12-bore Vickers Boxlock - 1930s

[CharlesHarris]

When I was an Naval aviation cadet in 1970 at NAS Pensacola, FL they still had one of the old WW2 ball turret trainers set up on jeep chassis which could be driven around a skeet or trap field. There were combination field having both game setups with fully automated traps and remote controls. A pair of semi-automatic Remington Model 11 shotguns were placed in the turret instead of machineguns, and pneumatic tube cartridge feeders were connected to each gun so that you could fire 25 rounds from each gun without having to stop and reload. The right gun was choked improved cylinder and the left gun full choke. The spade grip was modified so that the "trigger" could be toggled right to fire the right barrel, or toggled left to fire the left barrel, or pushed straight in, which fired both barrels at once.

Initial instruction was firing at flying away targets from the 16-yard line at trap. As gunners became more advanced they would progress to a standard round of skeet firing at both crossing and approaching targets from positions around the clock, the very best fellows even managing to break doubles at stations 1, 7, and 8.

I never was very good hitting clays from the ball turret, but did break several 25-straights using a normal sporting gun, after having fired 100 cartridges a week in practice for several months, being coached by the Master Chief. Our tax dollars at work.