Hey all! Just looking for some feedback...
I'm thinking of building a system to practice follow-up shots against moving targets. The basic design starts out like a standard plate rack. Behind (or possibly below) each plate is a second plate that is attached to a vertical rail. When you hit the first plate, it releases the second plate to drop down the rail. If you hit the second plate, it freezes in place. Kind of like this:
It's going to be for handgun and rimfire rifle. I'm thinking of using angle for the basic frame, top tray and base. I'm probably going to use
ballistic polymer for the plates, and the 'vertical rails' will be C channel protected by some more angle iron.
One of my primary concerns with construction is weight... I'll probably weld the tray for the plates and the base, and am considering a tear down-bolt together option for the vertical components.
The basic questions i have are:
- does this make sense as a target rig, any suggestions on changing (or scrapping) it?
- what kind of angle iron would i need to survive hits from .45acp at ~20 yards?
- what's the consensus on using angle rotated 45 degrees so the 'point' is facing you? It seems like it would last longer that way (rather than hitting a flat face), but i don't know what kind of deflection it causes (e.g. how much backstop i would need)
- If the plate fell 5 feet you would have about a half second for the follow up shot...the rail will slow it a little and i have some ideas for varying the speed of the fall as well. Any thoughts there?
- A simpler method would be to just let the plates freefall without the rail, and put a small box below them. If the plate lands outside the box, you must have hit it...i just like the 'stops where you hit it' idea a lot better.