IN CONVERSATION - Clay Shooting USA

28
BUSINESSMAN
Itwas in the early 1980s, while
at the World Skeet Shooting
Championships, that I took a
shooting lesson from Robert
Paxton. At that time he’d already
founded Paxton Arms – but even
more importantly had already
garnered a host of clay target
shooting championship titles.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas
in1953, Robert’s father was a
petroleum engineer who moved
his family to Venezuela where he
worked in the oil industry. The
stay was for 10 years – by which
time Robert was 15 years old.
“While there I acquired a BB gun –
and that’s how I gained my first
shooting experience,” said Robert.
Once back in the States, his
grandfather, R. C. Pope, bought
him a 20 gauge 870 Remington
pump gun – and his first year of
skeet competition was in 1969. He
only shot the 20 gauge that year,
but by 1970 he had three 870s –
the original 20 gauge, plus one of
the then fairly new ‘matched pair’
of 28 gauge and .410 870 skeet
guns. That was also the first year
Robert shot the so-called ‘skeet
minimums’ which means a certain
minimum number of targets in
each gauge.
Early days
Amazingly, in only his second year
of four-gun competition, when only
17 years old, he won the High
Overall at the World Skeet
IN
NICK SISLEY TALKS WITH ROBERT PAXTON
CONVERSATION

30 BUSINESSMAN
Championship with an impressive
548 out of 550 – which at that time
had only been accomplished once
in all of skeet history. He was such
a talented shooter (in such a short
period of time) that he was sought
out by Trinity University’s Tom
Hanzel, the then foremost college
shotgun shooting coach. Trinity’s
shotgun team was without peer.
Robert had switched to
Remington 1100s in all four gauges
for the 1971 season, but once at
Trinity he switched to a Perazzi 12
gauge – fitted with full-length
tubes in the three smaller gauges.
He graduated from Trinity in
1975, and that same year, just
about two months after graduation,
he again won the World High
Overall Skeet Championship – this
time with a 549 out of 550, the
highest High Overall score ever
up until that time. (It was in 1976
that Charlie Parks shot the first
ever 550.) Robert also won the
Champion of Champions event in
1974 and 1975.
Robert gives a lot of credit to
his grandfather, the already
Amazingly, in only his second year of
four-gun competition, when only 17 years
old, he won the High Overall at the
World Skeet Championship with an
impressive 548 out of 550 – which at
that time had only been accomplished
once in all of skeet history.
mentioned R. C. Pope. Although
never a competition clay target
shooter, Pope was a champion
smallbore rifle shooter in the 1930s
and ’40s and went to all of Robert’s
early matches. He knew how to
win – and he carefully imparted
that knowledge to Robert.
In 1978 Robert saw a then new
gun that he really liked at the
Dallas Gun Club. “It looked a bit
different – and even had a
removable trigger,” he recalled.
That gun was a Rottweil. Somehow
he got with the right people and
went to Germany to visit the
factory. At that time the company
made an over and under tailored to
International Skeet, but Robert
convinced Rottweil to come out
with an American skeet model
made to his specifications,
together with full-length sub-gauge
tubes, and came home with the
‘exclusive’ Rottweil dealership for
the United States. “That’s how my
career started in the shotgun
business.”
ABOVE: IN THE 1970S AND BEYOND,THIS 5-MAN TEAM,THE COSMIC
COWBOYS, WERE THE TERROR OF ALL SKEET-DOM. FROM LEFT TO
RIGHT – PAT BARTELL,TITO KILLIAN, RICKY POPE, BUBBA WOOD AND
ROBERT PAXTON.TOP: FAMED REMINGTON INDUSTRY SHOOTER,
TEACHER AND AUTHOR D. LEE BRAUN, WITH A VERY YOUNG ROBERT
PAXTON. RIGHT: SPORTS AFIELD’S JIMMY ROBINSON ALWAYS PICKED
THE SPORTS AFIELD ALL- AMERICAN TEAMS – BOTH SKEET AND TRAP.
HERE’S JIMMY WITH ANOTHER VERY YOUNG ROBERT PAXTON – BUT
ALREADY AN ALL-AMERICAN.
Skeet and
Sporting
Paxton Arms is not a ‘walk-in’ gun
shop. There is no banner or sign
hanging outside and you won’t find
any rifles, handguns, trap guns or
hunting guns for sale here – only
sporting and skeet guns. When
sporting clays hit our shores in the
mid 1980s Robert saw the potential
and hopped right on the
bandwagon. Though not a serious
sporting clays competitor, he
definitely enjoys the game. “After
39 years of clay target
competition,” Robert
explains, “I’m still
basically a skeet bum - as
is my wife Mary DiGiovani
(also an All American).”
Even after all those years,
he still shoots thousands of
competition skeet targets
CLAYSHOOTINGUSA

32 BUSINESSMAN
AT THE NATIONAL GUN CLUB IN SAN
ANTONIO ROBERT PAXTON AND HIS
WIFE, MARY DIGIOVANI, STAND IN
FRONT OF THEIR “STORE” ON
VENDOR’S ROW.
every year and always makes the
All-American Team.
How about current gun sales?
“Ours is a small business,
relatively speaking, in that we
specialize in sporting and skeet
shotguns. Consequently, our
business is hardly reflective of gun
sales nationally. I know some
companies have been having a
very hard time, but we have not.
Frankly, skeet shooting is not
growing, but sporting clays
certainly is. I think there’s a lot
more excitement in sporting –
purely because of the target
variation.
“Don’t forget that skeet started
not only with a low gun, but the
original skeet layout was designed
to provide shooters with all the
various angles that gunners would
find in the field. Well – sporting
changed all that. Sporting now
offers shooting angles and
sporting shots that no one could
even imagine in the 1930s – as well
as so many different target types,”
says Robert.
While sporting gun sales may
have leveled off during the difficult
Sporting
now offers
shooting angles
and sporting shots
that no one could
even imagine in
the 1930s – as
well as so many
different target
types,” says
Robert.
ROBERT NOW SHOOTS A KRIEGHOFF
K-80, BUT OVER THE YEARS HE HAS
COMPETED WITH MANY OTHER
SHOTGUN MODELS AND TYPES.
economic times, Robert still sees
significant potential for the future,
mainly because of new shooters
taking up sporting. “Most small
skeet clubs have struggled to
survive, while clubs that have
added sporting and 5-Stand have
pulled out of the financial
doldrums. Sporting clays really did
come on phenomenally fast – its
popularity has grown much faster
than did skeet or even trap.”
Valuable Advice
Based in Richardson, Texas, a
suburb of Dallas, this ‘gun shop’ is
simply an office in an office park.
Walk-in trade is only via
appointment – and there is not a
great deal of that. Most of Robert’s
business, at least initial business
with a potential buyer, comes via
the ’phone – most often a reference
from an already satisfied customer
or someone responding to his
strong marketing and advertising.
He doesn’t want the ‘general
public’ to know there are shotguns
in his office. Virtually every one of
his gun sales takes place one on
one – often following an in-depth
conversation that can often last
nearly an hour – sometimes more.
Because Robert is a recognized
clay champion himself, he offers
his customers a unique
perspective. Where else can you
go to purchase a sporting gun
from a person who has shot
literally millions of clay targets and
competed at the highest levels?
Further, a large percentage of the
guns he sells are shipped rather
than picked up.
At Paxton Arms you can’t buy
just any sporting or skeet gun.
They only carry four lines –
Krieghoff, Kolar, Beretta and
Blaser. “These are the finest
competition sporting clays guns
made today,” says Robert.
Obviously, he takes competition
shotguns in on trade, so he does
have other models on his used
rack – but even many of these are
one of the four brands mentioned.
Personal Choice
Robert taught shotgunning skills
at one time, but for many years
now he has devoted his vocational
life to Paxton Arms.
The Rottweil was his initial
choice of shotgun for 10 years,
before switching to a Beretta 687
EELL for another decade – though
during that period he also shot a
prototype of the current Kolar
competition model. From the
EELL he went to Beretta’s ASE 90
but for the last six seasons he has
shot a Krieghoff K-80.
In his 39 years of shooting
competition, Robert has been on
39 All American Teams – 26 Open
First Teams and 12 Open Second
Teams. What a record. He has held
the skeet .410 long run at 469, the
28 gauge long run at 857 and
currently holds the 20 gauge long
run at 2173. He shoots his K-80
with 20 gauge tubes in both 12 and
20 gauge events.
He was inducted into the Texas
Skeet Shooters Hall of Fame in
1985 and into the National Skeet
Shooting Hall of Fame in 1995. He
has shot eighteen 400 x 400s, two
500 x 500s and has won the Texas
State High Overall Skeet
Championship nine times. He has
so many other shooting
accomplishments that they are just
too numerous to cover.
Unquestionably, Robert Paxton is
one of our most accomplished
shooters. Not surprisingly, he’s
only ever had one real job – selling
competition sporting clays and
skeet guns.
(www.paxtonarms.com) ■
Nick Sisley can be contacted at
nicksisley@hotmail.com
CLAYSHOOTINGUSA