Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1903-02-04
TRAP SHOOTING
lack Tanning, a Noted California Trap Shot, Gives an Exhibi-
 tiOn Today.
Tells of His Experience in the Bg International Shoot
 in England.

J. s. Tanning, better known among
 gun club men as Jack Tanning came
 up from the south this morning. Mir.
 Tanning is the representative of the
 Lafiin & Rand Powder company man.
 ufacture of a smokeless black powder.
 Mr. Tanning is an expert shot and in
 every town he visits, where there is a
 gun club, he interests the local sports
 men by having a shooting tournament.
 He has just participated in one in Tucson and another in PheniX, and sent word ahead to the Prescott gun club. that he would be here today and give an exhibition shoot.
 Mir. Tanning has been travelling about the country for several years, attending all the shoots of importance and he has in his possession a gun from which he estimates he has fired 250. 900 shots, which at the price pow der is sold for represents about 56, 250
 Tanning is very proud of the fact that he was selected as one of a small team of wing shots who were to rep resent this country in the recent in ternational trap contests and never tires of relating his experiences in the old country. His words:
 "I have met some good losers in my time, but those Englishmen were cer- tainly the original princes. Bet? Why they would bet you on a single shot until you were black in the face. Our crowd lost $500 on the result of one shell one day, but we more than made it up on the next few turns. Beating those fellows was like stealing candy from the baby, but they never had a word to say that was not pleas ant. We shot our. best and showed them that American goods are the best in the world. After it was all over they gave us a banquet in the Cafe Royal that was without excep- tion the finest thing l have ever sat down to, or ever expect to partake of Their hospitality could not have been surpassed.
 'Of their shooting material, the feature that surprised us Americans most was their pigeons. In the Old Country they catch their birds wild; use the coast "blue rock pigeons. as they call them, and such a lot of screamers was never seen in this coun- try. The birds are all dark blue; all are selected, and passed through a wooden ring to see that they are not too big and fat to afford hard marks. There are no 'duffers' in the lot The trapper has to work catching them in the basket, and if he does not hold them with both hands, the bird usu- ally gets away. They shoot with four or five booths so arranged that the traps can be taken up easily and so placed that the wind is always at the shooters back and in favor of the birds. Everything possible is done to make the game hard one. Their au- tomatic device to determine what trap is to be pulled absolutely prevents any collision for the puller does not know himself what trap the affair will turn loose. This might be a good scheme for some of the American match shooters to adopt"
 MT. Tanning was greeted by the members of the Prescott Gun Club ia a very hearty manner and a shoot was arranged for this afternoon and nine of the club were on the grounds at o'clock ready for business, despite the fearful cold wind that was blowing. Quite number of others were there ! to witness the shoot. also.
 MT. Tanning carries a Mitchell | hand trap for fancy shooting, and it | is said the PheniX shooters were not | able to break 90 per cent of the blue rocks thrown from this trap as the | rocks can be made to play all sorts of | monkey shines, upper curves, down curves, dips, etc. A short exhibition | with this trap proved that it can do all that is claimed for it. but our shooters who tried it did quite we'll. breaking most of the rocks thrown from it.
 Mir. Tanning shoots with aD eight pound Smith quail double barrel gun. and is certainly a clever shot. He shoots very quick, and considering that it was the first time he had ever shot on the grounds here and that the day was simply wretched, he did splendid work. He is in constant practice, shooting at nearly every place he stops. He said today that he had shot over 250, GOO rounds from the gun he was using since the first day of January, 1895.