Any ideas on building a target retrieval system?
- Thread starter mrdmevans
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I have not done it, but that won't stop me from offering the following:
Most importantly: ensure that a shooter engaging the moving target will not be able to fire outside the safe limits of the range. On most ranges firing at targets anywhere other than straight in front of the shooter is a no-go. Consider powering it with a garage door opener. The remote control can be used to start and stop the movement, and the limit switches on the opener can be used to stop the target when it hits the far left and far right.
EDIT: Sorry, just re-read your post and noted that a garage door opener would not easily meet your criteria for manual or battery operated. Perhaps something based on a battery operated remote control toy car?
Most importantly: ensure that a shooter engaging the moving target will not be able to fire outside the safe limits of the range. On most ranges firing at targets anywhere other than straight in front of the shooter is a no-go. Consider powering it with a garage door opener. The remote control can be used to start and stop the movement, and the limit switches on the opener can be used to stop the target when it hits the far left and far right.
EDIT: Sorry, just re-read your post and noted that a garage door opener would not easily meet your criteria for manual or battery operated. Perhaps something based on a battery operated remote control toy car?
I have visions of building such a range when I become a landowner. I would eventually probably like to incorporate electric motors and use several different programs to design custom movement patterns for targets.
The simplest and cheapest I am currently considering would involve four pulleys attached to stout posts in a square. A rope would run around all these pulleys with reasonable tension, and a range buddy could stand behind the shooter and move targets hanging from the rope, by simply grabbing the rope and moving it back and forth. This could easily be very realistic practice, but someone has to help you (and you could help them in return).
Of course you might shoot the rope, but its only a few dollars for a 100' cheap rope at Harbor Freight and a cable would be even more expensive, and almost as vulnerable. This whole setup could be built in an afternoon for not much money.
The simplest and cheapest I am currently considering would involve four pulleys attached to stout posts in a square. A rope would run around all these pulleys with reasonable tension, and a range buddy could stand behind the shooter and move targets hanging from the rope, by simply grabbing the rope and moving it back and forth. This could easily be very realistic practice, but someone has to help you (and you could help them in return).
Of course you might shoot the rope, but its only a few dollars for a 100' cheap rope at Harbor Freight and a cable would be even more expensive, and almost as vulnerable. This whole setup could be built in an afternoon for not much money.
Furncliff
Member
At my last place we had a small range and my daughter and I practiced on a moving target set up. There were many trees to choose from so I set up a rope line from as high as I could reach to the base of another tree some 15 ft away. The target was a simple scrap of metal suspended from a wheel that we bought at a hardware store, the wheel had a concave shape that allowed it to ride the rope.. The target was held in place at the top of the rope by clothes pin. The pin had a string and a wooden block at the other end. Shoot the block, clothes pin flies off the target slides down. Plenty of time to get off ten shots. Most times when hit the target would swing and stop its downward slide then resettle and continue down. Unfortunately my daughter got so good at this she grew bored with it and returned to blasting water jugs.
buck460XVR
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I hang bowlin' pins, short lengths of 4X4s, small plastic garden gnomes, etc. from a shepherds hook or a length of pipe suspended between two posts. After you hit them the first time they move on their own. The longer the length of rope/chain you hang them from, the more area they cover.
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