IN CONVERSATION - Clay Shooting USA
IN CONVERSATION - Clay Shooting USA
IN CONVERSATION - Clay Shooting USA
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28<br />
BUS<strong>IN</strong>ESSMAN<br />
Itwas in the early 1980s, while<br />
at the World Skeet <strong>Shooting</strong><br />
Championships, that I took a<br />
shooting lesson from Robert<br />
Paxton. At that time he’d already<br />
founded Paxton Arms – but even<br />
more importantly had already<br />
garnered a host of clay target<br />
shooting championship titles.<br />
Born in Fort Worth, Texas<br />
in1953, Robert’s father was a<br />
petroleum engineer who moved<br />
his family to Venezuela where he<br />
worked in the oil industry. The<br />
stay was for 10 years – by which<br />
time Robert was 15 years old.<br />
“While there I acquired a BB gun –<br />
and that’s how I gained my first<br />
shooting experience,” said Robert.<br />
Once back in the States, his<br />
grandfather, R. C. Pope, bought<br />
him a 20 gauge 870 Remington<br />
pump gun – and his first year of<br />
skeet competition was in 1969. He<br />
only shot the 20 gauge that year,<br />
but by 1970 he had three 870s –<br />
the original 20 gauge, plus one of<br />
the then fairly new ‘matched pair’<br />
of 28 gauge and .410 870 skeet<br />
guns. That was also the first year<br />
Robert shot the so-called ‘skeet<br />
minimums’ which means a certain<br />
minimum number of targets in<br />
each gauge.<br />
Early days<br />
Amazingly, in only his second year<br />
of four-gun competition, when only<br />
17 years old, he won the High<br />
Overall at the World Skeet<br />
<strong>IN</strong><br />
NICK SISLEY TALKS WITH ROBERT PAXTON<br />
<strong>CONVERSATION</strong>
30 BUS<strong>IN</strong>ESSMAN<br />
Championship with an impressive<br />
548 out of 550 – which at that time<br />
had only been accomplished once<br />
in all of skeet history. He was such<br />
a talented shooter (in such a short<br />
period of time) that he was sought<br />
out by Trinity University’s Tom<br />
Hanzel, the then foremost college<br />
shotgun shooting coach. Trinity’s<br />
shotgun team was without peer.<br />
Robert had switched to<br />
Remington 1100s in all four gauges<br />
for the 1971 season, but once at<br />
Trinity he switched to a Perazzi 12<br />
gauge – fitted with full-length<br />
tubes in the three smaller gauges.<br />
He graduated from Trinity in<br />
1975, and that same year, just<br />
about two months after graduation,<br />
he again won the World High<br />
Overall Skeet Championship – this<br />
time with a 549 out of 550, the<br />
highest High Overall score ever<br />
up until that time. (It was in 1976<br />
that Charlie Parks shot the first<br />
ever 550.) Robert also won the<br />
Champion of Champions event in<br />
1974 and 1975.<br />
Robert gives a lot of credit to<br />
his grandfather, the already<br />
Amazingly, in only his second year of<br />
four-gun competition, when only 17 years<br />
old, he won the High Overall at the<br />
World Skeet Championship with an<br />
impressive 548 out of 550 – which at<br />
that time had only been accomplished<br />
once in all of skeet history.<br />
mentioned R. C. Pope. Although<br />
never a competition clay target<br />
shooter, Pope was a champion<br />
smallbore rifle shooter in the 1930s<br />
and ’40s and went to all of Robert’s<br />
early matches. He knew how to<br />
win – and he carefully imparted<br />
that knowledge to Robert.<br />
In 1978 Robert saw a then new<br />
gun that he really liked at the<br />
Dallas Gun Club. “It looked a bit<br />
different – and even had a<br />
removable trigger,” he recalled.<br />
That gun was a Rottweil. Somehow<br />
he got with the right people and<br />
went to Germany to visit the<br />
factory. At that time the company<br />
made an over and under tailored to<br />
International Skeet, but Robert<br />
convinced Rottweil to come out<br />
with an American skeet model<br />
made to his specifications,<br />
together with full-length sub-gauge<br />
tubes, and came home with the<br />
‘exclusive’ Rottweil dealership for<br />
the United States. “That’s how my<br />
career started in the shotgun<br />
business.”<br />
ABOVE: <strong>IN</strong> THE 1970S AND BEYOND,THIS 5-MAN TEAM,THE COSMIC<br />
COWBOYS, WERE THE TERROR OF ALL SKEET-DOM. FROM LEFT TO<br />
RIGHT – PAT BARTELL,TITO KILLIAN, RICKY POPE, BUBBA WOOD AND<br />
ROBERT PAXTON.TOP: FAMED REM<strong>IN</strong>GTON <strong>IN</strong>DUSTRY SHOOTER,<br />
TEACHER AND AUTHOR D. LEE BRAUN, WITH A VERY YOUNG ROBERT<br />
PAXTON. RIGHT: SPORTS AFIELD’S JIMMY ROB<strong>IN</strong>SON ALWAYS PICKED<br />
THE SPORTS AFIELD ALL- AMERICAN TEAMS – BOTH SKEET AND TRAP.<br />
HERE’S JIMMY WITH ANOTHER VERY YOUNG ROBERT PAXTON – BUT<br />
ALREADY AN ALL-AMERICAN.<br />
Skeet and<br />
Sporting<br />
Paxton Arms is not a ‘walk-in’ gun<br />
shop. There is no banner or sign<br />
hanging outside and you won’t find<br />
any rifles, handguns, trap guns or<br />
hunting guns for sale here – only<br />
sporting and skeet guns. When<br />
sporting clays hit our shores in the<br />
mid 1980s Robert saw the potential<br />
and hopped right on the<br />
bandwagon. Though not a serious<br />
sporting clays competitor, he<br />
definitely enjoys the game. “After<br />
39 years of clay target<br />
competition,” Robert<br />
explains, “I’m still<br />
basically a skeet bum - as<br />
is my wife Mary DiGiovani<br />
(also an All American).”<br />
Even after all those years,<br />
he still shoots thousands of<br />
competition skeet targets<br />
CLAYSHOOT<strong>IN</strong>G<strong>USA</strong>
32 BUS<strong>IN</strong>ESSMAN<br />
AT THE NATIONAL GUN CLUB <strong>IN</strong> SAN<br />
ANTONIO ROBERT PAXTON AND HIS<br />
WIFE, MARY DIGIOVANI, STAND <strong>IN</strong><br />
FRONT OF THEIR “STORE” ON<br />
VENDOR’S ROW.<br />
every year and always makes the<br />
All-American Team.<br />
How about current gun sales?<br />
“Ours is a small business,<br />
relatively speaking, in that we<br />
specialize in sporting and skeet<br />
shotguns. Consequently, our<br />
business is hardly reflective of gun<br />
sales nationally. I know some<br />
companies have been having a<br />
very hard time, but we have not.<br />
Frankly, skeet shooting is not<br />
growing, but sporting clays<br />
certainly is. I think there’s a lot<br />
more excitement in sporting –<br />
purely because of the target<br />
variation.<br />
“Don’t forget that skeet started<br />
not only with a low gun, but the<br />
original skeet layout was designed<br />
to provide shooters with all the<br />
various angles that gunners would<br />
find in the field. Well – sporting<br />
changed all that. Sporting now<br />
offers shooting angles and<br />
sporting shots that no one could<br />
even imagine in the 1930s – as well<br />
as so many different target types,”<br />
says Robert.<br />
While sporting gun sales may<br />
have leveled off during the difficult<br />
Sporting<br />
now offers<br />
shooting angles<br />
and sporting shots<br />
that no one could<br />
even imagine in<br />
the 1930s – as<br />
well as so many<br />
different target<br />
types,” says<br />
Robert.<br />
ROBERT NOW SHOOTS A KRIEGHOFF<br />
K-80, BUT OVER THE YEARS HE HAS<br />
COMPETED WITH MANY OTHER<br />
SHOTGUN MODELS AND TYPES.<br />
economic times, Robert still sees<br />
significant potential for the future,<br />
mainly because of new shooters<br />
taking up sporting. “Most small<br />
skeet clubs have struggled to<br />
survive, while clubs that have<br />
added sporting and 5-Stand have<br />
pulled out of the financial<br />
doldrums. Sporting clays really did<br />
come on phenomenally fast – its<br />
popularity has grown much faster<br />
than did skeet or even trap.”<br />
Valuable Advice<br />
Based in Richardson, Texas, a<br />
suburb of Dallas, this ‘gun shop’ is<br />
simply an office in an office park.<br />
Walk-in trade is only via<br />
appointment – and there is not a<br />
great deal of that. Most of Robert’s<br />
business, at least initial business<br />
with a potential buyer, comes via<br />
the ’phone – most often a reference<br />
from an already satisfied customer<br />
or someone responding to his<br />
strong marketing and advertising.<br />
He doesn’t want the ‘general<br />
public’ to know there are shotguns<br />
in his office. Virtually every one of<br />
his gun sales takes place one on<br />
one – often following an in-depth<br />
conversation that can often last<br />
nearly an hour – sometimes more.<br />
Because Robert is a recognized<br />
clay champion himself, he offers<br />
his customers a unique<br />
perspective. Where else can you<br />
go to purchase a sporting gun<br />
from a person who has shot<br />
literally millions of clay targets and<br />
competed at the highest levels?<br />
Further, a large percentage of the<br />
guns he sells are shipped rather<br />
than picked up.<br />
At Paxton Arms you can’t buy<br />
just any sporting or skeet gun.<br />
They only carry four lines –<br />
Krieghoff, Kolar, Beretta and<br />
Blaser. “These are the finest<br />
competition sporting clays guns<br />
made today,” says Robert.<br />
Obviously, he takes competition<br />
shotguns in on trade, so he does<br />
have other models on his used<br />
rack – but even many of these are<br />
one of the four brands mentioned.<br />
Personal Choice<br />
Robert taught shotgunning skills<br />
at one time, but for many years<br />
now he has devoted his vocational<br />
life to Paxton Arms.<br />
The Rottweil was his initial<br />
choice of shotgun for 10 years,<br />
before switching to a Beretta 687<br />
EELL for another decade – though<br />
during that period he also shot a<br />
prototype of the current Kolar<br />
competition model. From the<br />
EELL he went to Beretta’s ASE 90<br />
but for the last six seasons he has<br />
shot a Krieghoff K-80.<br />
In his 39 years of shooting<br />
competition, Robert has been on<br />
39 All American Teams – 26 Open<br />
First Teams and 12 Open Second<br />
Teams. What a record. He has held<br />
the skeet .410 long run at 469, the<br />
28 gauge long run at 857 and<br />
currently holds the 20 gauge long<br />
run at 2173. He shoots his K-80<br />
with 20 gauge tubes in both 12 and<br />
20 gauge events.<br />
He was inducted into the Texas<br />
Skeet Shooters Hall of Fame in<br />
1985 and into the National Skeet<br />
<strong>Shooting</strong> Hall of Fame in 1995. He<br />
has shot eighteen 400 x 400s, two<br />
500 x 500s and has won the Texas<br />
State High Overall Skeet<br />
Championship nine times. He has<br />
so many other shooting<br />
accomplishments that they are just<br />
too numerous to cover.<br />
Unquestionably, Robert Paxton is<br />
one of our most accomplished<br />
shooters. Not surprisingly, he’s<br />
only ever had one real job – selling<br />
competition sporting clays and<br />
skeet guns.<br />
(www.paxtonarms.com) ■<br />
Nick Sisley can be contacted at<br />
nicksisley@hotmail.com<br />
CLAYSHOOT<strong>IN</strong>G<strong>USA</strong>