I'm not happy with this thrower. It is too stiff and I broke several clays inserting them and had a hard time getting others to release. I finally gave up and started throwing clays by hand while the thrower went in the trash.

I bought this to train some new shooters, hoping to throw a slow target (vs. a mechanical trap thrower). Inserting the clay pigeon was super tight. I tried White Flyers and Blue Rock. It felt like I would break the clay just doing that, but it didn't break. When I went to throw it, the clay was in there so tight that it did not even fly; it just stayed in the thrower. There is no adjustment that can be done. I tried to spread it open by hand to make it more flexible to no avail. Temperature outside was only 55 degrees. Maybe they put in too much hardener when manufacturing this one, I don't know. I will be returning it. My first one star review to a Caldwell product; surprised me.

It works great!

Well made, dirt cheap, free shipping. What's not to love.

I bought my first Caldwell thrower last fall after using the MTM EZ throw brand for 15 years. The new Caldwell thrower looked the same as my EZ throw but when we started using it we were very disappointed. I've hand thrown many thousands of clays over the years and this was an inferior tool for the job. I went back and found an MTM thrower. It was more stiff than my old one but it did a much better job of slinging clays without breaking them.

Performance Notes:

The plastic is more rigid on the Caldwell thrower resulting in more broken clays during both the insertion and release.

It's also very difficult for the person doing the throwing to accurately control the release point. It just seems to pop out. (Its hard to describe unless you've used a hand thrower before but believe me its frustrating).

Bottom Line:

Something is wrong in the quality control I think. Try an EZ throw or maybe a Champion.