If you want to preserve the steel targets for any length of time, expect guys to be shooting HUGE lead balls, and even minie balls( bullets) at these things. The short range targets get beaten up fairly badly.
If you use the standing targets the friction caused by the weight of the targets on their stands allows more damage to occur, than if you hang them from Chains, so you have a " Swinging Target" instead of a " stander". Mount the chains to the back side of the silhouette target, about 1/5 of the distance down from the top of the target. This will cause the target to lean a bit- about 10-15 degree angle-- TOWARDS the shooter, and cause the balls to rebound down into the dirt IN FRONT OF the target. Otherwise, the lead can be going everywhere, and that creates safety hazards.
Swingers, as they are also called, can be scored from the firing line, without having to stop the shooting and go out to put the targets back up.
Use armour plate if you can for these targets. Target made for close range shooting, where the energy of the heavy bullets is the highest need to be made from 5/8" thick steel plate. If they are not hardened, or armor plate, they get beat into a hollow cup in a year or so of shooting. Some can be "saved" by using a sledge hammer to pound them back Flat. Heating the plates help with this. The hammer blows actually help to work harden the steel, so the plates take more abuse with less " cupping" each year they are used. Protect them from rust. For the bigger, long range targets, 3/8"-1/2" have proven sufficient to provent abuse. Again, use Armor plate if you can get it.
As anyone who has seen the Primitive Range at Friendship knows, you can make targets in any shape you want. Some of the hardest targets there are in various geometric shapes, with holes of various sizes in the middle: YOU have to hit the edge of the target to score!! :shocked2:
When we first made our silhouette targets at my club, the guys with the cutting torch decided to show off their skills at cutting fine lines to do Squirrels, rabbits, etc. After a few tails, and ears were shot off, the guys now are making the targets in more " rounded" forms- blobby outlines of the animals, without small appendages that can be easily broken off. Squirrels still have tails, of course, but they are a lot " fluffier", ie, WIDER where they come off the back of the target, and a lot shorter.
Squirrels have no cute little ears sticking above their heads, as if they are pulling them down and forward to listen to something below them from a tree limb. And, because the targets are so small, and located so close to the shooters, the club insists on body shots, and not head shots on these targets.
If you hit the head( by accident or intent) you are punished by having points taken away from you. If you break a target doing that, you may find yourself assigned to a work crew to weld it back together again.
If you don't want to take the time, or have the equipment and skill to make your own targets, send me a PT and I can give you the name and phone number for a company here who makes these kinds of targets commercially. I don't know what they charge, and have no connection with the business at all. I only know a mutual friend, who serves on a Board of Directors with me, and I know the younger brothers of the owner.
