Target Questions

I have been in this shooting sport so many years that I ought to know the answer to this, but I don't.  Why are the slow fire targets at 25 yds and 50 ft not simple scalings of the 50 yd slow fire target.  25yds is 50% of 50yds, yet the 10 ring on a 25yd slow fire target is only about 45% the size of the 10 ring on a 50yd target.  At 50 ft it is even more extreme.  50ft is 33% of 50yds, yet the 50ft 10 ring is only about 26% the size of the 50yd 10 ring.  Similar percentages apply if you measure the 9 rings, etc.  This reduced scaling is also true if you compare the 25yd sustained fire target with the 50ft sustained fire target.  I realize it has been this way a long, long time, but what is behind it?  The shorter range targets are actually more difficult, although I realize they are normally shot inside where the weather has no effect.

Could it have something to do with the fact that bullet diameter doesn't change? At half the distance and a "correctly" scaled target, it would be like shooting with a .90ACP instead of a .45.

http://www.indecorous.com/bullseye/rings.html

Answers!

Interesting but a little confusing for my feeble mind. Does that mean my theory was correct? (at least a little)

Maybe! A little, I guess...

Thanks Jim.  Interesting acticle.

If shots were scored based on the location of the center of the bullet, then the rings could be scaled linearly with distance so that all rings at all distances have the same size in terms of MOA. 

However shots are score based on the inside edge of the bullet hole, the actual scoring point is a fixed distance closer to the center (approx. 0.11" for 22 or 0.225" for 45) which will be different MOA at different distances. Therefore the NRA had to choose a compromise, so the targets are scaled so that a 38 cal bullet with the same MOA deviation will score the same at all distances (or at least pretty close).

This means, at least in theory, that we should score better with a 45 at 50 feet than at 25 or 50 yards and we should score worse with the 22 at 50 feet.