A steel classifier

[Chills1994]

Jerry,

This target is hanging at slightly over 30°.

At 35° a 6" head appears to be 4.9" tall.

This target is somewhat under 30°.

At 25° a 6" head appears to be 5.4" tall.

Koski

WOW!

That first target is tipped way down, so much so it almost looks like the 2X4 cap is about to slip off.

The second target is made by Action Targets. "My" steel challenge club has about 20 of those. What that picture does NOT show...can NOT show....is that there is some play or slop to how the plates are bolted onto the vertical upright. There actually is some movement there when they get hit.

If that is truly meant to be a steel challenge target pictured above, 6 inches is too small. just 12 inch and 10 inch circles are allowed in steel challenge.

This is what a Nevco target and cap look like:

See how vertical that is?

There is some play involved there with that hook.

[Chills1994]

Welding the face of a steel target is tricky. Sure, anyone can weld it up, but will the weld last for 5,000 bullet strikes? Lots of weld repairs pop off in this type of service.

Proper welds don't ever "pop off" the metals fuse together and become one. As long as they are done right they will be there forever.

This is a pretty cool idea but do people really practice for a classifier?

If I were to make and sell a humanoid shaped silhouette out of steel, of course, I would tell you I practice the IDPA classifier with them all the danged time.

Once these other guys start pricing AR400/450/500 type steel, I think they'll change their minds and go back to shooting cardboard targets at 60 cents each.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Chills1994

[Chills1994]

Seeker wrote:

....Do you really want to shoot a steel target @ 5 to 7 yards? ...

The Steel Challenge has a stage called Round About.

One circular plate is put out just 7 yards from the shooting box and 2 feet off the centerline.

[RePete]

I think that you will find in the long run, cardboard, with pasters, will be cheaper and safer than steel.

While the idea of scoring rings on steel sounds good, it will be expensive to do plus the maintenance would be expensive too. Plus the time down for the welding/machining.

[JerryShoots]

I agree with Strick. Do you really want to shoot a steel target @ 5 to 7 yards? Also IDPA targets are under $1.00 each. You can leave target stands up but to shoot the classifier, you will also need the Bianchi barricade and barrel. Will those be left out 24/7 as well.

$3 every time someone wants to practice adds up very fast. Not to mention it will be hard to leave targets for people to take and put up in a general access area. Weather would destroy several at a time though we did consider putting a sort of vending machine based on those newspaper vending machines out to sell the targets readily and keep them dry. I saw that at an indoor club once. They were using a regular newspaper machine to sell a folded up paper silhouette for a quarter each. Dispensing pasters cold be achieved by swapping out one of the bag o chips slots in the snack machine for paster boxs.

Yes the barrel and barricade will stay up. The barrel will have some weight in it and the barricade has legs that will go down into the ground a few feet. I doubt we will cement them in case it ever needs rebuilding.

I think I'm going to experiment this winter with all the basic ideas offered thus far. A steel square angled down, one that is convex like I put forth, and one that is straight up.

I'll put a .45 in the Ransom (usually the most powerful round for IDPA use) with a screen in front of it and the remote trigger and see what kind of splatter I observe. I should probably set the distance at the 5 yard fault line to give the worst case scenario. Or do you think 4 yards is a better worst case assuming someone is standing right at the fault line with arms fully extended beyond it?

I'll also try the welded on beads for scoring versus my overlay plan.

Again thank you all for the great input. I'd love to continue to hear more thoughts. Our goal is to make practice readily available to all members anytime. That's worth saving up extra funds even if it takes a year or two to get it all in place and working smoothly.

Oh and Chills. Roundabout is my favorite stage ever since Flying M went away!

[Scott R]

Welded steel beads or anything other than a near perfect flat surface at 5 yards you will get splatter back to the shooter/SO, especially with hits near the bead.

[RePete]

A point on scoring.

With cardboard the hole size is approximately the caliber and scoring close to or touching the line is easy.

How do you score at hit, that's fair to all competitors, when 1 shooter is using 45ACP and 230gr FMJ that's expanded to 0.60" against another shooter that's shooting a 45ACP and 230gr lead that's expanded to 0.75" after both have hit the steel.

My take is that you can't. Maybe with overlays, oh wait, we don't use them.

A 45ACP scores the same whether FMJ or lead is used when shot at cardboard.

Look at the rule book.

p70 The Classifier is listed as a "Classification Match".

p73 The official IDPA target is an 18"x30" buff colour cardboard silhouette with an 8" round "A" zone.

So using steel would only be for practice and not for a classifier.

Again, I say cardboard because it's cheaper in the long run, more readily available (especially when the steel is out for repair) and can be scored without rigmarole or fanfair.

[Steve Koski]

Jerry,

If it were me, I'd buy some 3/8" AR plate, have it cut to "stretched" target dimensions, based on a 30° angle, mount it at a 30° angle. This will not be cheap. But like you said, $3 a pop isn't cheap either.

Paint the targets before every shooter. Use a cheap plastic overlays to score, these will have the stretched dimensions also.

Do some testing and learn how to score different types of bullet strikes.

Koski

Edited December 14, 2011 by Steve Koski

[freeidaho]

Howdy,

I have something on my personal website that might help. It is a collapsable target stand that holds steel plates of various shapes. The person I made them for wanted the down zero and down one area of the IDPA target in steel, and some round plates.

Look at http://www.parmarng.org/freeidaho and on the left hand side of the second screen select Collapsable_Plate_Holder. I have shot at these targets from very close up, and since they are angled, the splatter is directed to the ground. Sounds like you wouldn't want the collapsible part, but maybe it will help.

Since it is mostly for practice, y'all might consider using only the down zero and down one area too. A miss or a -3 is unacceptable either way.

Just a thought,

kr

[DWFAN]

It's practice, not rocket surgery. (I like that Brad). Set up the steel and shoot. You dont need a perfect scoring ring, you dont need a perfect target size. You do need to hit the -0 and head shots. I might even make up the steel with smaller than normal scoring zones. Our MD has a small range on his family farm. He has targets like this, with welds marking scoring zones. They work just fine.

Use brown/tan paint. It'll cover up the dark lead better, and more resemble an actual IDPA target so you dont train your eyes to see the sights on white.

[Steve Koski]

What kind of paint are you guys using?

We're using Home Depot or Lowes black and white at $1/can. But for colors using $3.something a can paint.

All of the Wal Mart $1 paint seems to be made of water and food coloring.

[DWFAN]

He uses white, I just threw out the brown as another idea..

[JerryShoots]

Conclusions

COLORS

I like the brown paint idea that gives a much more realistic flavor to the practice.

OFFICIAL USE

For those of you that are still quoting the rules I agree with you and have already abandoned the idea of shooting the steel for score.

SCORING LINES

We're going to use thicker steel and have very narrow scoring lines engraved in when the plates are made. The very thin surface disruptions should not affect bullet or shrapnel returns but will need to be scraped clean of paint and bullet deposits when the plates are sanded down at regular intervals. While it is very true that bullet construction will affect scoring as some materials will make a larger diameter hit on the steel the center of the hit is what really matters in this practice. Any claims of a 0 that really is a result of the soft bullet making a larger mark will do no useful service to the shooter.

DAMAGE

As I said before we aren't concerned with the plates being damages by rifle, shotgun or excessive power factor ammo. The club has a well enforced policy on this and we have not had any incident in a very long time.

ANGLE

I agree that a physical taller target hung at an angle would prevent injury and the optical illusion of IDPA standard size should be enough for useful practice. We're going to try one test plate of each in a smaller size with the test method I mentioned before. We will build the final plates based on the result of those tests.

VALUE

At a cost of $1200.00 quoted for the three final plates it will take approx. 400 full uses (30 rnds per use) per plate for the plates to reach break even. If properly maintained they should offer thousands of uses. Not to mention double as very fun stage targets from time to time. I also thought they might serve very well as non-threat targets with an attitude on occasion! Imagine trying to send a round between two of these suckers to hit the threat target beyond them. Plang! Damn! Plang! Damn!!!

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and please feel free to continue to post ideas and more input. I'd like to keep this discussion going for as long as anyone cares to share their thoughts.

[Steve Koski]

Jerry,

You probably know this, but with a 25-30° angle, 99.99% of the bullet splatter goes down. Only shots that hit the edge have any chance of going elsewhere.

With dead flat targets, some splatter goes up and sideways on every bullet. Often landing in nearby bays, etc. It's not particularly dangerous, but it's a bit disconcerting to have a rain of bullet frags coming down semi-continuously.

Take care,

Koski