Revolving targets

Hi all,

Question for anyone here who knows more about bullseye rules than I do...that ought to be about everyone here. I am the rifle match director and a board member at my club and we just put in some additional ranges under a large expansion plan. I would be very interested in cultivating some bullseye interest in the club at full outdoor yardage. My question is: in order to be an official match, do the targets need to rotate for the timed and rapid fire events? In order to start a program, it seems to me that plain old wood frames are the cheapest route to attract area shooters and to get started. We have a 100 yd multi pupose range that is all grass and has high berms on three sides in order to run the range independently from all other ranges. We also installed a concrete pad 100'x15' where we will eventually have some bench rests for rifle, but can also facilitate the use of removable wooden bullseye benches that can be constructed.
Any advice is welcome. I would be interested to hear the likes and dislikes of some of you that frequent various clubs.

Thanks,
JS

Depends on the the kind of match - NRA officially registered requires turning targets. See the whole rule book at ...
http://compete.nra.org/documents/pdf/compete/RuleBooks/Pistol/pistol-book.pdf

 6.8 Types of Target Frames -
(a) Outdoor Type (25 and 50 yards and 50 meters)-fixed frames may be used for slow fire only. Frames which rotate on a vertical or horizontal axis must be used for timed and rapid fire in registered competition. Not more than one record target for each competitor will be in firing position at one time.
(b) Indoor Type (50 and 60 feet-fixed frames, target trolleys, or rotating frames may be used. No more than
one record target for each competitor will be in firing position at one time.
(c) If a registered tournament cannot be completed using turning targets as required by NRA Pistol Rule 6.9(a), then it shall, at the match director’s option, either be cancelled or be completed as an approved
tournament. If the tournament continues as an approved tournament it shall be governed by the rules applicable to approved tournaments. National Records are not authorized for approved tournaments.

IMHO, most shooters want to shoot on turning targets, regardless of the importance of the match, because all the big matches have turning targets. Of course if it isn't in your budget, fixed targets with a whistle or buzzer works. It is very hard to control early and late shots without turning targets and shooters can develop bad habits (shooting too slow).

Its pretty common to shoot on a stationary target with an audible buzzer for bullseye leagues.

As others have said, you only need turning targets if its a registered match (sectional, state championship for example).

I see you are in SE PA... check out Palmyra's pistol ranges. I am sure they will be happy to give you a tour and give you some idea about how much the investment will be.

I'm in SW PA and we have a 5 station indoor range that we just started a rimfire league in Jan. Is there somewhere I could pricing on a turning system for our club? They don't want a "home built" system but rather a turn key installation if that's even possible. We have been using a timer and whistle so far and it's working good but having toured Dormont/ Mt. Lebanon Sportsman club, we see the value in having a turning system both indoors and out.

A turnkey system is going to be expensive. They're typically produced for police and similar ranges - where they have a large amount of money to spend.

I'm currently trying to replace/rebuild/repair our decades old "home built" system at the range and basically everyone rolls their own. Best advice I can come up with is to make friends with someone who works with medium pressure pneumatic systems.

Having said that - it depends on how big you want the system to be. The various 12V motor systems that are on the web for home build should be fairly easily expandable for 5 stations. Especially indoor. Once you get much larger than that you're looking at pneumatic (or hydraulic for really big) or some really really expensive ceramic core electric actuators.

Our 2014 budget would most likely make the high end system a reality. What I need to do now is get budget numbers. Any names available for companies that install these systems for law enforcement? Our facility is used from time to time to train LEO's as well as military personnel. Energy exploration has made some things available to us that were out of reach previously.

Some examples of systems for police qualification - which means they have individual controls - are Action Target and Elite Target Systems.

If you have lots of money to spend try Mancom Systems. Their stuff makes me drool - and if I get a big lottery win that's what I'll provide for our range.

The one and only range I visited had an electronic controller that could be set for Slow, Timed and Rapid fire. That part of the system is the 800 pound gorilla in the room for me. The mechanical aspect was fairly simple. Having a vendor sell and install a system is favorable to us especially if any repairs are ever needed. I will check out the above recommendations and see if they can help us.

We have one of these for our outdoor range. It has been very reliable. It is connected to the PA system, so the recorded timed and rapid fire commands actuate the turning target system. http://www.larrysguns.com/Products/Range-Officer-Target-Timer__Target-spc-Timer.aspx

I believe I've found exactly what I'm looking for to use on our indoor range. www.portabletargets.com. Looks like its all neatly packaged and the beauty of it is we can set it up for matches/practice and pull it down for storage when not in use. That way we won't inconvenience any other users or have worries about anything being damaged or mistreated. Thanks for the input and my apologies to the OP, I didn't intend to hi jack the thread. :-[

That's ok. If I can drum up some interest, I would like to build something for our range to accomodate bullseye. If anyone here is a bullseye shooter from the SE PA region, I'd like to know what kind of interest there is. In order to pitch the idea to the club membership and the rest of the board, I need to be able to shoe some return on the expenses involved.

JS