DIY Gun and Gear Cart for Sporting Clays

My son and I went out last week to shoot a round of sporting clays at Coon Creek Trap and Skeet in Lincoln, CA. It was a cool day so we started off with a jacket on, a shotgun in our hand and a bag containing ammo, chokes, a couple of bottles of water and a camera. Soon the sun came out and we had to remove our jackets and carry them too. The sporting clays course at Coon Creek is not very well maintained. The benches are broken or missing and the highest platform even has a hole in the floor that you could fall through. But I digress. We went through the course carrying all of our stuff along with our hulls. By the end of the course we we were tired of carrying everything all afternoon.

I thought about equipping a golf cart as a clays car. EZGO has all of the baskets and gun racks we would need to set up a great golf cart for the sporting clays range. Somewhere in that train of thought I realized the maybe I should be walking the course to keep myself in a little better shape. The next thought was about something like a golf bag cart like what the use to play golf while walking the course. Something to carry the guns and the gear while walking the course. On a whim, I did a google search for a gun cart for sporting clays. It seems that there is such a thing made by Rugged Gear.

It was a three wheel push cart with large pneumatic tires and gun racks mounted to the frame and a fabric suspension to hold gear.

The next item on Google said "DIY shooting cart". There was an article outlining how you could make a gun/gear cart from a jogging stroller. They even named the brand of the stroller they modified in the project. It was an "In Step" jogging stroller. I went on Facebook Marketplace and found an In Step jogging stroller for sale for $65.00. I sent the guy a message and offered him $40.00. He agreed and I was the proud owner of an InStep jogging stroller.

The DIY article outlined how to remove the sun canopy and the safety belts for the child and mount gun racks on the side frames. I looked around all the old parts and stuff from my Argo and EZGO businesses and found that I had a couple of pairs of "Pack Rack" gun racks. We used to use these racks for mounting shotguns on the seat back rail on an Argo for duck hunters. They mounted perfectly to the outside frame of the stroller.

The Stroller has a plastic cover that goes over the frame above the front wheel. The DIY article showed that to be removed. I took it off, but very shortly realized it was not in the way of anything and it could serve as a flat surface to sit on or place something else. I put it back on. The stroller had a mount for a speedometer mounted between the two rubber hand grips on the push bar. I took it off as I could see catching my hand on it. The seat where the Chid sits has an adjustable back. It is adjusted by lengthening or shortening a nylon strap. I let the strap out to it's longest and the reclined the seat back almost down to the lever of the seat. This makes a fairly flat area for carrying ammo and gear. A round of sporting clays takes 4 boxes of shot shells per player. 8 boxes of shells fit nicely in the seat along with a jacket and maybe a bag chair for those stations where the benches are broken or missing.

I then began to think about how I could carry a small cooler. It would be nice to have a cold drink or two in a cooler on the cart. I am still experimenting around with various small coolers. There is a small flat soft cooler shown on the seat of the cart in the photo above. One option would be to hang it from one of the gun racks on the side of the cart.

After I had the gun racks on and put some guns on them, I found that they carried the guns safe and securely with the addition of some hold down snubbers.

For right now, I have it set up for 2 guns, one on each side of the frame. Either I can carry a spare shotgun, or I can carry my shooting partners gun on the cart as well. It is entirely possible to substitute some Rugged Gear double gun racks for the Pack Racks and the cart could carry 4 guns. The stroller is designed to fold in half and lock together, making it easier to transport. When I tried to fold it up, the gun racks interfered with folding and locking it together. I was able to move the racks slightly to alleviate the interference and the cart folds and locks perfectly now for transport.

I acquired some new camera gear over the holidays that I have been using for video blogging and making Youtube videos. My next thought was to mount a camera that could record each of the stations as we shot it. I have a GoPro camera mounted on a suction cup base. I tried mounting it on the top of the cup holder, but the plastic was not smooth enough for the suction cup to stay put. You will see it mounted on the cup holder in the photo above. GoPro cameras are nice and small and they are weather proof. They are however, a bit complicated to activate and use. There is also a noticeable fish-eye effect on GoPro cameras. I decided that it would be more useful to mound my VBlogging camera to the handle bar. It would give me a much higher quality video. I found a camera mount that will clamp to the bar and mount the camera and microphone on the handlebar with a double ball swivel system.

My thought is that I can position the cart in a manner that will cover the shooting station. I can activate the camera and sound to record the shooting of each station. The cart can function as the tripod for the camera and micropone when we film.

The cart now looks mostly like a gun cart, but it still has colors on the fabric that make it look like a kid's stroller. I found a "fabric paint" on Amazon. It says I can paint the fabric and it will cover the old color and last forever. They say it is more of a dye than a paint.

I plan to take off the upholstery and lay it out on a flat surface and paint it with a flat black fabric paint. That should make it look less like a stroller.

New paint on the upholstery and new camera mount on the way. More later.