American Airguns Blog
The Random Ramblings Of An Airgun Addict

I have been playing around with target designs ever since I started shooting field target 12 years ago. I have copied just about every target type out there except the for the Stoutenberg design. I always thought that Ricks design, which is a modified copy of the British Knockdown mechanism, was way too much work. All the bits and pieces and the target arm design was just too much to make any quantity of them. Plus, the geometry of the mechanism has to be just right for it to work well. The design is rock solid though and the targets fall so easily with less that 2 ft. lbs. applied to the paddle.

After the Nationals this year I decided I was going to try to copy the Stoutenberg design. I have several targets that needed some rework anyways so I went about copying Rick target. I started with my calipers and measured and traced several of the piece parts and scanned the data into my computer. Then I used a CAD program to layout all the parts to get the geometry right to allow it to fall properly with a paddle hit but not with a face hit.

After a few days of design work, I went about applying my design to a crab target that I had mounted on a base. For this target all I needed was the paddle arm and connecting pieces. I cut the paddle arm and paddle out of 3/16" steel flat stock. The connecting arms were cut from 1/8" thick 1/2" wide flat stock while the face connection piece was made from 3/16" flat stock to match the thickness of the paddle arm. After fabricating all the parts, it was time to put the thing together.

Getting all the pieces positioned properly was a bit a chore since the target arm needed to be a specific distance from the target face and the faceplated connector needed to be a very specific distance from the face and from the base. My first attempt found that the target locked up great, well, a bit too great in that it took about 6 ft. lbs. to knock it over. Grind and weld and another attempt with a shorter face connector got it down to about 3 ft. lbs., then I realized that some my existing target dimensions didn't match my computer design and it needed some modifications. Grind and weld again and now it falls with about 2.5 ft. lbs. applied to the paddle and withstands 20 ft. lbs. applied point blank to the face. I can reliably knock it down at 35 yards with my Walther LGR which is a real treat for me when I hit it since the crab has a 5/8" kill zone on it.

This was a very interesting project for me. I think I may take my design to a local fabrication business and see if they can cut out the paddle arms and linkage parts for me since I have a few other targets that I would like to convert to this design. If that works, I may even layout a standard base and faceplate and have them make up a few new targets for me.