I've borrowed one from a buddy, forget the brand but it's a pretty good one..holds 90 clays. It won't throw doubles though.
The least favorite thing for me, is if you try to get it to throw clays 'higher' instead of kinda straight out ..it'll bind and not load the clays properly. I'm reluctant to place it on a picnic table or what-not to 'throw higher' for safety reasons. I've seen clays bust when the thrower arm try's to launch them.
So we've come up with some games to make it more challenging. My favorite is 'ice the kicker'. After the shooter says pull, the operator has a 5 second window within to launch. Can be right away, or anywhere within that 5 seconds. Doesn't sound like much on paper, but the shooter always starts to lose concentration...looking at the gun, their trigger finger, making sure the safety is off, whatever. That's when I launch.
Miss ratio is around 70%.
Also, rather than letting the shooter stand in-line with the path of the clay flight, (which they all want to do) make them stand perpendicular to it, which makes them have to swing the shotgun right-to-left as they track the bird. Much harder.
To get a thrower that does all the things I want it to do will probably run me around $700. That's why I don't have one yet.
Sorry Tim for my lengthy post. I guess what I'm getting at is understand the less expensive ones, while still fun, have limitations that can get kinda boring after awhile. So we've incorporated games into it to ramp up the challenge.
(PS- Wal Mart is the place to buy clays. $6 for a 90 count of the bio-degradable. )