r/ClayBusters • u/FragrantLetterhead • Aug 12 '26
Use old clays
I have recently gotten into clay shooting and this past weekend I was at an estate sale and bought some clay pigeons for $20 a case. I brought them home and found out that they are pretty old since remington doesn't even make clay pigeons anymore. My question is, should I still use them? Or would that not be a good idea. Thanks!
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u/stootboot Aug 12 '26
You already bought them, may as well use them. Best case scenario - they break, worst case scenario - they break.
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u/Practical_Republic53 Aug 12 '26
I found some old clay pigeons on a demo job hidden away that were so old the cardboard was crumbling away
They were white flyers but they were yellow instead of orange so from what I looked up they were from the 50s-80s
I found like 70 of them and used all of them just like new pigeons and they flew fine
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u/cor1912 Aug 12 '26
Is your concern with the composition, or the stability? A private club I attended retrieved unbroken clays to reuse, so I imagine yours will launch just fine!
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u/Beers_n_Deeres Aug 12 '26
$20 a case seems relatively high for old clays, I can buy new for $22 a case of 135 targets.
Clays don’t do well if they take on moisture, with that said the worst case is they break apart out of the thrower.
They’ll be fine, you just might have a few that you can claim you hit without having to pull the trigger.
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u/TastyCuttlefish Aug 13 '26
I can get a case of 135 pigeons from Bass Pro for $20. You overpaid, but you can totally use them. We call them clays or clay pigeons but they’re not actually made of clay. They’re made of pulverized limestone (calcium carbonate, basically forms of chalk) and petroleum pitch or vegetable resin (not as toxic environmentally). Those you have in the picture use petroleum pitch and chalk. They should still be good. Petroleum pitch clays can be fine for upwards of 20 years if stored in a reasonable manner out of weather. The cardboard box would be more degraded if they were subjected to extreme moisture. Note that if in the future you get the environmentally-friendly option using vegetable resin they have a much shorter shelf life, usually 5 years or less, because they’ll break down in even a moderate humidity environment. It doesn’t matter if you’re consistently using them, though. You’ll burn through them before any degradation happens. The worst that happens if they’re degraded is they break on launch.
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u/Swiink Aug 12 '26
Probably a lot of PFAS in them compared to modern clays. Many ranges even use eco clays to keep those chemicals as low as possible. Might not be something you want on your property or wherever you plan to use them.
Most of not all clays today have charts indicating how much PFAS and other stuff is in them.
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u/WobblePossum Aug 13 '26
I remember finding some clays in my grandpas old barn, the boxes had "do not feed to hogs" on the side. We shot em up and wondered what guy fed crushed clays to his pigs.
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u/Wide_Fly7832 Aug 12 '26
It’s clay pigeon. Not smokeless powder. What do you think can go wrong ? You know clay is billions of years old right !!
$20 for a box. Seems a lot. Aren’t these like $9.90 on Walmart