Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Hybrid Field Target
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.
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.
