Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Range Equipment Failure

Got a new one for you.

A "clamshell-type" target (hitting the steel plate pops up an IPSC target) fails to activate the object target on a 'good hit'.

Major power cartridges take it down easily, but Minor power cartridges can't make the reactive target function.

What do you do?

Here's some background.

The stage features "Classic" targets (eg: "Turtle", "Stop-Sign", "Amoeba" etc.) design targets.'

It's a rainy day, so targets are replaced frequently.

By the time THIS squad reaches the stage, the targets have been replaced at least twice.

The hitch is, the previous competitors aren't accustomed to shooting this target type so instead of ripping the 2nd (replacement) target off before replacing it, the previous squad just ... stapled another target over it.

Did I mention it was a rainy day? I thought so. The cardboard is fairly well saturated, so there's a lot of weight counterbalancing the initiating steel plate. This changes the dynamics of the target array.

As a consequence, the last squad (of six) to engage this stage learned the hard way that a counterbalanced target array is subject to the changing dynamics of one, two, THREE targets stacked up on the counterbalance.

Worse, the shooters don't always know how to handle it when the increased weight causes the reactive target array to fail.

This video demonstrates how important it is for the competitors (never mind the RO) to know the rules of competition.

If you hit the initiator plate fairly with a minor-caliber round, it should fall. If it doesn't, the fault may not be yours even if the Major-caliber rounds don't seem to have any problems.

Uh ... another point?

Don't shoot Minor.


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