American Airguns Blog
The Random Ramblings Of An Airgun Addict

I finally had time today to convert my Gamo Rat target over to a different faceplate. I started by removing the face from the base, this was done by removing the bolt at the base of the faceplate and by removing the pin that holds the paddle arm linkage to the faceplate. I then snapped a line on the back of the faceplate from the bottom of the face vertically up to about a 1/4" above the reset arm that sticks out of the face. Because of the reset arm, I had to use a Hack saw to do the cutting. The cutting was a bit slower this way but it was pretty easy. The targets are made in China so I doubt that they use the best steel in the world.

It took me about 15 minutes to cut the unwanted part of the faceplate off and get it ready to weld on the new face. I decided to use an old squirrel face that I had laying around waiting to be made into a target, it had that same size killzone but that was ok since I need a few more large kill zones for the Hunter FT course. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the new face where the reset arm sticks out so that the new face would fit over it. The reset arm also had a weld at the base on both sides of the arm, I could have either ground out the weld or bevel the hole on the rear of the new face which is what I did. Then I simply welded the new face on the old plate and, bam, I was done.

I cleaned up the faceplate, reassmebled the target, painted and tested it. The target still goes down with about 3 ft. lbs. of energy, I was a bit worried a different face might be heavier and cause it to require more energy to trip. The conversion to about an hour from start to finish with a new face that was ready to be welded on the target action. I will put the new target and the other Gamo Squirrel target through some extensive testing out on the range and report on their durability at a later time.