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Your favorite prop?


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Let's say a club had some extra money that it wanted to spend.

Aside from the obvious of replacing old, broken poppers, damaged target stands, etc, what types of props (moving targets, etc) are your guys favorites?

Right now we have two swingers, a turner (not drop), a clamshell and a texas star. We also have about 15 PP, 10 USP and 6 Colt poppers (2 forward, 4 rear).

As of now, I'm fairly certain we are going to purchase a polish plate rack.

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Hard to say what I like the most. One not on your list was a running man target. Here is one I built that we turned into a moving shooting port, just to be different.

Click on the photo for the video.

th_aug143.jpg

Edited by jmorris
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Rio Solado built a roller coaster a few years ago, that was fun but a bit impractical for monthly matches.

For 3-gun I like the spring loaded door(s) that use a claybird or wood dowel that is shot with a shotgun to open the door.

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A plate rack would be a great choice to go with what you have now.

A second star is also a lot of fun. There are some very creative ways to use two stars for lots of fun. If you do any rifle matches a star made from rifle proof steel would be awsome as well.

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A running man would be nice. Also a few bear traps and some pressure pad activators.

I'd like a target, sort of like an out and back that would present a full target at 5-0 shoulder height and then retract it completely. No framework extending out past the target when in the stored position. in fact it should actually extend about two full target widths so it could go out into a hall way and retract through the wall. Going to have to think on this. might be a project :)

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I like the "Out and Back".. it's great for speed shoots.

That would be the right most target on Stage-9 "Time it Out" at the 2010 Area-6 pistol match.

Kinda like this?

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98248&view=findpost&p=1180465

Nope... like this.

It's the one on the right side.

D'oh.

I shot the damn match and didn't remember.

Who makes those?

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I like the "Out and Back".. it's great for speed shoots.

That would be the right most target on Stage-9 "Time it Out" at the 2010 Area-6 pistol match.

Kinda like this?

http://www.brianenos...dpost&p=1180465

I like those Carl Provan targets. And they seem to work. Nice thing about them is how they fit our rules...non-disappearing.

For the "out and back"... the first of those that I saw was in PA...I think from GT Targets The best version, IMHO, has the target go ~ 15 degrees past "back"...exposing the full upper A-zone at rest (also non-disappearing).

A really good plate rack is nice too.

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now thats just cool--what made it move ???????????

It's powered by a 12v cordless drill at one end and a boat winch with a bearing for the string at the other end (rides on cable and powered by srting). I made this one fancy as you can set it to stop either end or at both ends. So it will reverse and go back home on its own.

It can be activated many ways from a simple button, IR sensors or in the stage above it was a shock sensor from a car alarm that triggered it upon firing the first shot.

Click on these and you might get a better idea how everything is setup.

th_runner2.jpg

th_runner1.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

The star is still one of my favorites...Simple yet not so simple...durable....and loads of fun. Its also nice to be able to set up 5 moving targets on a stage with one device...ok 4 movers and one stationary

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I'd get stuff that are more likely to get used at your club matches. In addition to what you have and the Polish Plate Rack you plan to get, I'd start with Floppers, Bear trap/activator pads, Steel hard cover/no shoots and another Texas Star.

Unless your club has a dedicated build crew, lot of the mechanical and powered props will not get used or set up incorrectly.

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As of now, we have a Polish Plate Rack, a Texas Star, and a GT Targets Out & Back. I'm waiting on Carl Provan to finalize redesign of the Carl's trap and we will be ordering one of those as well.

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As a follow up, we used the running man/moving cover contraption I posted in post #2 at the MVSA regionals last weekend. It received mixed reviews but I didn't hear anyone say that it was easy. We nick named it the profanity stage. Kicked a lot of shooters butts, mine included, not CDP friendly and really tough on revo shooters reload wise.

Edited by jmorris
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bear trap activators have become some of my favorites, i like our drop turners from GT, but the lead weights have worn, and now they are wickedly fast, the newbies just stand and stare...what was that??? can be heard, past that, a club inthe bay area had this mockup of a door with a opening about 3x5 inches in it that you had to shoot thru typically at a popper usually at 35 yrds to OPEN the door so you could finish the rest ofthe course(that popper was the FIRST thing you hadto shoot, otherwise the rest ofthe stage could not be engaged from the confines ofthe bathroom/closet)

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As a follow up, we used the running man/moving cover contraption I posted in post #2 at the MVSA regionals last weekend. It received mixed reviews but I didn't hear anyone say that it was easy. We nick named it the profanity stage. Kicked a lot of shooters butts, mine included, not CDP friendly and really tough on revo shooters reload wise.

It was a cool stage prop. Here it is in action:

My favorite targets are what we call Peek-a-boo's. A nonthreat/hard cover in front of a target. When activated, the NT is pulled down by a weight. When the weight falls, the NT comes back up.

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I made a "breaching door" that I really like. You shoot the "lock" with a shotgun and the door flies open. Very cool.

This video shows a couple of other things I made that I like, the drop-turner target and the out-and-back target.

It's hard to beat good old poppers though, you can never have too many. A plate rack is pretty versatile too.

My all-time favorite target is my target tree.

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