American Airguns Blog
Friday, April 20, 2007
Gravity and Anti-Gravity
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.
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.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Movin' On
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!
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!
