Walls with shooting ports

[Shooter115]

Building some new walls for our club. Wondering on walls with ports what the typical size and height is for your walls. I'm thinking about 12x12 with it centered about 5' off the ground seems about right, but figured I would ask.

The material I am using is a Yellow UV resistant high density light weight plastic 1/4" mesh. So I can put ports whever I wish and just zip-tie the piece I cut out back in place when the ports are not being used. Hard to explain verbally it's a product our company uses for lightweight guarding on conveyors. Here's a link

[Skydiver]

Actually, I suggest 12x18 or 12x24 to accommodate ladies, juniors, and other short shooters (like me). Probably keep the top of the port at 5'6".

[Shooter115]

Yeah your probably right, my wife is only 5'2". If I go with 12"W x 18"H ports with the top at 5'6", the bottom would be at 4'. Anyone that can't see over that can just as easily shoot under the walls.

[Flexmoney]

You know what works for everybody... leaving a gap between two walls, that forms your port.

[Skydiver]

You know what works for everybody... leaving a gap between two walls, that forms your port.

+1. When I'm being extra careful about a stage setup, this is my preferred option.

Sometimes, though, it's expedient though to grab to the first wall that has a port that comes along.

[Shooter115]

You know what works for everybody... leaving a gap between two walls, that forms your port.

Biggest concern there is if someone gets too far left or right they shoot the frame of the wall instead of the cheap easily replacable UHMW mesh. I know almost everything gets shot up eventually, but I try to avoid it if possible.

[Skydiver]

You're going to need an edge on the ports anyway to determine whether any hits are full diameter hits or not. Evil stage designers use no-shoots. Kinder gentler designers just use the natural wooden edges of the frame.

[kellymc]

I made some wall's the other day using two center support bars and made the ports 12 inches wide and 4 foot in length let it run from the top down to the bottom.

Edited May 4, 2012 by kellymc

[Shooter115]

Actually cut the ports in 2 of the walls last night at 12"W x 24"H. Then took bright orange duck tape and bordered it. What's nice about the plastic mesh is it's fairly rigid so I just zip tied in the piece I cut out back in its place. If there wasn't a bright orange border you would never know it's there. Build a stage where you want a port.....cut 2 zip ties and you have it.

[jmorris]

Similar to Kyle's suggestion, I built walls that have the structure built into them so if a port in the wall is used it runs from top to bottom.

[SteelShooten]

We used plastic buckets with -most- of the bottom cut out and we put a generous vision barrier around the port so the shooters had to find the target through the port rather than lining up on the target through the mesh fence during the approach. It does a really good job of limiting the field of view through the resulting tube, particularly if the fault line is set back from the port.

Our highest port was probably about 5ft and a few of the shorter participants had to really stretch to get the sights on the targets without cutting up the port. If we were to do it again I'd set the top edge of the port at about 5 ft which isn't a huge crouch for the tall guys but would make it at least reasonable for the short guys/gals.

[Shooter115]

Here's what the new walls/port looked like in action at our clubs first action pistol match. Match went great, we had 15 shooters and 6 stages. I'm guessing at least double the attendance for the next one. I didn't really advertise this one since it was our first match, but next time it's "Game on".

[Skydiver]

Nice job on the walls and ports!

[Shooter115]

Thanks. I think they came out good. I built 10 of these so far. They are kind of big and awkward, but are light and pretty easy to move. Best part is I only have about $20 into each one. The UHMW mesh works great and will dang near last a lifetime sitting in an outdoor environment.