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TOP GUN SHOOTING SPORTS
Mr. Harry Isaac Mr. Isaac I felt the best way to explain how satisfied I am with your traps was to let everyone know first hand my experience with Auto-Sporter traps. So instead of writing a letter of reference, I felt it was best to tell your customers directly about my experience. Also, I wanted to mention that the more I have talked to club owners and others in the shooting business the more I have come to realize that I certainly take the remarkable service I have received from you and your company for granted. Until you realize that other trap manufacturers don't automatically provide great service along with their machines you don't realize how valuable great service is. Dear Overwhelmed, So you are looking at buying some automatic traps. If you are like me you've got all kinds of information in front of you and you're scratching your head wondering which one is the best. Let me assure you that you can call any trap manufacturer in the world and they will tell you they make the best trap and have the best service. So what should you do? Well, let's take a realistic look at what we don't want. We don't want equipment that we need an electrical or mechanical engineer's degree to operate. We also don't want equipment that takes a lot of maintenance or tinkering to make operate correctly. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you're in the business of throwing clay targets you need a machine that will be reliable every day. You need to spend time building your business not rebuilding your traps. The way I see it, we only need two things. Reliable, simple to operate traps and the assurance of truly good customer service if we need it. Before I go any further let me point out that I do not sell Auto-Sporter traps. I do not receive any kind of commission on trap sales. I am not sponsored by Auto-Sporter and I have paid retail price for all of the traps I have purchased. As I pointed out, reliability, simplicity and quality is what we need in a trap. I purchased my first set of six Auto-Sporters in April of 1994 and started my mobile 5-Stand business. At that time I had never operated an automatic trap and had not seen any automatics in action. I did some research like you're doing now. I chose Auto-Sporter and hoped for the best. Since then I've been to hundreds of clubs and have seen many different makes and models of automatic traps and I can assure you that I wouldn't trade my Auto-Sporters for any other brand! To give you an idea of how much time I have to work on traps let me tell you about my typical week. During the week I run 5-Stand leagues in three different towns, three nights a week. By Thursday, I have set up and packed up three times at a minimum of two hours each and I have driven over 300 miles Typically, on Thursday night I leave for a weekend shoot anywhere from New York to southern Missouri. By Friday afternoon I have set up two 5-Stand systems and throw targets all weekend. I re-pack everything at the end of the weekend and usually get home sometime Monday afternoon only to start the process all over again. As you can see there is no time for break downs or trap repair. Keep in mind that every club event I go to is a "big" event, regardless if it's a local club fun shoot or the World International 5-Stand championship. Every club expects to see me running on time and have the event go trouble free. And, knock on wood, that's just how it's been for the past four years. I've built a great business reputation on the simple fact that I do the best job I possibly can and that the equipment always works great. That means consistently throwing targets for the shooters to break as opposed to automatics that work more like target grinders than target throwers. So far my original six Auto-Sporters have thrown several million targets and have seen over a quarter of a million miles on the road. In that time according to my maintenance records I have replaced all arm edges one time. I've also replaced one roller switch, one circuit board and two circuit board relays. I can guarantee you that these machines have worked hard and been
handled hard. No white glove treatment here! I've also thrown every brand of target imaginable with only a main spring tension adjustment! Great target presentation is also a key to success. I've had these machines tipped in every angle and direction gravity will allow. Auto-Sporters can throw some great targets! I'm sure the crew at Auto-Sporter would prefer I didn't go into detail about my maintenance program or lack there of. Let's just say I give the machines a shot of grease when I think of it and go over each machine for a once a year check up (takes less than 20 minutes). Remember I bought this equipment to throw targets, not to spend my time working on it. I've been asked many times what I carry for spare parts and if I have any back up traps. My spare parts inventory consists of a circuit board, two relays, a roller switch, a few rubber O rings for the roller assembly and a couple of arm edges. All this equipment would fit in a lunch bag and if you can operate a screwdriver you can install it! As for the second question, who wants to have money tied up in spare traps? You may ask yourself, if the traps are so good who needs service? Let me assure you that Murphy is alive and well and that his law is always in effect. Who knows what can happen? Maybe you accidentally backed your trailer over one of your Auto-Sporters! Oops!! Maybe after an all night rain storm you find that the trap you set up in that dry creek bed now has three feet of water running over it, or maybe you just need some new arm edges. In my experience I would give Auto-Sporter a 5 star service award. Any parts I have ever needed were on my door step in a maximum of 48 hours and most of the time in 24 hours. One particular example comes to mind. When I had my first set of machines I had some questions about operating them. I called and asked to speak with Mr. Isaac. His secretary explained that he was at a celebrity shoot in Cody, Wyoming and asked if someone else could help. I told her it wasn't very important and that she could just take a message. Within the hour I got a call from Cody, Wyoming. Now that's service! I hope this information will be helpful in your buying decision. I know that price is also a concern I've seen more and more traps at clubs that are looking more like Auto-Sporters every year, but I haven't seen any built of the same quality as the Auto-Sporter. Keep in mind that putting targets in the air is the bread and butter of the business and putting money in the best commercial grade trap you can buy is money well spent. For the record I purchased my second set of traps in 1995 and my third set in 1997 and wouldn't trade them for anything! Sincerely, |
