Cheap Portable Target Stand: Spreading the idea of Small-bore Silhouette.

These are the things I think of while making seemingly endless laps cutting pastures for farm rehabilitation.
I know I must spread the joys...(did I say frustrations) of Small-bore Silhouette. So how to make set-up cheap easy and fit into the average all-American rifle range?

I ran into this situation at the club where I used to live. I wanted to put on Club matches. But it was at a typical 100 yard range with one berm at the end.
Normal safety protocol is all shots impact the berm. So there was much discussion and decisions by the powers that be (that knew nothing about the sport) that targets would be placed on a saw horse type arrangement.
It kinda ...sucked. If you hit an animal, cool. If you missed????? no way to know how or where you missed, NO Berm.

Mission: Cheap, Quick, Easy, Portable, Silhouette Stands.
My cheap easy solution. “PIE” Stands. Everyone loves π!

I stole this basic idea from the IDPA style target stands.
This is the simplest solution I can come up with for a target stand and “Indicator” to see your misses.
All made from Scrap wood. So it's cheap.
All Base parts are 2 feet long= simple.
The “Pie” π stands can be made to whatever height you need to cause misses to Impact The Berm past 100 yards/meters.

The Indicator stand is just a sheet of cardboard fastened to two 1” x sticks that show you misses with a nice hole.
When you go to reset and paint you can also put a bit of masking tape on hole. Ready for next round.

I have been testing these out in one of my pastures. They work nice. The wood parts are expendable so make some quick replacements to drop in if your at the club.



The Base


The typical Pasture Setup for me. Don't mind the chickens...

When it's not done right.

Photo credit to a disgruntled shooter!!

I do hope they have this setup fixed this year. Hope my Ideas might help.

These seem to be subject to a low miss on the wood rail sending more than one target to the ground. Maybe shorten stands and add weight?
T

You could make the rail from steel. But I am trying to un-complicate things. Quick and dirty.
Not for use at Nationals. For someone who wants to throw together a friendly Steel chicken session at thier local club. No extra constucting berms and placeing permanent rail systems. (your local Fudd club would shoot down that idea anyway)

Now I have hammered many steel rails and sent chickens everywhere. so? I don't know.
You could put little blocks to raise the targets a bit.

So far with the wood rails I have knocked down some inadvertantly but also some low shots just chunk through the wood. Targets jump and some times stay up. Not perfect.

Have you tried making a T for the top to stiffen it up a bunch. Vibrations are the problem that causes more than 1 to fall at a time. Stands don't get much simpler than that.

The Colorado crew has used 4x4 or 6x6 timber and then drilled for valve stems. The stems get the SB targets above the wood and the wood is counter sunk into the ground. Not good if you need to completely pick up the range after each session, but has taken a lot of shooting with little repair.

On the metal rails, are the pads used to eliminate vibrations?

kd5zmg,
The pads on the steel rails are used to help eliminate the question of:
"Is it a hit or not?" If you have a PAD that is the size of the feet of the animal and you just nick the animal, it may turn a little and not fall off the pad. That's a MISS.
If you hit it just a little bit better and the animal moves just a little more, they can fall off the pad. That's a HIT.
If you don't have pads, then someone has to make the judgement call of HIT or MISS. Don't want to put anyone in that situation.

Pads will make HIT vs MISS clearer.

Hope that helps,
ShootingStar

right, but isn't it more than just a hit. I thought the rule book says it has to be knocked over/down. Because if you hit the animal and it spins, it's a miss, when you technically hit it...

does that sound right?

kd5,
Yes you are correct. What I was attempting to get across - but was not clear enough was. . .

When the target is on a pad and is hit, they could fall with front feet on the rail (that the pad is on) and the back feet on the pad.
Someone will have to make a judgement call of Hit or Miss. At my matches, I use the reasoning of "If there were no rail there, would the target be stuck like that?" In the above description, the answer would be NO, so it is ruled a hit.

With a rail only, the decision may never come up. The target doesn't have a funky look, so no need to question - likely scored as a MISS and never questioned.

Hope that made it more clear.
A local club does not have rails at all. They have target sized pads welded to the tops of 1" rebar driven into the ground. NEVER any questions as to HIT or MISS. If it is on the pad - however it looks - it is a MISS. Off the pad is the only HIT.

ShootingStar

Frig. Is it really that simple? I was trying to come up with a stand and ask questions to see what others have done. That seems too simple. But I will give it a try. Be great for practice.

As we have a multipurpose range, so only one backstop, and I could never leave stands out as they would just get shot up. For something that was a bit more stable, if I ever get to have a shoot, I though of building basically an upside down table so I could put some weight in the bottom. The back legs being longer so I could have 2 rows of five with piece of wood on the front to take the brunt of any low shots, and maybe a sacrifice board in front of that as we all know a 22 will go through a 4" single piece, but has trouble if it has to jump pieces. Thoughts? I will keep looking through these stand posts. great stuff. keep it up

1/4 inch(or thicker) X 1 inch flat bar welded to rebar is more durable than wood and takes up less space than wood while being transported. Not subject to destruction by bullets and since each stand is independent of the others shake-offs will not happen. Only bad thing is that low stand hits will cause targets to fall off. You can just drive these stands in the ground or drill a hole in crossties if you can find free crossties. Then drive the stands into the crossties. Best solution for portable stands is what they do in Gonzales, LA. They have smallbore resettables. Pull a string and the targets pop back up. Easy to put out and take up but higher initial cost.

ShootingStar wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2016 10:29 am A local club does not have rails at all. They have target sized pads welded to the tops of 1" rebar driven into the ground. NEVER any questions as to HIT or MISS. If it is on the pad - however it looks - it is a MISS. Off the pad is the only HIT.

ShootingStar

The wood stands work great for practice.
At Jackson, Tn matches I have made steel "portable" racks.

Portable.... to a point. Heavy as all heck. But they are put on wheeled dollys and dragged around for placement and cleanup.
Tennessee Sports Foundation had some requirements before they would let me hold matches. These stand met thier perameters. Also they dont move in the wind

I will get photos soon.

Hotrodrockets, looking forward to your pictures of your portable stands. I'm working on a steel stand prototype now with a friend using 2" angle but we need to determine how to have a leveling mechanism but still collapsible for transportation to the storage location. At least that is the goal.

We use a type of sawhorse arrangement but the legs are breakdown brackets. We had "risers" with pads but were having trouble with animals falling off after one or more hits to the main 2x4/2x6. We removed the risers and left a pad the correct size on the 2 x 4 cross board. For added stability we added two 2 x 4s in the front of the cross board then put a 2 x 6 on the bottom still using the removable legs This has pretty much solved the animals being knocked off accidently with the extra mass. But set up is still a pain as we have to level the stands very carefully so we don't have problems.

Jeff