Targets- Types And Purpose

[Gamatech 3]

Hi everyone, how are you doing?

 

I have quite a small garden and I have reached a predicament that I have not personally seen much light on in magazines etc. Quite often I hear/read about groupings, pellet velocity, foot pounds, but I can't seem to find much publicised about what you're actually shooting at.

What is your opinion on different targets and what they should be used for? I think it would be an interesting conversation. Spinners, knock down targets, plain targets or more "fairground" type things like getting the ball down the rail? There could also be things to say about wall mounted targets, hammered targets and screw-in targets. To make it more complicated there's purposes like practice, zeroing, hunting simulations, or just plain fun. To put this into perspective plus kill two birds with one stone, this is an example of what I mean.

 

I have cleared out and tidied my shed in the back yard. I want somewhere to practice for HFT and my plan is to shoot from one end of my smallish garden, through the particularly large doors of my shed and inside to the back. This way I am never pointing the rifle at any neighbours and only toward a large area of thick bracken behind my shed and fence.

 

So with the priority of safety thought about and also any debris contained within the shed (with no windows), the next thing to think about is what to shoot at. Thinking about my circumstances I've narrowed it down to one of two targets; a HFT knock down target or a pellet catcher with target cards. The knock down target would be ideal for practice because it'd be the same as the ones used on a course and the adjustable kill zone could (to a certain extent) simulate different ranges. But I would need to think of a way of sticking it into the floor, as the surface is wood and not soft earth. It also wouldn't catch any lead and having dogs I don't want them coming across any pieces when they're outside. The pellet catcher would solve this and is practical as far as groupings and zeroing is concerned, but it doesn't give much of a feel for performance on the course and can't really give an impression of different distances.

 

So that's my idea for a conversation, hopefully it's tasty enough to stir up some opinions Also if anyone has some advice about what target would be best to put in my shed I'd be very grateful

[pianoman 3,584]

Hi Gamatech.

You don't mention how much range distance your garden's size offers. And, if I've understood it right, you are intending on shooting targets set up through the open door to the inside end of your shed at targets set up within it? But, as a start, I'd make a good and safe zero and practice target out of an old drawer, stuffed with old pillow or two to pack it and set it up at the extreme distance your 'range' offers, whatever it is. Pellets can soon chew through a decent thickness of wood panels and shed walls are not that thick and pellet-absorbing! Or harder, thicker wood panels can rebound the pellet straight back at you! Use paper targets taped to the drawer's wooden backing and you'll have a very effective and safe pellet-catching backstop target inside your shed; either for zeroing a new scope or when you know another rifle you might have makes the first shots wayward if you swap your scopes about. You can hang a set of old spoons on string in front of it and you got yourself a set of spinners for bobbins too!

 

Best wishes.

 

Simon

Edited July 1, 2013 by pianoman

[gurtwurz 792]

Or if you want a hft knock down target, get one of the ones that have a re set paddle at the bottom rather than the string reset type, then get a decent sized plant pot filled with fresh concrete and push the target in the top of it. You now have a mobile hft target that sits above uncut grass so you can set it down anywhere you like. Make sure you've a decent backstop like piano man says and youre away. I prefer an 18"x12" patio slab propped up behind the target myself but a long as the pellets won't rebound or go through it it doesn't matter.

[Gamatech 3]

Thanks for the advise about the wood piano man, I'll certainly look into making a back-stop like the one you mentioned I only want to pull the trigger if I know it's safe. And great ideas about the targets guys! The plant pot idea gurtwurtz had is very good and coincidentally I found some plant pots that would be ideal when I cleared the shed out. The spoons seem like a cheap and practical solution too

[ghillies 209]

get hold of some lead flashing, like thin strips of easily maluable lead, fold it over some string.. collects lead and makes a quiet 'tick' sound, quite quiet, and off course a hammer tends to 're-flat' even the pellets for some time.

 

types of targets and usages? i've always though the larger the target the further the distance, but for airguns its a case of can you see it? needs to be bigger if you cant, or of course move closer.

 

for short ranges use the smaller targets... a single pellet hole in any old paper card wood what ever, shoot at the hole.(pen mark blue tack blob you name it).

 

if you got room to ping stuff about that brings you into a 3-d basis, bottle tops etc, cheepo mints, anything to hand...