An Animated, Ever Lasting Target?

[USBP_1969]

Howdy gentlemen. I thought this might be intesrting to ya'll. It certainly was to me.
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In 1969 I was practicing with my Service revolver on our (USBP) range near San Ysidro, Ca. The range had been turned over to Chula Vista Rod and Gun Club (I believe) and as I was shooting my trusty Smith & Wesson I could hear some deep "BOOMS" on the rifle section of the range.

After I had completed shooting I decided to investigate these strange happenings. What I found were two gentlemen about the age I am now (early 60's) shooting some very long rifles. Watching the big clouds of black smoke was interesting, but what really caught my attention was their target. They were shooting at a scarf tied to the 100 yard target cross arms! When they hit it would swing wildly and when they missed it hung there without moving.

When they were done the invited me to walk down with them to their "target." One of the untied it and handed it to me. I examined it and when I looked up at them they were both smiling. It had not one hole in it!! They explained that it was a silk scarf and it simply moved out of the way of the inbound projectile. An “animated, everlasting target”, cool.

I never forgot that day and have often wondered at what different velocities it would function without becoming Swiss cheese. Clearly it was safe from a patched round ball at Mach I + velocities. My guess is that the shock wave preceding the ball pushes it out of the way. I am wondering though what would happen with less than Mach I or at Mach II velocities? Lord willing, maybe someday I'll be able to find out. It should be quite interesting.

I would certainly appreciate hearing about anyone else's experience with this target.

Thanks in advance,
Kent

 

[MercerLake]

:v :grin: Sounds neat, if we ever get a dry day without rain I'm going to sneak out of the house with a silk scarf. Something new to me to try, thanks for the fun idea. Another excuse to go shoot, do we really need one?

 

[Robert an saa fan]

I have shot a .223 at small men in silk pajamas.

Unfortunately for them, the silk did not help.

 

[benvenuto]

I have always wanted to make a steel weathercock for my range, and imitate Prince Rupert by hitting two bulls with a flint pistol at 100 yards
:grin:

 

[robinghewitt]

They found something similar in Northern Ireland during an IRA bombing spree. Someone noticed that if the window had a lace curtain behind it there were hardly any injuries from flying glass. A slow motion film of a window being blown in to a lace curtain was made and you coud see it balloon inwards holding the fragments and then dumping them on the floor, hardly what you'd expect but it worked :thumbsup:

 

[George Holton]

:thumbsup: I used to do that in the dorm hallway. hang it over a wastebasket and the bb's and pellets could be used again. old trick that works indoors.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Guys, a silk scarf is so light, that a bullet passing near it is going to make it move, just like when we shoot at candle flames, trying to snuff them out. A silk scarf is not going to catch bullets, and drop them neatly below, or is it so light " it moves out of the way of a bullet going hundreds of miles per hour. At best, your friends shot some close misses, and the rest of their misses were a lot farther away! A rifle bullet has a vacuum cone coming off its nose, and a second, larger vacuum coming off its base. At close range, a PRB will have a single cone coming off behind it. It is that vacuum that makes the silk scarf " blow " in the wind of the passing bullet( wind sucks- it does not push!), and the candle flame flicker when you miss it, or snuff the candle flame out when you suck away the heat of the flame at the top of it.

Conversely, we blow a scarf open with our breath, and we blow out a candle by cooling the wick below the flashpoint of the gases from the wax, with our breath.

Sorry to " blow " someone's bubble! :hmm:

 

[George Holton]

:bow: You have done some research on silky things i admit. But a curtin or loose hung light cloth will stop and drop a co2 pellet or bb in a hall way, at 25 feet done it for years Bob

 

[USBP_1969]

:hmm:

Maybe those BP shooting gentlemen were really bad shots! I wonder how long (days, weeks, months,) they had been rying to hit it?

Seems like all the (very) high speed photos i've seen show a major prsssure wave in front of the projectile. Admittedly these were not round ball and there was cavitation at the base due to vacuum.

I think we really need some "Imperical Data." Some brave souls who will "borrow" their wive's silk scarfs and give it a try and let us know the results.

Could be very interesting. Especially if it doesn't work.

Kent

 

[No Powder]

Try blowing out an egg and hanging it off a foot or so long thread. Then have a raw egg shoot, you miss you eat a raw egg. Just be sure you know which egg is hollow and don't shoot at that one. Same thing happenes the air ahead of the ball moves the egg so you get a miss. You didn't hear it here. :rotf: :surrender: :cursing:

 

[walruskid1]

getting deep in here, gotta get my boots.

 

[squirejohn]

I heard of a similar trick: hanging a pingpong ball from a fine piece of monofilament. I tried it and put a hole through the ball. So much for that trick.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

At best, your friends shot some close misses, and the rest of their misses were a lot farther away!
Sorry to " blow " someone's bubble! :hmm:

Paul, I don't doubt that they were hitting the scarf. My dad showed me that trick with .22s half a century ago. An easy way to win a bet. Hang the scarf within easy range and bet someone they can't put a hole in it with their .22. Looks to them like easy money but they'll shoot and shoot and make no holes. Then you show them it can be done by shooting the knot by which it is tied up, just make sure you've won enough money to buy a new scarf. :grin:
Unlikely as it may seem, the silk hanging free will move with the bullet, at least low velocity bullets.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Low velocity projectiles, yes. I have used blankets to catch BBs, and Pellets for indoor ranges. I have no doubt that flying glass can be stopped by hanging fabric- its relatively light weight compared to its size-- I had a tornado hit the house back in 1994, and debris broke through windows and traveled across the bedroom to land among the hanging clothes in a closet. I was shaking glass out for weeks afterwards, with no damage to the clothing, other than dirt on them. I even had pieces of shingle in them from my neighbor's roof!

But, a high speed bullet, or even a .22 or round ball? I may have to invest in a scarf to break this myth, once and for all.

 

[USBP_1969]

Thanks much Coyote.

I think some folks are going to have some fun with that target.

Kent

 

[wulf]

I'm impressed by your summery of the situation.

 

[USBP_1969]

Howdy Wolf.

I'm glad he's going to give it a try. Should be very interesting.

Shooting free hanging cloth as a back stop was quite popular years ago when Speer plastic bullets came out. They were only propelled by a primer, but zipped right along. I used to shoot paper target hung in the hallway of my mobile home with a towel behind the paper (per Speers recommendation). It worked great with no damage to the towel or the plastic bullets at about 300 F/S. Then one night my wife said that she wanted to shoot, She fired three quick shots double action, The first cut the nylon string that supported the towel and as it was falling the other two passed through the paper, over the falling towel and then penetrated the bedroom wall. They also penetrated the insulation insulation in the wall and made two prominent dents in the outer skin of the mobile home. They are robably still there.

In the 1980's the Border Patrol switched to #4 buckshot from 00 buck due to very poor down range patterning of the 00. Some of the old timers didn't like giving up the 00. Several wrote a memo stating that #4's wouldn't penetrate clothing at 50 yards, according to their tests. Remembering how free hung cloth had the remarkable ability of slowing down projectiles I repeated their tests formally, but wrapped the clothing around 1 gallon water jugs instead. The #4's penetrated the clothing and the water jugs at 50 yards with no problem.

On my opinion it's an "apples and oranges" kind of thing. In one case larger, heavier cloth captures and slows down a projectile while in the other the light silk is simply pushed out of the way by the shock wave preceding the projectile.

Silk target testing should be fun. I wish I had the equipment and the range to conduct the tests, but alas retirement has left me without such resources.

Good luck,
Kent

 

[peter]

OK guys I'll buy into this one. I'll pick up a silk scarf this weekend and give it a try. I'll post results, this should get a good response at the range this weekend.

 

[trent/OH]

Some years ago when I played paintball I tried shooting butterflies with those 62 caliber balls. I shot enough to know I should have scored several hits, but I never knocked down a flutterby. I surmised that the shock wave in front of the ball knocked the insect out of it's path.
As I got older and rounder, and the competition got younger and faster, I learned I didn't deflect paintballs anymore, and they just splatted on me.

 

[CrackStock]

Flutterby!!!

Now that is priceless. I like it better than the correct name. It makes sense when to true name is silly.

CS