Friday, April 20, 2007
Gravity and Anti-Gravity
I have been shooting field target now for a lot of years. When I first started in the game almost all the targets used in the game were gravity fall. The Stoutenberg spring loaded targets were relatively new but worked great. There are a lot of advantages to spring loaded targets however one dis advantage is how they operate with a split.
For those who don't know, a split occurs when a pellet partially hits the faceplate on the edge of the kill zone and part of the pellet hits the paddle. When this occurs, the target mechanism should lock up and prevent the face from falling. However this doesn't always happen and no matter where the target is hit, if the face falls over then it is recorded as a hit.
Gravity targets work great when they are setup correctly. The key is the person placing the targets must take a bit more time and care to setup the targets where they will work right. If the target isn't setup correctly, it can cause the face not to fall when the paddle is hit cleanly. It can also cause intermittent misses where some rifles might take down the target but others won't. The nice thing about gravity targets is that when the face is hit, it rotates back and then locks up the mechanism so that usually even a light split will lock up the face and prevent it from falling. The are harder to power over with a higher powered rifle.
Spring loaded targets work great and are much easier to setup since they typically don't have to be as level as a gravity fall target to work properly. The problem with spring loaded targets is that mechanism is locked up to hold the face upright and many times a split doesn't apply enough pressure to the mechanism to prevent a split from taking the face down. Another problem is that lower power rifles may not take down a particular target on a split while a rifle that is nearer the 20 ft. lbs. limit may be able to power over the target on a split.
So both targets have their positive and negative characteristics. I was a strong supporter of spring loaded targets early on but now after more years of designing and making targets I am beginning to feel that the gravity targets are superior to spring loaded in the area of splits. I have a hybrid design that I want to play with that incorporates a gravity fall mechanism with a spring connection to the paddle arm. However it is going to be a month or more before I get my new workshop situated enough to build and test it. Once I do, I will report on it here.
For those who don't know, a split occurs when a pellet partially hits the faceplate on the edge of the kill zone and part of the pellet hits the paddle. When this occurs, the target mechanism should lock up and prevent the face from falling. However this doesn't always happen and no matter where the target is hit, if the face falls over then it is recorded as a hit.
Gravity targets work great when they are setup correctly. The key is the person placing the targets must take a bit more time and care to setup the targets where they will work right. If the target isn't setup correctly, it can cause the face not to fall when the paddle is hit cleanly. It can also cause intermittent misses where some rifles might take down the target but others won't. The nice thing about gravity targets is that when the face is hit, it rotates back and then locks up the mechanism so that usually even a light split will lock up the face and prevent it from falling. The are harder to power over with a higher powered rifle.
Spring loaded targets work great and are much easier to setup since they typically don't have to be as level as a gravity fall target to work properly. The problem with spring loaded targets is that mechanism is locked up to hold the face upright and many times a split doesn't apply enough pressure to the mechanism to prevent a split from taking the face down. Another problem is that lower power rifles may not take down a particular target on a split while a rifle that is nearer the 20 ft. lbs. limit may be able to power over the target on a split.
So both targets have their positive and negative characteristics. I was a strong supporter of spring loaded targets early on but now after more years of designing and making targets I am beginning to feel that the gravity targets are superior to spring loaded in the area of splits. I have a hybrid design that I want to play with that incorporates a gravity fall mechanism with a spring connection to the paddle arm. However it is going to be a month or more before I get my new workshop situated enough to build and test it. Once I do, I will report on it here.
