D.Lee Braun

D.Lee Braun –

Braun won more combined Claybird championships than any other shooter in history. Additionally, he instructed thousands in his 33 years of active service to the sport. Braun was born in Houston in 1911. Shortly thereafter he moved to Milano,TX where he spent the first 11 years of his life( today his gravesite remains there). He graduated from SMU in 1934 and became a rep for the Remington Arms Company in Dallas.

Braun’s greatest victory came at the Syracuse Nationals in 1947. He dropped four targets in the first 33 in the 410 race, then smoked the final 67 for a 96×100. He followed with 100’s in the 28 and 20 gauges and then broke a perfect 250×250 in the 12 Gauge which set an alltime record of 546×550 which he would duplicate in Reno, 14 years later. In 1941, Braun also set a 12 Gauge high average record of .9960 on 1100 targets.

Braun would enlist in the Army in 1942, but was transferred to the Air Corps. At Laredo AFB, he became the Range Officer in charge of the flexible aerial gunnery range. He would serve 44 months and when he was discharged he returned to Remington Arms. He would
go onto win the World Professional titles in both the all Around and 12 gauge seven times and the 20 gauge and 410, five times each. He was named to 20 All American teams and was Captain a total of 8 times. What an incredible story.

My experiences with Braun started in the early 1960’s when he noticed me shooting and then approached my dad and asked him he would mind helping me. The rest is history. Living only five blocks from his house in San Mateo, I must have driven he and his wife,
Marian crazy stopping by once a week in the evening to talk Skeet and shooting. These visits were priceless in terms of learning the history of skeet and learning about life. Not only did he teach me how to lose but he taught me how important it was to give
something back to the sport. The influence that he had on my life and those of other Junior shooters he had taken under his wing, was incredible. The Hall of Fame is full of shooters he had an influence on. I could write pages and pages on this man. Along with Ilseng, how could I have gotten anymore blessed to have these two teaching me to shoot.

Braun was one of the finest All Around gun pointers as evidenced by his induction into the Amateur Trapshooting Association HOF. He also wrote successful books on Skeet as well as Trap plus he did some of the first instructional videos using a camera mounted on a Remington 1100.

D.Lee would pass in 1972. Over the years, I had the opportunity to shoot with his son, Joe Lee while in California. Joe Lee like his dad was an excellent gun pointer. Throughout the late 50’s and 60’s, Joe Lee was on Junior All American teams and became a top gunner in Northern California.

Biography By – Phil Murray

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