packs donated by a sponsor for that shoot.
Really its as expensive as you want to make it as a sport, as my post above I can shoot 50tgts every week end for $60, that's 2 pkts of cigarettes nowdays.

another club I shoot that doesn't hold comps offers targets for $12.50 per round. So yes, it can be cheap(er), but there's nothing quite like the triumph of being the HOA winner.