Fun-shoot Ideas ?

[Chris Keen]

In our local clubs MD's absence this Tuesday , I will be the acting MD, and we had planned on having a fun-shoot. My problem is this, after 2 years of weekly IPSC matches and periodic fun-shoots & shoot-offs .... I am out of good ideas for a fun-shoot. I want to do something original and creative. We have done the poker-shoots, and the balloon shoots, and the man-on-man shoot-offs to the point that they are just plain "old". We have done "tactical" matches, and "puzzle" stages, and GSSF type matches. We aren't allowed to do bowling pins, or steel plates, or "stake" shoots because of being indoors. The owner has had too many people whine about the bounce-back's. If not for that I would love to buy a dueling tree, but oh well.

So you see I am searching for "fresh" ideas here.

I thought of setting up a "mover" match with 2 movers, about 7 or so targets, but that looks more like a regular stage than a fun-shoot, also not sure how it will go over shooting it heads-up. L-10 & Production shooters will whine. We usually run our fun-shoots heads-up that way we only have to give out 3 prizes.

I thought of making mandatory reloads between arrays to even it out.

What do you all think?

[AikiDale]

A fellow at one of the local non-affiliated clubs here built a simple wooden rack with three levels. Each level held about 10 to 15 dixie cups. Then we all took turns knocking the cups off the rack with an MP5. Semi-auto should be nearly as much fun.

Good Luck!

[Chris Keen]

Thank you very much Dale. Thats what I was looking for. 1st of all I should have mentioned that on Tuesday nights we shoot a non-affiliated match. Sundays are a different story.

And yesterday I kicked this idea around with a non-shooting-friend and he brought up the Dixie Cups idea too! I should have listened to him.

[DMH]

We try to incorporate shotguns, .22 pistols or rifles, or even centerfire rifles into our funshoots. They're great for a change of pace and we get to bust out toys we usually don't use. Everybody puts up a fee, some cash goes to the club and most goes back to the shooters. Man on man works great, but running stages with these other guns is really kinda neat too...

[standles]

letargets.com offers rubber facing for steel targets that is SUPPOSED to eliminate splash. There is another thread on that here.

If you have a runner system, you could lash down a drop turner to the runner. >)

mgm makes some lollypoppers that are fun

do you remember the electronic kids game simon? paint the "upper A/B" zones of 4 tgts different colors. have one shooter shoot a sequence of X shots. The next person has to follow. etc. etc. Or you could draw a sequence from a hat and have to perform.

later, Steven

[ChuckS]

I remember a stage that had colored sets of targets and after the draw, you opend a folder on a table so you could read the sequence to shoot. The RO had a set of cards with the sequence that he shuffled and put one into the folder so the sequence was a surprise for all. That made the stage a bit more interesting!

Have fun,

Chuck

Edited March 4, 2006 by ChuckS

[AikiDale]

There was a stage at the Florida Open which had you throw a die into a box at the start. The die had two blue faces, two red and two white. Interspersed among four paper targets, there were six poppers, two of each painted one of the three colors. The color on top of the die indicated a no shoot steel.

[Sunuva]

What if we have a team fun shoot?

3 on a team an A shooter an B shooter and a C or D shooter 3 strings add the times together

Some kind of random pick of teams what do you think

Robert

[Genghis]

A cop I know says his instructor hangs a piece of rope with a balloon on it, with a box over the balloon. The hole in the top of the balloon is small enough that a popped balloon will drop, but an inflated one will hang. They have to shoot til the box goes down.

[Bigbadaboom]

There was a stage at the Florida Open which had you throw a die into a box at the start. The die had two blue faces, two red and two white. Interspersed among four paper targets, there were six poppers, two of each painted one of the three colors. The color on top of the die indicated a no shoot steel.

Shot it at the mini-open. I loved that stage.

[Nolan]

For .22 fun shoots

Poker chips stuck to the backside of a 10 inch cardboard cake round using double-sided tape. The cake round was stapled to a upright target stick. I thought about mounting the cake round on a pivot to make a poor man's Texas Star, but sanity prevailed.

Have a shooting match! If anybody has an accurized .22 rifle see if anybody can light a wooden match at various distances.

Nolan

[Genghis]

Tried the match thing as a kid with a Crosman 760. We could knock the head off, or even the striking part, but we never could light them. I assume it's because the pellet was not in contact with the head for long enough to light the match. Is it different with a .22?

[R112mercer]

I've been trying to think of a use for Federal primer trays for some while. I have scads of them and I usually just end up throwing them out.

Lately I've been thinking of making a poor man's plate rack with them, using 2x4 as the base and some kind of hinged clip to hold them to the 2x4. With the hinged clip you could easily replace the trays when they get shot up. If you built the rack to tip forward with a pull on a rope the trays would fall forward and reset.

It seems this would be a light and portable set-up and great for indoor clubs that can't use steel. Plus you can put them closer to the shooter than normal since there's little danger of splashback.

I've thought of just standing them up on something, put it really slows things down to have to keep going downrange to reset the targets.

Has anybody else used Federal primer trays for some kind of target? How did it work out? Does anybody else have any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

[tazz45acp]

Well, here's an idea if your shooting outside. We have a stake shoot at our fun shoot.

Get 5 or 6 2x4 or 4x4 and put about 10 to 12 inches in the ground. Paint a white line on the wood at 4', 5' and 6'. Let everybody divide up into teams of 4. At the buzzer the teams see who can shoot the wood in half.

Edited December 15, 2006 by tazz45acp

[MichiganShootist]

You can buy or make small wire stands to hold clay pigeons.... which make a testy pistol target.

Another use for pigeons is to lay a course of them on the ground between tow fault lines.....and make the shooter walk through this "mine field" while shooting on the move.

Break one and it's a penalty.

Also consider a multi-gun format... but the guns must be

one .22

one minor

one major

[Eye Cutter]

instead of steel plates, you can use eggs instead. although its going to be a mess afterwards, the sight of exploding eggs are fun. plus its a lot harder target to shoot.

we also had a swat/cqb style team relay wherein 3-4 members had to shoot in turns a cof. after every position, the lead member will unload, clear and holster his pistol and fall back to the end of the train before the next one in line can load and proceed to shoot the stage and so on.

[gino_aki]

Set up a stage with paper and steel arranged however strikes your fancy but add additional scoring zones with mailing labels/folder labels/dots etc and give them fairly high point factors... really sets up an accuracy versus time for a stage...you can also add penalty points to no-shoots the same way. I used to put 2"X3" colored labels in the middle of the center A zone then a 3/4" dot in the middle of the label, and another 3/4' dot in the middle of the upper A. Assigned the label a 3-A point value and the dot a 5-A value. Made for some interesting hit factors for accurate (or lucky) shooting.

[JFlowers]

One way to make the "wood cutting" shoot more fun is to hang the 4x4s from a chain so they move with hits. Wood cutting is one game where class distinctions get less important, an Open gun has more rounds per mag but a L10 45 ACP is taking bigger chunks of wood.

Another fun shoot target is to remove the A zone of a target and slide it between two horizontal 1x2s. Then put a ballon where the A zone was so that the ballon is holding the target up. When the ballon is hit the target drops, instant poor man's reactive targets!

A fun (or not so fun) shoot I heard about one time had two boxes (one forward of the other) with three barrels between them. The gun was disassembled (frame and slide) on barrels one and two and the magazine on barrel three. You start in one box, run forward, assembling the gun, then load and engage targets from the forward box. So the trick is can you assemble on the run and shoot with your heart and lungs racing. The original stage was a 100+ yard run but you could shorten it for fun's sake.

[shred]

I read of an interesting shootoff / side-stage in an old Front Sight from the 1988 CO State champs-- (the thread with the article is here: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...pic=34087&)

2 person teams. Each team has 2 boxes with barrels in front of them, 4 yards apart side-to-side. Start with gun on barrel. On signal, each shooter engages 3 steel, then puts their gun back down and switches boxes with their partner. They then have to pick up their partner's gun and shoot 4 paper targets each. Any hits not an 'A' and the run doesn't count. Best time wins.

Or you could do a 2-on-2 competition with stop poppers.

It could be real interesting if you modified it so you have to switch guns with your competitor in a man-on-man setup. Think of the tricks you could use to sandbag each other.. as long as you were willing to put up with them for long enough to shoot the first part.

[Jaxshooter]

If you are shooting rifles have a man on man shoot with rifles. Each shooter shoots 3 clay targets at 100 yards and then the stop plate.

[freeidaho]

In our local clubs MD's absence this Tuesday , I will be the acting MD, and we had planned on having a fun-shoot.

How about a Tin Can Drag Race?.

In my youth my brother and I could wander the woods with our 22's from age 14. We often had Tin Can Drag Races to compete against each other.

I put on one of these for my local club, and it was a big hit.

Two shooters each start with a fresh pop can on the ground 3 yards hence. At the go signal, each shooter trys to get their pop can across a finish line 25 yards down range. In my match, the shooter could sign up with a pistol, a shotgun or a rifle. They could even sign up more than once, with a different gun. A random drawing pitted shooters against each other in a ladder type arrangement like is used in sanctioned drag racing.

I expected that one of the platforms would have a distinct advantage, but we had a pistol a shotgun and two rifles in the the final four. A rifle eventually won.

We used aluminum pop cans as the target, since they are easy to come up with, and there is an art to getting them to move.

If you do this, make sure to make the finish line a semi-circle with a radius of 25 yards with the center where the shooters stand. The wind can move the can sideways while it is up in the air, or roll them along the ground. But then we have a wide pit for such things. A narrow pit may not need such.

I hope this helps ! ! !

Ken Reed

Be sure to clean up your mess afterwards.

Edited July 16, 2007 by freeidaho

[iainmcphersn]

Spent shotgun shells are a hoot. There were always a bunch of them in the gravel pit I shot in. I'd set up a row and plink at them with a pistol or 22 rifle.

Cheap, easy and hard.

[Crusher]

Do building inspectors and lawyers count? Ahh never mind I'll figure out something else to do about that.

[hitman]

Has anyone brought up shooting paint balls?

Very tough and you know when you hit them.

[Punkin Chunker]

A fun shoot target I've been thinking about is a target mounted in the center of a tire (unmounted tire, sans rim) that would be rolled down a ramp and dropped to the ground.

The idea is the tire would roll and bounce across the range.

At the end of the run, the tire would wind up laying flat, so the target couldn't be engaged.