The Thunder 100 is equivalent to the shotgun FT popper, much louder than any blank pistol. Also the Thunder 100 is cheaper to operate. Cons are related to toting the Thunder 100 around vs a pistol, but compared to toting a shotgun to shoot poppers I would choose the Thunder 100.
The thunder does not do well on long downwind marks. Not as well as the poppers anyway. We use the thunder in our club events but on long guns it is poppers only.
Go to www.gundogsupply.com and take a look at the Pop-Start 209 primer shooter. They work well. Reasonably priced.
A number of the guys I train with use them.
That is another option. I know a number of folks who tried them and a couple do prefer it. It has the main (and perhaps only) advantage of not looking like a gun, which helps when training on public park and such. However, it only hold one at a time and takes two hands to load, so it is a pain when you have one hand full of bird to throw, in my experience.
Used one this past weekend for an event and did not like it at all. Cumbersome and a PIA to time with judges signal. will stick with my NEF 22 blank gun and poppers.
The Thunder 100's are awesome for everything, but very long birds. You don't have to reload them and they're much safer and cheaper than poppers. We've never had a timing issue unless the person was using it for the first time.
Lonnie has one. I like it. Gray prefers the GunX and I like it better for rolling singles. The Thunder causes more echoes, similar to popper loads. Best to acclimate dogs to that while training.
Good lord, you lose one training partners pistol and you never hear the end of it. Truthfully, that is part of the draw for me though, you could never lose those things. I liked the fact that it did not make my ears ring either--that was a nice difference in my pistol.
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