American Airguns Blog

Another Good Old Boys Match

2008-06-17T15:33:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I helped out at the eight annual Good Old Boys FT match up in Pulaski Tennessee. This match has grown a lot since 2001 and we have had a lot of good matches up at Roz's Hollow. I had the privilege to design and setup the Blue course that is in a wooded area nestled at the base of a tall hill. The course has a stream running down through it at the base of the hill so it offers a lot of interesting shots. Normally I have 2-4 shots that are way up the hill at long distances and steep inclines, however this year I decided to not go so far up the hill and put a target in a tree about 25 yards from the firing line but up about 30 feet. It was an interesting shot.

I really enjoy planning and setting up courses and this years course was no different. I love to be out in the woods away from civilization. This year it was really hot and boy there were a lot of ticks out and about. I even saw my first Cotton Mouth along the creek while I was setting up the course. The course turned out to be a bit more difficult than the other course but not by much.

For some reason, this particular course gave me more fits than any course I can remember in recent history. I had a bunch of cold lines for target malfunctoins and string problems. The weird thing to me was that I did all my normal target maintainence and checkout prior to the match. There were two Stoutenberg targets that failed during the match that I had tested and they worked great. Both failed to fall reliably with a high power hit on the paddle. Both would fall with a hit from a 12 ft. lbs. rifle but not with a high power hit. The both would fall when shot with a 3 ft. lbs. air pistol at point blank range too. I am going to work on these targets and see if I can figure out what causes this sort of problem with the Stoutenbergs.

I have been setting up courses and running matchs now for 13 years but I never stop learning. I learned a few things this weekend too. One thing was not to put two targets that look similar to each other only a few yards apart and somewhat obscured by the brush around it. I had two vulture targets up the hill that were at 44 and 46 yards. The 44 yard vulture could be seen by either moving completely to the left of the lane or in the middle of the lane but through a small channel between some small trees. I had a lot of people complain that they had a hard time finding the second target. I like to have my lanes setup so that all target can be seen and shot from one point at the front of the lane. It helps to make the match run a bit smoother.

Even though I had to run my butt off on Saturday chasing down target problems, I still had a great time. I didn't shoot real well but that was to be expected since I didn't really have much time to practice this year. I have spent too much time playing with my auto reset targets and other family events kept me from shooting. One high point of Saturdays shooting for me was lane 10. After having run up the hillside three times to work on an old wood target, I sat down on lane 10 and cleaned a not so easy lane. That put a smile on my face.

Saturday night we had a social gathering at the practice range after supper. A bunch of us sat around and talked about airguns, movies and a whole host of other topics. Some had a few adult beverages made up by Kenneth Hughes. I took my little Yorkshire Terrier with me and she had a great time running around, sniffing everything and barking at a few people. s

Sundays shooting wasn't much better but I was much more relaxed and was exprimenting a bit with my shooting position. I shot with Rod Bradley and Kenneth Hughes both of whom are good fellows. I knew when I walked up to the lane and saw them sitting there that I was going to have a fun day. And I did.

Even though my shooting was subpar, I really enjoyed myself againg at the GOB match. It was nice to see my old friends there and shoot a bit too. Even though the weekend wore me out physically, it recharged my mentally and I was glad I was able to be a part of the event. Lord willing, I will do it again next year.

Field Target Tester

2008-03-23T19:10:00.007-05:00

Last fall I developed a very simple but rough field target tester (ft tester roughcut) after a suggestion by Nick Jenkinson. We were talking after the Worlds match and he suggested that a simple device that you could put up to a field target and fire it to test it without actually having to shoot it. It was a great idea and I came up with my first rough design. Over the weekend I finally took the time to develop a prototype unit that I believe I can make reliably.

Last week there was a discussion on one of the FT forums about AAFTA testing targets. Somewhere along the line I saw a thread about the Croman 2240 air pistol and I noticed that the CO2 tube was very close in size to my target tester and BAM, the light went on. I went down a day later to my local Gander Mountain and bought a 2240. Man, the 2240 is a simple gun to tear down. With three minutes I had all the pistol stripped and ready for developing. With a few hours of play and testing I was able to make the parts and tweak the springs and had a nice working prototype.

It is simple to use, to cock it you just push in on the plunger until it cocks. Then you put the plunger up to kill zone and pull the trigger. The safety even works. The plunger doesn't shoot out of the end hard enough to hurt anyone so the safety really isn't necessary. I still have some work to do to the design but I think it will work out pretty good.

ft tester prototype video - large
ft tester prototype video - small

Auto Resetting Practice Field Target

2008-03-11T20:39:00.002-05:00

Since I first posted about my new auto resetting practice FT target I have been working on and refining the design. I had two more faces plates and paddles cut out by a gentleman I found on line who has a computer controlled plasma cutter. The revised designs cut on the CCPC appeared to work really well so far. I have had the flu the last few days so I have only been able to do a few limited tests on these targets. However they fall over with less energy than the original target and reset a bit slower. I am also going to use a thinner material for the flag so I should be able to make it a bit bigger and easier to see.

I have ten targets faces that I want to make once I get the design down. The faces should be complete interchangable with the based and paddles. Lord willing, I hope to be able to sell just the faces so the shooters can swap out different faces on one base or change the face to a smaller kill zone. I haven't figured out an effective and inexpensive reducer yet but I am thinking about it. I am also thinking of an add on component that could hold the paddle longer but it would require a battery.

Right now I have a design for black bird, frog, prairie dog, 2 rabbits, rook, skunk, sparrow, squirrel, and a squirrel climbing up. If you have any suggestions for target faces, shoot me an email with your suggestion and I will take them under consideration. Thanks.

Target Sears Update

2008-03-08T17:19:00.007-06:00

I while back I wrote about updating the sear on my metal targets that were based on my wood design (http://www.airguns.net/blog/2008/01/target-sears.html). Well, I updated an older Dragon Fly Juneau target that I gave me constant problems with the new sear. Now it is working great. I took some time to take a few pictures of the new sear so I thought I would post them here.

Airgun Venue Lost

2008-02-27T10:19:00.004-06:00

Our local airgun club, the Tennessee Valley Airgunners, have been shooting here in Huntsville for about 5 years now. We have been shooting on a piece of property that is owned by one of our club members. It is a beautiful piece of land that stretched up to the top of one of the hills that are prevalent in this area. We shot in a nicely wooded area that had both heavily wooded areas and open areas. Unfortunately for us, the land owner decided to sell almost all of the land to another individual and we cannot shoot on the land any longer. Our club has lost our shooting venue.

It is a real shame for us. The venue had a lot of space to shoot but was still pretty close to Huntsville. The club was slowly starting to grow as more airgunners in the area found out about us from the Internet. The area on the property that we shot in had a nice big field next to the wooded area that allowed for a vast practice range with a very short walk into the wood for the match. With in the woods, there was some heavily wooded areas and then some more open areas including a 50-60 yard wide field that always had some kind of wind going on. The shooting path was completely in the shade though which was really nice in the hot summer months. All in all the venue had a lot to offer with a wide variety of shooting possibilities.

I started thinking some about home much time and effort running the club took. Basically it was a two man operation with myself and Donnie Ross pretty much doing all the prep work and running the matches. We are the only two local members of our club so the responsibilities fell on us to make things happen. We enjoyed the matches so it wasn't a big burden for us.

Now that our range is gone, I am looking forward to spending my time on other endeavors. I have been wanting to develop my website more and I have a whole host of ideas for targets and other airgun related projects. I would like to start writing reviews again and spending more time puttering around my house with some small projects there that I have been wanting to do. There is just so much stuff I would like to do and only so much time to do it.

I was shocked and saddened when I first heard the news of the property sale but now I see it as an opportunity to do some other things that I have been wanting to do. I have been running various matches now since 1995 and it is time for a break. I will probably get the itch in the near future to be a match director again but until then I am going to enjoy the break and turn my attentions to some other airgunning activities.

Airgun Videotaping

2008-02-20T11:18:00.002-06:00

Today I was taking some video of a target that I am developing. I took several shots in my garage with a digital camera and a video camera. Then I decided to take some shots through the scope on my PCP rifle. I have seen a lot of videos like this on YouTube so I thought that it shouldn't be any problem for me to take a couple of quick videos of my rifle hitting the new target. Well, like many things in life, it was easier said than done.

After setting up the rifle on a bench, I adjusted the rifle vise to get the crosshairs on the target. Then it was just a matter of putting the video camera behind the scope and taking some video. However, what I found out is that getting the orientation and positioning of the video is pretty difficult with a high magnification scope. There is a very small position that the video camera can be set at in order to get a good image. I held the camera by hand which compounded the problem since any little movement caused darkening in the image. I managed to get some decent video but it was as high quality as I would have liked.

I can see that in the future if I want to record video through my high magnification scopes I will need to make some type of fixture on which I can set the camera and make adjustments to line up the image.

FT Max Power Limit

2008-01-09T14:44:00.001-06:00

As a match director, one of the most time consuming things I do before a match is target preparation. The thing that makes this especially difficult is trying to set the targets for the wide range of power levels that the targets will be subjected to during a match. With guns varying in muzzle energy from 12-20 ft. lbs., it is a difficult task to get the targets to fall reliably for a low power rifle and not fall with a split or face hit from a high power rifle. I have seen 20 ft. lbs. rifles power down every type of target made with either a split or face hit. That can lead to an unfair advantage for a competitor using a high power rifle over someone using a lower power rifle.

Another issue is that higher power guns tend to beat up the target faces on targets that are placed at closer ranges. Over the course of a match, the smaller kill zone targets placed at closer ranges tend to get peened down to a slightly smaller size (even the Stoutenberg targets have this problem). That makes the target more difficult as the match progresses which creates an unfair situation for shooters who shoot the target later in the match.

A simple solution to these issues would be to drop the maximum energy level allowed at a Field Target match down from 20 to 15 ft. lbs. of energy. Using a ballistics program to calculate energy levels, velocities and trajectories for the various pellets used today shows that there is very little difference in the flight path of a heavy pellet fired from a 20 ft. lbs. rifle and a lighter pellet fired from a 15 ft. lbs. rifle.

The trajectories of the pellets are very close. Using Crosman Premiers as an example, the 10.5 pellets fired at 20 ft. lbs. will drop about 2.07 inches at 55 yards with a 25 yard zero. The 7.9 pellet fired at 15 ft. lbs. will drop around 2.27 inches at 50 yards with a 25 yard zero. The difference is about 1/8th of an inch or about one-two clicks.

The wind drift isn’t significantly different either. Using the same example as above, the 10.5 Premier will drift about 2.18 inches at 55 yards in a 5 mph 90 degree wind while the 7.9 will drift about 2.6 inches. That is less than half an inch more.

The 15 ft. lbs. velocity limits for various pellets would be:

Crosman Premiers 7.9 925 fps
Crosman Premiers 10.5 800 fps
JSB Express 7.87 925 fps
JSB Lites 8.44 895 fps
JSB Heavies 10.34 810 fps

Approaching this with a match director’s point of view, it is my belief that lowering the power lever from 20 to 15 ft lbs would facilitate the maintenance and setup of targets. Reducing the energy differential from about 8 ft lbs. (12-20) to about 3 ft. lbs (12-15) would allow the targets to be setup to perform more consistently with less wear and tear on the targets during the match. With all the rifles being closer in power, there would be less of a chance that one rifle might split a pellet and take down a face while another rifle won’t.

The 20 ft lbs limit was set many years ago based using airgun technology that is now nearly 20 years old. Perhaps it is time for the Field Target community to take another look at the power limit through 20 years of experience and see if there is a smarter and fairer way of doing things.

Target Sears

2008-01-04T15:13:00.001-06:00

I have been working with field targets now for well over about 12 years. I think I have seen and just about every type of design out there and played with variations of them in my home shop. Some of the experimental designs worked really well and some didn’t work at all. One of the best designs is the over-center design that is used by the Knock-Over, Stoutenberg, Otten and Pounded Paddle targets. However, this design will allow the target to be knocked over with a split, especially with higher power rifles. That is a common problem with spring loaded targets.

One of the first designs I used in my targets was the sear on the top of the paddle design. This is the design that was suggested to me by Rodney Boyce back in 1994. His idea was to angle the face back so the sear rested on the paddle and then gravity would pull the target face down. I refined the design to use a spring to pull the face down and lock up the sear so that splits wouldn’t take the target down so easily. This design worked great for the wood targets so I decided to try the same design with an all metal target. The design worked for the wood targets so it should work with a metal target too, right?

Well, yes and no. The design does work pretty well in all metal but there are a few differences that needed attention. The biggest problem with the metal design is that face hits could vibrate the target down. At first I used a piece of angle iron as the sear. The problem with the angle iron sear is that in order to allow the paddle to trip with a low energy level hit, a strike to the face plate about halfway down the face would trip the sear as well. Also, splits would take down the target easily. I tried increasing the spring strength and reducing it. I tried angling the target face back some and dampening the back of the target face with a wood backer. This all help some but didn’t completely cure the problem.

The solution to this problem came to me one night a few weeks ago while I lay in bed sick with a head virus. The real problem was that the friction on the sear pieces was too high. The sear engagement wasn’t enough to keep the face from rattling the sear open, very much like when a trigger is set to light and a bump to the butt of the rifle causes it to fire. On the wood targets I typically used a ¼” or 3/16” bolt extending from the target face to contact the top of the paddle which has a much lower resistance to the movement of the paddle.

I reasoned that if I were to use a piece of 1/8” steel and weld it to the faceplate so that the 1/8” edge would contact the paddle top it would reduce the resistance and allow the sear to be set farther back on the paddle. I also decided to round the edges of the 1/8” steel to further reduce the resistance and increase the sear engagement. I figured that the rounded edge would flatten some with use but that is would settle out quickly and stay consistent. I also measured the angle of the sear edge to make it 5 degrees above the horizontal to more closely match the wood target design.

I tested my theory with a new skunk faceplate. I mounted it on an old Juneau base that was laying around and installed the sear. The sear was adjusted to fall with about 3 ft. lbs. of energy which positioned the end of face plate sear all the way to the back of the paddle. At that position, the paddle could still be pushed to trip the target with little effort. The big test was with my .177 ProSport, the faceplate was shot with about 15 ft. lbs. of energy but the target didn’t fall. In fact, it barely moved. After about 20 shots with no face falls the face was shot with my ProElite which shoots about 22 ft. lbs. at the muzzle. After another 15-20 shots the target still didn’t trip.

I ran the target out to my 35 yard target stand and staked it down. The ProSport had no trouble knocking it over so I tried it with my 6 ft. lbs. Walther LGR. The first shot knocked it right over, as did second and third shot. I am going to continue testing and refining the new sear and see what other problems might crop up with it. So far though I am happy with the way it has turned out.

Commercial Airgun Targets

2007-11-27T11:47:00.000-06:00

I recently bought a couple of commercially made airgun targets to use at our airgun club. I hadn't really tried many of the commercially made targets since I usually made most of the target for our club. I thought this might be a good chance to try out the commercial targets and get some more stuff to shoot on the range.

The first target is the Caldwell Airgun Resetting Target. This target has four 1 1/2" round spinners that when hit, rotate around and land on a crossbar. The crossbar is attached to another 1 1/2" target that when hit, allow all the other targets to fall down so they can be shot again. The target is made of thick metal and pretty robust. When I first saw the target I was concerned that my lower powered airguns might not spin the targets around to hit the crossbar. However, my Walther LGR spun the targets around fine. The target is set on the ground and the forward angle is set by two legs that can rotate around the main legs. The system works fine however it is very low to the ground so if you shoot sitting the foliage will need to be trimmed or the target will have to be set up on some type of riser. The top reset target can rotate 360 degrees around it's pivot axis so if it is hit with a high power airgun and it spins all the way around, it will return to a position to hold the lower targets when they are shot.

The target works very well. I have shot it with a variety of different airguns and it has worked well. The only problem I have seen is that when the far left or right targets are hit with a higher power rifle it may knock the opposite target free if it is already sitting on the crossbar. This doesn't happen every time but it has happened. Other than that, the target has worked great.

The other is the Champion Airgun Pellet Auto Reset Target. This target works on the same principle as the previous target. When the lower two targets are hit, they spin around and land on a crossbar. When the top target is hit, the crossbar swings out and the lower targets fall back to a reset position and are ready to be shot again. This target has a turkey and pig figure on the lower targets and a prairie dog figure for the reset target. This target is made of lighter steel so it could be deformed by high power airguns. The whole target sits up off the ground so it is easier to see and shoot. The reset target pivots on a rod that extends up from the main target. Because of the pivot rod, if the reset target spins around it will hit the rod and the target won't work properly until the reset target is manually spun back around to the reset position.

I enjoy shooting this target since the irregular shape of the figures adds some fun to the shooting. I did have problems with the reset target spinning around and getting stuck on the pivot rod with anything shooting over 10-11 ft. lbs. of energy. I found that if I aimed at the lower part of the reset figure, then it wouldn't rotate around backwards and the target would work ok. The target would work better if it used the same type design as the Caldwell. However, for backyard plinking, it is a fun target to shoot.

Spring Loaded Target Holder

2007-10-18T22:03:00.000-05:00

For years I have used paper target holders for home and club use that are made from 1/4" rod. The paper is secured to the target frame using black paper clips that are made from thin metal. Well, over time the clips shot and broken. Well, one night I woke up with an idea for a new way to hold the paper to the target frame.

It was kind of weird how it came to me, I was half awake / half asleep and thinking about a more robust and easy way to hold paper to the frame. I wanted something sprint loaded so it would be easy to install the paper. I was thinking of a spring loaded hinged of some sort when it came to me. If I used a spring loaded 1/4" bolt with a fender washer welded to the top it could hold the paper very securely.

I stopped the next day at our local Home Depot and bought some of their standard compression springs and the bolts and washers I needed. The fender washers are 1" in diameter so I made some 1" tabs with 1/4" holes drilled in them and welded them to the target frame. I used 1 1/2" x 1/4" bolts for the shaft and welded the fender washer to the head. Then all that had to be done was to slide the bolts through the tabs, slide on the spring, and secure the whole thing with some Nylon lock nuts.

When you push on the back of the lock washer the bolt and fender washer push out away from the tabs and the paper can be inserted in between. When the lock nut is release, the fender washer pinches the paper between it and the tabs. It is simple and really works great. If a bit more grip is needed, 1 1/4" x 1/4" bolts could be used so that the spring would be a bit more compressed.

The ground has been extremely hard this year due to the drought here so I mounted the whole target frame into an old coffee can and added some cement so now all I have to do is place it on the ground where I want to shoot and it is good to go.

I included a 4" handle placed in front of the target frame so that when I lift the whole assembly the target frame will fall back away from my body and not knock into me while I carry it around. The system works great and is easy to use anywhere.

Air Arms MPR

2007-08-10T16:08:00.000-05:00

After shooting my Walther LGR for almost a year now I have been wanting to try a 10 meter PCP on my 35 yard range. I decided to save up for a Steyer LG110 and have been doing so for a couple of months now. Early in July I contacted Bori at Top Gun Airguns to purchase a factory spring for my TX200 and found out that he had about a dozen of the Air Arms MPR 10 meter rifles on hand that he was closing out for $580. The normal going price is about $800 so I thought I would buy one and shoot it until I had enough money for a Steyr.

The rifle arrived right before I was scheduled to go out of town for the weekend. I only had time to unpack the MPR and check to make sure it survived the shipping. The rifle was packed up nicely and arrived looking fine. I pulled it out of the box and plastic wrap and shouldered it. My first impression was that it felt really light and small. The length of pull seemed really short so I grabbed my tape measure and sure enough, the LOP was 12.25" and that was with one butt pad extension in it. I did try the trigger and it was a bit heavy on the second stage pull weight but it broke clean and crisp.

After arriving back from my weekend excursion, I put my new Swift 8-32x scope on the MPR using a one piece BKL cantilever mount on top of a BKL riser mount with .004" droop. With out changing a thing on the rifle I took it out to the garage and started shooting. It was actually pretty close to being on the mark. With just a few turret adjustments the rifle was putting pellet after pellet through the same hole.

It shot fine but the LOP out of the box was just to short for an adult. There were two buttpad extension pieces but the buttpad screws weren't long enough to use them. I went down to Lowes and got a couple M5 x 35mm screws that allowed me to put in one of the extension pieces but not both. It really needed a 40mm or 45mm screw to add all the extension pieces. With the one extension installed the LOP is now 12.75" which is pretty close to the 13" I like in my rifles.

I have been shooting the MPR now on my home range for a few weeks and really enjoy it. The rifle is light, easy to point, and compact. It would be a very good rifle for a youth or lady shooter as well as most adult men. The trigger is really good, I have it adjusted to a light but predictable setting. There is very little movement on the firing cycle so I can see the pellet fly down range and hit (or miss) the target. It is an enjoyable rifle.

Bori told me that he still has several of these rifles at the $580 (as of 9/2007) so if you are interested in getting a nice 10 meter match rifle you might look into the MPR.

Acquiring a Swift 8-32x Scope

2007-08-08T11:17:00.000-05:00

On Saturday of Memorial day weekend this year my wife and I went to nearby Hartselle Alabama to spend the day visiting some of the shops in the historic downtown area. As I tend to do when ever I travel to a new area, I searched the internet to find out if there were any gun shops in the area. I found one right in the downtown area so I paid them a visit while we were there.

It was a small shop but they had a lot of guns and most of the long arms were out where you could pick them up and examine them without having to ask the sales person. In the back of the shop they had a variety of hunting optics but amoung them was a Swift 8-32x scope. I had seen these scope on line but I hadn't seen one in person. I took a bit of time to examine the optics and the focusing capabilities and was fairly impressed with the clarity of the image. It appeared to range find pretty well too. I thought about buying it but they wanted $300 for it and I knew that I could get it for $235 on-line so I decided to hold off buying it for the time being. I did notice while I was there that they had the exact same oak gun cabinet that I had in my gun room back home.

The wife and I meandered through the interesting little shops. At the last shop we visited we came across an antique wardrobe cabinet. The cabinet had some beautiful burl panels and we decided to buy it as a gun cabinet (I'll have more on that in another blog). We got it home and I replaced the oak gun cabinet with the new antique wardrobe cabinet. After a month went buy I decided to sell it the oak gun cabinet. I didn't have much luck with selling it outright and then a couple of weeks ago I remembered that the gunshop in Hartselle had the exact same cabinet. I gave them a call to see if they were interested in buying my oak cabinet to go along with the one they already had. The owner was interested but wouldn't be able to purchase it outright and wondered if I would like to use the cabinet in a trade. Well, the Swift scope came right to mind and the next day I took the cabinet down the to the gun shop and with a bit of money I went home with a new Swift 8-32x scope.

I was very happy with the trade (I saved a lot of money) and so far I have been happy with the scope. I will have more to say about the scope in another blog. I find it interesting how things like this work out sometimes.

My New Target Holder

2007-08-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

In my new house I can open the rear door of my garage and shoot 35 yards to the back of my property. I have gotten to know the gentleman that owns the land behind my house and he has graciously permitted me to use a small portion of his property so I can put some targets at 50 yards so I can practice for Field Target shooting.

I have one nice steel target stand that I made a few years back that I am going to move out to the 50 yard mark but I wanted another target stand for my 35 yard shooting that I do with my 10 meter match rifles. So I decided to make a new stand from 1"x4" pressure treated wood instead of steel. The assembly was pretty easy and it only required 3 1"x4"x8'boards and one 4"x4"x4' pt post. The nice thing about a wood stand is that fabrication and modifications are easier and when a pellet hits the stand it is a lot quieter.

I made my new stand with an area that I can shoot MiniSniping ( www.minisniping.org) and I made the spinners with on spinner on top of the other. Having the spinners offset like that makes them spin a lot even with low power rifle hit. I put some gray screen around the back to keep the targets from flying all over the place when they are hit. The stand works pretty well and so far I am happy with it.

Target Stand Diagram

Fun Shoot

2007-06-24T01:56:00.000-05:00

A bunch of us got together at Roz's Hollow today to shoot Silhouette, MiniSniping, and just some fun shooting. That we did and it was a lot of fun. It was hot but we all still enjoyed ourselves. We shot two relay of Silhouette and several guys gave MiniSniping a try. This was a nice change of pace to our normal monthly Field Target match. I really enjoyed myself and it was good to see and talk with the other airgunners there. I even got to shoot a new Theoben Vanquish and SLR98 in .177 with a nice thumbhole stock. Both we very impressive. The Vanquish dropped pellet after pellet on top of each other at 35 yards. The SLR 98 had the new longer barrel and cocking arm. It shot around 15 ft. lbs. but it felt more like shooting a 12 ft. lbs. rifle. All in all it was a relaxin and fun day of shooting.

My Stout Target

2007-06-22T08:21:00.000-05:00

I have been playing around with target designs ever since I started shooting field target 12 years ago. I have copied just about every target type out there except the for the Stoutenberg design. I always thought that Ricks design, which is a modified copy of the British Knockdown mechanism, was way too much work. All the bits and pieces and the target arm design was just too much to make any quantity of them. Plus, the geometry of the mechanism has to be just right for it to work well. The design is rock solid though and the targets fall so easily with less that 2 ft. lbs. applied to the paddle.

After the Nationals this year I decided I was going to try to copy the Stoutenberg design. I have several targets that needed some rework anyways so I went about copying Rick target. I started with my calipers and measured and traced several of the piece parts and scanned the data into my computer. Then I used a CAD program to layout all the parts to get the geometry right to allow it to fall properly with a paddle hit but not with a face hit.

After a few days of design work, I went about applying my design to a crab target that I had mounted on a base. For this target all I needed was the paddle arm and connecting pieces. I cut the paddle arm and paddle out of 3/16" steel flat stock. The connecting arms were cut from 1/8" thick 1/2" wide flat stock while the face connection piece was made from 3/16" flat stock to match the thickness of the paddle arm. After fabricating all the parts, it was time to put the thing together.

Getting all the pieces positioned properly was a bit a chore since the target arm needed to be a specific distance from the target face and the faceplated connector needed to be a very specific distance from the face and from the base. My first attempt found that the target locked up great, well, a bit too great in that it took about 6 ft. lbs. to knock it over. Grind and weld and another attempt with a shorter face connector got it down to about 3 ft. lbs., then I realized that some my existing target dimensions didn't match my computer design and it needed some modifications. Grind and weld again and now it falls with about 2.5 ft. lbs. applied to the paddle and withstands 20 ft. lbs. applied point blank to the face. I can reliably knock it down at 35 yards with my Walther LGR which is a real treat for me when I hit it since the crab has a 5/8" kill zone on it.

This was a very interesting project for me. I think I may take my design to a local fabrication business and see if they can cut out the paddle arms and linkage parts for me since I have a few other targets that I would like to convert to this design. If that works, I may even layout a standard base and faceplate and have them make up a few new targets for me.

My Nationals Experience

2007-06-12T13:09:00.000-05:00

Another US Field Target Nationals have come and gone. The 2007 Nationals was shot in Pulaski Tennessee this past weekend (June 9&10). The 120 shot match was pretty successful with only a few minor problems. In years past I designed and setup all the courses for the Good Ole Boys and Nationals matches that we shot at Roz's hollow but after the 2004 Nationals I decided I needed some help! I just wore myself out that year trying to do too much and my score showed it! This year Roz Sumpter took over duties as match director and David Slade did the match administration stuff so all I had to do was design and setup one course. I got the Red course.

The Red course is positioned at the bottom of a large hill. A creek runs along the bottom of the hill. The creek runs about 10-15 yards in front of the shooting positions and really adds a nice ambiance to the setting. I really enjoyed designing and setting up the course. It is very enjoyable to try to think up new target placements and ways to challenge the shooters. The course I setup was a 36.8 difficulty with some wind and featured a couple of uphill 50 yards plus shots at about 20 degrees up and three targets placed down in the creek. I had one target fail over the weekend, it was a spring loaded Juneau turtle target that I modified with a sear adjustment screw. Even with a threaded hole and two lock nuts, it still managed to wiggle loose and set the sear so that it couldn't be knocked over. It just goes to show, no matter how much time and energy you put into these targets, they can still fail.

I had an interesting weekend shooting the match. I planned on shooting my TX200 with my custom designed stock. On Friday I just wasn't shooting it very well. The trigger didn't seem real repeatable and didn't always release the same. I figured it was just me but when I got home that night I broke out my old faithful HW97 that I have been shooting for years and hastily put a Bushnell 8-32x scope on it. I had a feeling that I should have a backup rifle just in case. Sighting in the 97 was like putting on a comfortable pair of old blue jeans, it just fit right and was shooting great.

When Saturday morning rolled around I spend about 30 minutes fine tuning my HW97 so it would be ready to shoot if I needed it. I got the TX200 out to warm it up and decided to go ahead and shoot it for the match. That was a bad decision. Right from the get go the rifle wasn't feeling consistent to me and after 3 lanes the second stage of the trigger disappeared and the trigger was very sensitive and unpredictable. I tried to adjust it on the fly as I was shooting but after 6 lanes I dropped about a dozen shots and knew it was time to put the TX away and get my kick ass 97.

I shot a few shots into the ground to warm up my old partner and then I was off. I cleaned the next three lanes. I was struggling a bit since I didn't have time to get the eye relief on the big 8-32x scope set right so I was having to alter my normal shooting position to see through the scope properly. I finished the course and dropped 17 shots, most of them were with the TX200.

On Saturday night I swapped scopes on my two rifles and set my HW97 back to it's old match configuration. With only a few clicks I had the scope back con target and shooting right. It was late (again) and I had to get up at 5:00 am (again) to get up to the course to check the targets and prep the course for the day. The 97 started the morning shooting great. I, on the other hand, was struggling with finding my natural point of aim and follow-though. I was missing some really easy shots while hitting some really hard ones. I was really starting to feel the fatigue hitting me from all of the weekends efforts. I lucked out though about halfway through the match and had a chance to lay down and doze off a bit while we were waiting for a backup to clear up on the lanes ahead of us. That helped me get my focus back and finish the match strong. I ended up dropping 13 on the day which was enough to win the National Piston Division Championship.

Here I sit now, still recovering from the weekend. It was a big effort and like most matches that I help at, I wore myself out and enjoyed every minute of it. Even after taking the day off yesterday to pickup my targets and gear, I am still feeling pretty tired. I think it is time for a nap!

Hybrid Field Target

2007-05-08T08:12:00.001-05:00

The first field targets I made to start my first field target club were made of wood. The wood design has a lot of advantages which I detailed in my last blog. In recent years I have duplicated the wood target design using all metal components. These targets seem to be more finicky about the setting of the sear. If set too light, they would fall with a faceplate hit, but when set heavy enough to stop the face fall, they wouldn't fall with a lower powered rifle.

I have a big turkey target that I call Big Tom. Over the winter I decided to rework Big Tom's action to use the wood target design. After completing the rework there was a sweet spot on the target face just below the kill zone that when hit would cause the target to fall over. I sat and thought about it for a while and realized that most of the sweet spots on my metal targets were located below the kill zone. I theorized that the face must be bowing to some degree when hit so the face needed to be stiffened. I also know from past experience that the vibrations caused from the pellet strike to the face played a part in face falls. My wood targets didn't have this problem.

I figured that the wood face plate probably was absorbing the vibrations better and was stiffer. So I decided to glue a piece of plywood to the back of Big Tom and voila! Problem solved. The sweet spot was gone and I could set the sear trip level down lower so that a 10 ft. lb. rifle could knock it over out to 55 yards. This got me to thinking again.

One of the down sides to the wood targets is that the wood faceplate gets beat up when shooters miss the kill zone washer. After a season or two the face can really start to look bad. So I thought, when not make a hybrid target that has a metal face that is attached to a wood action and have the best of both worlds. The wood targets are easy to make and repair and the metal face has the advantage of the wood backer not getting beat up. I found a smaller bird target that I made like this back in the '90s and it still works well.

With a little planning and some rework of my faceplate designs, I think a standard wood faceplate backer could be made that would fit any of the target faces. This would allow one target base to be made that any of the faces could be attached to. The may need to be a large and small version but I think this would be a really easy and simple way to mass produce targets at a pretty inexpensive cost and that may ease the cost of getting a new club started. As time permits, I am going give this design a try.

Wood Field Target

2007-05-08T07:26:00.000-05:00

It was September of 1995, I was sitting one Saturday morning on the practice range waiting. Waiting for anyone to show up to my very first match. I had started the field target discipline at the Port Malabar Rifle and Pistol Club in Palm Bay Florida and now I was waiting to see if anyone showed up for the inaugural match. The PMR&PC board of directors gave me $50 to buy supplies and make some targets to try to get this venture going. From that money, I bought some string, spikes and enough materials to make 10 wood based field targets . I had one guy show up, Bud Yeager. He and I went into the woods and shot our match at my 10 wood targets and had a great time.

The simple wood targets worked great that day and have continued to serve me well to this very day. I still have most of those original ten targets today and they still work great. I made a bunch more targets after that day and I still have a lot of them too. I still use the old wood targets from time to time, however I hesitated to leave them out in the elements all the time.

With my recent adventures into low powered airgunning I decided to get a couple of my old wood target and use them at home to practice with my 10 meter match rifles. I thought I would have to adjust the sears to allow them to fall over with a lower powered rifle, but, to my surprise the targets were already set to fall with just 1.5-2 ft. lbs. of energy! I hadn't realized that these old targets would trip so easily yet would take the impact of a 20 ft. lbs. rifle without falling. I had a much better design than I realized!

In the olden days, I tended to use scrap wood for my targets and most of it was untreated wood. The wood would swell if it was left out in the rain which caused the sear pressure to change. Once it dried out the sear would return to normal. At a few matches I had to adjust some targets on the morning before the match after a night rain. It never occurred to me that I might use marine plywood and pressure treated bases to make the targets and then slather all the parts with some water sealant before final assembly. This may help weather proof the targets and allow them to set out in the elements all season like my metal targets. I think once I get settled into my new home that I may have to make a few more wood target out of better materials. Then I will torture test them over the next year to see just how well they hold up in the harsh southern climate.

Here are a few wood targets I made over the years:

Low Power Field Target

2007-05-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

There has been some talk about a low power version of field target. Most of this talk was about simple hinged faces that would fall if hit anywhere on the face. However, I started thinking a bit about what fun could be had using low power airguns at shorter distances.

As many of you know I have a Walther LGR that is just a joy to shoot. I have a 35 yard range now at my new house and I enjoy shooting my LGR there. It only shoots around 5.5 ft. lbs. but at 35 yards it will rag out a hole with JSB Express pellets. I put out one of my old wood field targets last night to practice on and man did I enjoy hitting that 1" kill zone with a 7x scope. That got me to thinking.

I wondered how many guys have a lower power air rifle that would enjoy shooting it in a low power FT competition. The drop and drift of a 5.5 ft. lbs. rifle from 8-35 yards is about the same as a 12-20 ft. lbs. rifle from 10 to 55 yards so the challenge would be similar, especially if you limit the maximum kill zone to 1". If you really wanted to make it a challenge the distance could be rounded up to 10-40 yards and the 40 yard shots would be very challenging.

The interesting thing is that all the same FT targets and related equipment could be used on the course, the only thing that would have to change would be the distances and the guns. If the course was setup for 10-35 yards, then even many pump-up and CO2 rifles could be used effectively. Also, if a guy wanted to use a 10 meter match rifle you could buy one off the shelf and go at it. With 300-450 shots per fill you could shoot all weekend on one cylinder! Think about how many shots you might get out of a low power USFT.

I don't know if anyone else would be interested in shooting a match this way but I know I would love to take out my LGR, FWB300 or R7 and shoot some FT with them. The only problem I could see is deciding which one to shoot.

Benchmarks

2007-04-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

I have had my Walther LGR now for about 7 months and after all this time I finally had a chance to benchrest my rifle. I have been wanting to really test it out on a bench but didn't have the chance to really do it until now. I have a nice 35 yard range out the back of the garage and I was able to shoot a few groups tonight. I didn't have time to test a variety of pellets so I just shot a few groups with my JSB Express pellets.

There was a good breeze blowing but on the inbetweens the LGV performed wonderful and I was happy to see it. I knew that it shot well but the groups don't lie. I had several touching groups and some that were just a ragged hole. I was very pleased at what I saw.

Well, since I had the rifle on the bench I had to take a few pot shots at some of my targets sitting there of the target stand. At first it was almost too easy, target after target fell as the trigger was pulled. But then the wind picked up and things got a bit more challenging. It was pretty interesting to see how much the wind effected the low velocity pellet compared to my higher power rifles. It was akin to the drift of my higher power rifles at 50 and 55 yards. It was a lot of fun and I am afraid I have been bitten by the low power rifle bug. I have an R7 and FWB300 that I am going to have to scope them up and give them a try too. I may even see how the FWB shoots at 25 and 50 yards with open sights. These low power rifles are a lot of fun!

Gravity and Anti-Gravity

2007-04-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

I have been shooting field target now for a lot of years. When I first started in the game almost all the targets used in the game were gravity fall. The Stoutenberg spring loaded targets were relatively new but worked great. There are a lot of advantages to spring loaded targets however one dis advantage is how they operate with a split.

For those who don't know, a split occurs when a pellet partially hits the faceplate on the edge of the kill zone and part of the pellet hits the paddle. When this occurs, the target mechanism should lock up and prevent the face from falling. However this doesn't always happen and no matter where the target is hit, if the face falls over then it is recorded as a hit.

Gravity targets work great when they are setup correctly. The key is the person placing the targets must take a bit more time and care to setup the targets where they will work right. If the target isn't setup correctly, it can cause the face not to fall when the paddle is hit cleanly. It can also cause intermittent misses where some rifles might take down the target but others won't. The nice thing about gravity targets is that when the face is hit, it rotates back and then locks up the mechanism so that usually even a light split will lock up the face and prevent it from falling. The are harder to power over with a higher powered rifle.

Spring loaded targets work great and are much easier to setup since they typically don't have to be as level as a gravity fall target to work properly. The problem with spring loaded targets is that mechanism is locked up to hold the face upright and many times a split doesn't apply enough pressure to the mechanism to prevent a split from taking the face down. Another problem is that lower power rifles may not take down a particular target on a split while a rifle that is nearer the 20 ft. lbs. limit may be able to power over the target on a split.

So both targets have their positive and negative characteristics. I was a strong supporter of spring loaded targets early on but now after more years of designing and making targets I am beginning to feel that the gravity targets are superior to spring loaded in the area of splits. I have a hybrid design that I want to play with that incorporates a gravity fall mechanism with a spring connection to the paddle arm. However it is going to be a month or more before I get my new workshop situated enough to build and test it. Once I do, I will report on it here.

Movin' On

2007-04-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

The wife and I have been busy over the past 8 months building a new home. We closed on it last week and have moved in for the most part. We signed the deal to build our new house in August of last year and sold our previous home a month later! We had barely started getting the house ready to sell when it sold. We had three weeks to find a temporary place to stay, pack and move. We did it, but boy was it hectic. We have lived that past 6 months in a nice little rental home about 5 miles from where we built our new home. That made it pretty easy to visit the building site and check on our house. We left most of our stuff packed in boxes and stored in the rental house while we were there. It was a bit of a pain living out of boxes and not having all my stuff out where I could get to it when I wanted it. It is amazing how much stuff I had accumulated over the years. We got rid of a lot of stuff at two garage sales and I think that we will have another once we get unpack and sort through everything again.

Once nice thing with picking out a lot and building a house on it is that I was able to find a lot where I could easily shoot my airguns without the risk of disturbing the neighbors. I was also able to design in some features into the house plans that I wanted to make my airgunning a bit easier like a back door in the garage where I can shoot all day long without putting outside air into the house and without getting wet when it rains! I was also able to add on a third garage stall that I can use as a work area. I also have my own study with a big closet that will hold all of my gun safes and equipment. It will also have a reading area and a computer desk. My wife has her own room too for painting and reading. Our home is located at the end of a 1/4 mile lane sub-division so we don't have anyone behind or to the left side of our property, just an open field and woods. I have gotten to know that land owner behind my new home and he is going to let me shoot out onto his lane. I can easily get 40 yards out the garage door to the rear of my property and I can expand the range out to 100 yards if I want (and I probably will).

One thing that I thought of through all this is how much fun it is to have a hobby but it also puts the hobby into perspective in the bigger picture of my life. I really enjoy shooting, working on my guns, doing website stuff, designing and building targets and related airgun equipment but it's overall importance is pretty low when compared to my faith, family, and work. I am glad that I have a fun hobby but it ranks lower down on the list of important things in life. Because of this move, over the past 8 months I have had to miss my first Nationals and Cajun Classic FT matches since 1995. I have also had to move a couple of local matches. But that is OK. There will be other matches and lots of years of shooting (Lord willing) ahead of me. I am glad that this building and moving is pretty much behind me 'cause I am ready to start shooting again!

My new airgun range

2007-04-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it is done, my new shooting range is officially done and my wife and I closed on it today. The range is great, it comes with a range building that is heated and cooled and has indoor bathrooms. The main shooting area is right of an enclosed workshop where I can work on my guns and targets. Off of the workshop there is some storage areas, kitchen, some sleeping areas and a little TV room. This range has it all.

From my new shooting position I can shoot out to 40 yards on my property and out to 100 yards on the property behind mine. I have gotten to know the land owner behind me and he has graciously allowed me to shoot out onto his land. He is a great guy and I look forward to getting to know him more.

Right now I am busy getting the range building stocked with equipment but once I get that all settled I am going to get to shootin!

Old Crosman 760

2007-04-05T10:09:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday I had to go back to my hometown of Goshen Indiana to attend my nephews wedding. Like me, my dad enjoys going to gun shows and there just so happened to be a gun show in the nearby smaller town of Nappanee. I have been to this show before and found it to be small but chocked full of interesting guns. There is one gentleman that is always there that has a table full of older airguns. He buys them locally and repairs them and then sells them at this show.

The last time I attended the show I bought a really nice Benjamin 317 from this gentleman and it has been a really reliable shooter. On this trip I wasn't really looking for anything but an old classic caught my eye. There was a really nice older Crosman 760 sitting in one of his gun racks. The metal work had very little wear and the wood was in good shape with the exception of some marks around the butt area. I had wanted a 760 when I was a kid but never had the chance to buy one back then. I almost bought a vintage 760 recently from an on-line auction but I was out bid in the last hour by a couple of others who drove the price up over $100. This one was priced right and I bought it.

Since I was staying with my parents over the weekend, I didn't have any of my usual pellets to test the 760 with. My dad had a box of Crosman pointed pellets so I decided to give them a try. I started at about 15 yards with a soda can and found that with just 4 pumps the can would jump and roll around. That became too easy pretty quickly so I moved the all metal sights up and pushed the can out to 30 yards and on top of a small tree stump. Bam, first shot with 8 pumps and the can went flying. So I walked out and put the can back on the stump but on its side with bottom facing me. My next shot went high so I went down to 7 pumps and the can went flying again!

I got a few more cans out and put them out to 35 and 40 yards with the bottom of the can facing me. This was a bit more difficult for the 760 since the wind was starting to kick up a bit, however with 8 or 9 pumps I could hit the cans more times than not. I decided to really test the accuracy and put an old pizza box out at 50 yards with about a 2.5" bull drawn on it. With 10 pumps in the rifle, I sat in my FT position and put five rounds down range and into about a 3-4" group. I was pleasantly surprised! The rifle wasn't shooting half bad considering the very heavy trigger pull, the less than match grade ammo, iron sights and my old eyes!

It started to rain as I finished my long range test so I gathered up my targets and put them all away save one can. I threw it out around 10 yards and loaded the 760 up with BBs. I blasted away at the can for a while and made Swiss cheese of it. This brought back the memories for me of sitting on my parents back porch with my Daisy Buffalo Bill Cody BB gun and shooting for long periods of time.

It's no wonder so many kids I knew growing up had a 760. The older guns are just wonderful to shoot. It is a shame that the newer models are all plastics and cheap looking. However, my new toy will be fun to shoot for a long time to come. I may just have to give it a try on some 10 yard minisniping targets!

MiniSniping 33 1/3

2007-04-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

I have become fascinated with the game of MiniSniping. The idea of a game that can be shot in the back yard or at a local club with just about any airgun is very appealing to me. The rules are are pretty strait forward and just about anyone can do it. The game lends itself nicely to postal/Internet matches. It would be easy enough to hold matches once a month over the Internet with the results being posted on-line. This would give a lot of guys a fun game that they can participate in without a lot of expense and with the airguns that they already own. With a few simple divisions and classes, airgunners could play head to head with each other from across the country and across the world.

In addition to the classic game of MiniSniping, there are a lot of variations that can be played. Games like MiniSniping FT where the game is shot with FT rigs and from the FT position, 1 mile competitions where the 9mm targets are placed at distances that are proportional to a silhouette target placed at a distance of 1 mile, 1000 yard competitions, iron sight only competitions at reduced distances, pump gun only for those with their old pump up airguns, and probably others. The 1000 yard competition is particularly interesting since most airgunners with a back yard can get the 21 yards across the backyard that is required to simulate a 1000 yard target. It could be a lot of fun.

I thought more about the different pistol cases and realized that once the case is placed in modeling clay, the bottom extraction rim is lost in the clay. So, I measured the 9mm case from the top of the case to the point where the case slants inward to form the extraction ring. It measured 0.630" so with that proportion, it makes it almost exactly match the proportions of a IPSC silhouette target. Even if the clay isn't used, the make aiming area of the 9mm is this area of the case so that makes the 9mm case the right case for use in this game.

I am in the process of getting ready to move into a newly built home. Over the course of the next few weeks I won't have a lot of time to play this fun game. However, in my new home, I will be able to shoot 35 yards out the back of my garage to the rear of my property. That will make for a great MiniSniping range!