[mr_dove]

I can't afford to spent upwards of $100 to buy a popper on-line, so I thought I might try to build one.

I don't have any metalworking skills or tools but I thought I could find a steel fabrication shop to cut the target for me and then build the base out of wood (where my skills lie).

I figured I could attatch the steel targer portion to the wooden base with some kind of standard spring loaded hinge that I might find in a home improvement store. I know there are lots of spring loaded hinges for making sure the door closes behind you.

Anyone have experience with this or maybe ideas/comments?

[SDC]

If you're trying to build a standard popper, it's simple enough, but a self-resetting popper is a whole new level of complexity. Most of the standard poppers I see are either "fall-back" designes with a bolt threaded through part of the lower mount so you can adjust the angle the steel leans at (and therefore the force necessary to knock them over), or "fall-forward" designs, where you have a hinged threaded rod running up from the back of the mounting pedestal that hooks onto the bottom of an "L" tab or hook welded onto the back of the popper; in these, the impact of a bullet moves the popper body back far enough that the rod falls out of alignment with the tab, and the whole popper falls forward. If you want dimensions, you can get them at www.ipsc.org . HTH.

[Smoke]

Self resetting poppers would be tough to engineer at home.

I built some self reseting "tombstone" style targets.

The springloaded hinges used for doors will not be enough to reset your target. I know, I tried.

Finding the right rate springs is very tough. Ended up using hay rake springs on mine. 1/2 of one actually.

It can be done, but develop some metal working skills before you attempt this.

Smoke

[Jim Watson]

For practice I think I would just get the steel target and hang it from a stand; score by the "bongggg" and look for the bullet splash mark for evaluation. Spray paint every once in a while. Or cut one out of cardboard.

Note: You need pretty hard steel for even a pistol target. Our club has some cut out of 5/16" mild steel at a local shop and they are very dinged up.

[Andrew Wyatt]

3/8ths is about the smallest you can go for steel targets.


A wood base won't cut it for a base for a popper target, as the splatter will cut it in half.

poppers have problems falling doen, because they only fall directly backwards, and off axis pistol hits try to shift the popper laterally while making it fall.


a dropper might be a better solution, provided you only use it with pistol.