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DeVault Industries LLC & DeVault Custom Stocks |
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The Winners Box
Drew Waller: MachOne Shotgun DeVault Custom Stock on MX-10 Perazzi - Dixie Grand event #10 HDCP champion 99 x 100 - Southern Grand Event # 8 HDCP champion 99 x 100 Event # 13 Doubles championship AAARU 99 x 100 Event # 15 HDCP champion 98 x 100 2008 Ohio State Shoot: High Overall Champion Doubles Champion Runner-up Singles Class AA Champion
Jake Slaughter – Perazzi MX-2000 DeVault Custom Stock Minnesota Sate Shoot AA Singles State Champion Jake’s first 200 x 200
Ron Baker – TM-1 Perazzi MX-8 Perazzi both guns both guns Devault Custom Stocks 2007 started with 89.06 HDCP average at end of year 90.21 on 2000 targets. In 2008 so far 97.75 singles average and made it back to the 27 with a 97 in a recent shoot.
Tal Seger - Infinity and Beretta 682 for doubles with DeVault Custom Stock, Illinois State Shoot Singles AA Champion 200 x 200 Shoot-off 174 x 175.
Phil Berkowitz: DeVault Beretta Full Conversion, Prelim singles champion 98 x 100, Prelim Hdcp. 3rd 97x100 champion class C state singles North Carolina
Congrats to all!!!
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Up Coming Events
Minnesota State ShootJuly 11th, 2008 the State association for Minnesota will be having an auction for a New Infinity Shotgun. All proceeds from the auction will be donated to the youth shooting program in their state. The auction will be live and phone-in bids will be taken during the auction. Contact Mark Zauhar for details - 952-892-1109 You can view the state program at
I wanted to take this space to recognize two individuals in my life that have had a great influence over my direction in the gun business. Mr. Red Hill and Mr. Dean DeBow. I will start with Red Hill; I met Red in Florida in 2000. I went to him as a recommendation from a friend of mine. Red was not hard to spot, tall, slender build and he wore the Marine Corp Drill Sergeants hat as straight as it could possibly be. I spent three days with Red and I must say that I learned more about the game of shooting in that time than I had in my previous 40 years. Red taught me about cross-firing how to spot it and make the correction. He taught me to take any shotgun and break a target and how to concentrate. He also taught me the meaning of the word concentration. I had the privilege of shooting a round of skeet with Red and at 72 years young he had the smoothest mount of anyone I have ever watched. Red shot skeet, gun down and it was great to watch, it wasn’t hard to figure out why he was a 6-time world skeet champion. As a side note Red’s son called me Before Father’s Day and Red is in the hospital with lung problems and is on oxygen. I wish Red a quick and speedy recovery. Red and I have a lot of things to talk about. Dean DeBow, Rookie of the year in 1985 and had a wonderful career in the gun business until the fall of 1997. A young girl with a two-week-old drivers license hit Dean head-on just a few miles from his home. The wreck left Dean with spinal damage and an end to his shooting career. I had the privilege of shooting with Dean before and after his wreck and he was something to watch. |
A friendship
formed but it would be years later until we would travel together
again. I called Dean one afternoon and asked if he would come to
Florida with me and he asked why? He said he couldn’t shoot and
would only be in the way. Well he came
with me and I swear the closer we got to Florida the better he began
to feel. At one point he ask me if I had an extra box of shells, he
wanted to shoot. He took the line and just ink spotted 25 straight.
He shot again and broke a 24x25. The look on his face was priceless.
After the accident occurred Dean had sold all of his shooting
apparel thinking that he would never be able to shoot again. As time
passed the desire returned and now Dean has been working out and
getting stronger. With an exercise routine he is now able to shoot
again. He has all but thrown the painkillers away and he has lost 40
lbs. Dean looks great and ready to shoot again. We have spent many
hours together and we talk almost daily about shooting related
topics. He has helped me and I him on shooting and improving our
shooting. Dean has given so much to me in the way of support, words
cannot express the thanks and I hope to see him in the winner circle
again very soon.
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The world according to Me, Dennis DeVault |
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The Zorro Move: Now this is a good subject to start with. The famous Zorro move. And don’t tell me that you’ve never done this wonderful move; we’ve all been guilty. The move is when you call for the target and nothing comes out of the house but the barrel is waving back and forth across the house like a flag. Why do we do this? Lets start by talking about the voice calls, the greatest innovation to trap since my shotgun. The problem is the brain. Many shooters now move their gun off of their call and not the target movement. With more consistent on time pulls the brain recognizes that when you say, “pull” the eyes look for a target and the mind tells the body and hands that they are supposed to be in motion. The reason that the gun is waving back and forth is because the eyes are moving back and forth looking for the target. This is also proof that the hands move where the eyes are looking. The key to solving this problem is to hold the eyes still until a target appears. Now you have to trick the mind into not making the body move at the end of your call. You can achieve this by varying the length of your call. The voice calls are not microphones but speakers and speakers respond by pronouncing sharp syllables. Saying the word pope, put, hup or any word with a double high pitch sound will allow the target to leave on time, extending the call out in you voice or dragging the words out a little from time to time at the end of the call, causes the eyes to freeze because the brain recognizes that you have not finished your call and it cannot allow the eyes to move until after the call is complete. In effect you are reprogramming the mind to tell the eyes to hold still for just a little longer. With practice you can program yourself to not move the eyes until something causes them to move such as a moving target. Now that was as clear as mud and you will have to read that several times to understand what was a pathetic explanation on my part to correct a problem. But with a little common sense and practice it will work.
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Eye Dominance and Cross Firing: This has been an ongoing problem that as a stock fitter I have had to deal with from time to time. According to one of my coaches and a few eye professionals they tell me that there is only a hand full of shooters in the country that are really true two eyed-shooters. Almost everyone at some time or another has cross-fired and it happens so fast that as a shooter you will not know that it has happened. Several years ago I worked with a young man from Florida that was a great shooter but he would break 160 straight and then proceed to miss two targets back to back and then run the rest. I watched him very intently for over a month and could not figure out the problem. He went to a Red Hill and after 2 months of observation and shooting Red found the cross- fire problem. The correction was made and the very next week the young man went to a state shoot and broke his first 200 x 200 and then went 299 x 300 in the shoot-off. As the summer went on he broke 7 more 200 straights. From experience I have cross-fired from time to time and as a new shooter I started out with being one eyed. As I got older my Dad wanted me to open up the other eye and I tried but fought every time I shot to do one eye or two. And older shooter pulled me aside one day and gave me a suggestion that helped me with the transition from one eye to two. This method has allowed me to never have to return to the one eye deal again. He told me to take a rifle with a scope and set in my house every night, pick out an object across the room and focus the scope, making the object come in full sharp focus. I did this starting out with one eye. He then said to be sure the reticule of the scope was fully opened and I could see clearly. Then he told me to open the other eye. He stated that the left eye as I am right handed would want to see the outside of the scope, but for just a brief instant I would be in full focus with the right eye until the left eye made me drift. He told me not to get discouraged and to keep doing this until I trained my mind to focus all of my vision to my right. After 10 days of doing this I no longer had to start out by closing the left eye but was able to see clearly through the scope with both eyes open. You do not see with your eyes but you see with the brain. The eyes are just a camera that sends signals to the brain and the brain tells the muscles what to do. If you suspect that you might be cross firing from time to time try this scope training method and see if it will improve the minds ability to focus all the vision through the proper eye.
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Enjoying Your Sport and Good Friends: You know good friends and shooting buddies are hard to come by and when you have a group of shooting buddies, cherish the times together because you never know how long they will be here. My wife tells me that I have a lot of characters that have always been in my life and I wanted to share just a couple of those special people that are around me almost every week. The Enforcer, Bigfoot, Laser Man, and the Car Guy are some of the people that I hold dear to me. On the following pages there are photographs from a hunting trip we had last year. More than the hunt I will remember being out in the field and sharing a great time and a lot of laughs. The Enforcer has nicknames for almost every person at the trap range, and for me, they call me Rodeo Man. I will not say how I got that name but it is a good and fitting name. I also have a Bubba, a crazy Rick, and a Raffle Eddie in my life including all the gang that we hang with at the shoots. This crowd leads me to be invited to drink beer, visit strip clubs and parade around in thongs. In defense of that thong move my buddies promised me that if I did the thong thing the Federal Rep. in Kentucky would recommend me to the Pro-Staff and I could get a shell deal. That was a lie as I now shoot Winchesters. My wife ask me why I am always the clown with the funny hats and odd wearing apparel, I told her that after being photographed in a thong every thing now is an upgrade from that. I have always said if you cannot laugh at yourself then whom are you going to laugh at. If and when I leave this life I want to be remembered as the guy who made people laugh and everyone can say that I helped wherever I could. If I can accomplish that I will feel that I lived a very rich and happy life. So in closing I want to say to all that read this, be good to your friends, cherish them and be together as much as life will permit. The unfortunate part is that all of us are only here for too short of a time. Until next month,
Rodeo Man Out |
The Rodeo Man rides again,
From the Left,
Rodeo Man, Crazy Carl the Car Guy,
The Enforcer, Laser Man, and Bigfoot