Simple question, maybe not such a simple answer.Either as a shooter, or a gun club owner, or both, which machine would you prefer/buy. Both machines capable of doubles.

Thank you in advance

What shoots are important to you or to those buying the trap? The Grand? State Championships? What do those clubs that host these shoots use? If there are any differences between the traps, and I'm not saying there are, I'd go with the ones that are used by the host clubs of the shoots that are important to me. If there are no discernible differences, then I'd go with the one with the lower total cost of ownership. Just my $0.02.

PAT, hands down...we had them at our club on all fields- the best. Great trap, great people to deal with.

If you are thinking about the club, buy the Pat. If you want the best machines for the shooters, buy the Pat.

If you want to shoot Doubles, buy Pat. Replace Throwing Arm Rubbers, Bands and Brakes annually, and Brushes and O-rings as needed, with annual service (RE; GREASE GUN).

If you want to get factory trained to work on your machines, and have Promatic on speed dial, buy the Promatic.

I work mainly on Pat, Promatic, and Mattarelli machines. I will dabble with the La Puke (I mean La Porte) and others, but these are the mainstream machines in our area.

I like the singles targets the Promatic throws, and they are fabulous Sporting machines, but I like the job security that goes with my club having over 60 Promatics, and more coming in.

We FINALLY have our Bunker machines installed and wired, and concrete was poured today.

These high-performance Promatics have the ultra-fast solenoid release, but very few folks know how to set arm timing or how to service these machines. The nearest fellow that knows them charges $475 a day. Gives me job security. LOL

Bottom line? Get the Pat for ATA Trap. With a few mods, the Wobble model will throw Junior Olympic targets as well as admirably performing ATA chores.

very helpful, thank you

Do you still have to wait for the Pat traps to warm up in the winter? HMB

I shoot at a club that has 2 promatics, broke down 30% of the time. When switching to doubles it takes at least 1 case of targets to set. Pat takes 2 pair.

There is a reason why 90% of good clubs use Pats. Good targets and very little break downs.

Pat trap for sure, had too many broken birds with the ProMatics. Woody

We have 2 Pats and they have worked flawlessly.

I get to work an hour early, and fire up the machines. In very cold weather, reset the throwing arm brake (takes longer to walk to the trap and back than to reset it) for cold weather and back for hot weather, and you are good to go.

The thicker the oil, the further the throwing arm stops on the brake. A brake in good condition helps with this.

Some clubs use a heater in the trap house to warm up the pump/machine. One of the clubs I belong to uses heaters, another does not.

We use light synthetic motor oil. Instead of buying super expensive Mobil 1, I go to Walmart and buy their house brand synthetic for half the price. The machines do not know the difference.

And Mattarelli's ?? No comments from anyone on them. I am not familiar with them but hear that people speak highly of them.

Our club bought and had installed a Promatic just a few months ago. .....Buy the Pat!!!

The Mattarelli is not a bad machine if used under cover. The older ones do not throw a consistent target.

They have a weakness in the circuit board, and the solenoid fails frequently.

We have them on our Skeet fields, but are considering going to the Promatic. Remember what I said about job security? LOL

At the Black Diamond gun club. We have since February installed new Pat traps in all five of our trap houses. Everyone is very happy with them. We have a Canterbury that is our back up machine, currently it is for sale. Once we sell it, the plan is to buy another Pat Trap for a back up machine just in case of a break down.Once we have the sixth machine we are going to set up a rotation so that all of the machines get some milage on them.

Jim Bradbury

Dear Jim

We set up quick disconnect harnesses on all our Pats. A four wire to the box, and a 2 wire to the release.

We can swap one out and have the field back in service in less than 15 minutes, including transporting and setting them.

MAKE SURE all of them are wired the same, which means one person should wire them all and keep a schematic.

What does a Promatic wobble trap cost. Just curious

Not a clue Romi, but there's a club Rio Salado in AZ that has one and I think they've been very happy with it. It's rugged looking.

Shooting Coach,

Thanks for the advice. By luck we did have the same person wire them all in. But the quick disconnects are a great idea. Thank you,

Jim Bradbury