Great targets

We always used to shoot plastic army men. That never got old. 

Every spring our church has a rummage sale. i buy up all the glass and porcelain figurines, barbies, small hard plastic toys and such. the targets are setup at the farm in a deep "ravine" my brother in law dug with a back hoe to collect run off. this will be our 35th year of shooting into the "pit" and the old targets are starting to get deep. 

Natty light cans . Have a lot of them laying around. 

Best reactive target is shotgun hulls.

Best clay bird affordable AND bio-degradable target are Valentines Day candy hearts hot glued to black cardboard. I buy these candies the day after Valentines Day for peanut money. These are the candies with text messages on them. They explode powder when hit. I usually buy enough to last a year. Dirt cheap and BEST exploding airgun target ever.

Best paper target is hot pink or hunter orange paper covered with 3M clear packing tape, then spray with black paint. Dirt cheap way to have Shoot-N-See affordable paper targets

Best metal target is a quadrant target. Every shot gives you feedback. Just as good as shooting targets floating on water.

Best insect target are the helicopter type bugs. Shoot them right out of the air.

Best tree fruit/seed targets are hedge apples (Osage Orange). The trick is to hit the stem and make them fall to the ground..

Best fun target near a stream are pebbles/sticks laying near the waterline. If you miss a rewarding funnel hole in the mud explodes.

Best bench rest basement target is cutting a playing card in half on it's edge.

Best affordable moving target is Gamo's "running deer" battery operated target. This can also be connected to 110vollt transformer.

Best spinner target are counter weighted so they spin longer even with 6 foot lbs energy.

Best target for chronograph testing has to hold up to same hole hits and be safe.....This is the affordale Gamo metal funnel pellet trap with a wool sock stuffed in the end of the funnel. Can take a zillion safe hits. Refresh with the other sock. Simple is BEST.

Best target for newbie young shooters has a bell to ring. Folks watching the youngster can provide encouragement/congratulations when they hear the bell. Kids like immediate feedback when plinking. Loads of fun.

Best target trap is self cleaning. All my 20 ft/lb pellets end up in a coffe can. Wood trap box has a funnel bottom. Pellets strike semi-truck mud flaps that hang and swing. My flaps are 19 years old and still functional.

Best way to see hits with iron hits on black bull paper targets at 50 feet is to use a cheapo black and white video camera on the target and place a old 20 TV at shooting position. The paper is now 20 inches huge and you can even score a 10 meter target from the TV screen. My basement limit is 50 feet. System works great. Observers can see hits too, just like competitions.

Happy New Year giys,

DonC

Beer bottle caps. Seems like there is always a lot of them around here. 

Those clay pots look lots lots of fun! Reminds me of my youth, my dad would save up all the beer bottles drank during a few weeks and we would head out to the Everglades and just watch stuff blow! Powder burners at that time. Great memories. As an adult I guess we were junking up the place, but at that time everyone did the same thing in that one spot. 

Now a days I use toy soldiers, old Christmas tree lights, and Chipmunks. 

The Quadrant target is pretty fun to shoot too, as mentioned above, instant feedback on shot placement. Check out my recent review on it: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/quadrant-target-review/#post-621205

I really enjoy shooting stuff that gets blown to pieces when hit, what I don’t like it picking up all the bits of plastic and glass afterwards. I now only shoot stuff that biodegrades, pasta tubes, sugar cubes and pieces of chalk.



Bb

Having my range be "indoor" doesn't allow me to many options. But I think I might be able to shoot at that quadrant target with my indoor backstop safely. The biggest concern would be ricochets and shrapnel flying back - but I should be safe at my 17 yard distance.

Here are my my 50 and 100 yard targets. Paintballs and Necco's explode quite nicely when hit so are a blast to shoot. Glow in the dark aliens and empty co2 carts fly off into the abyss. Empty or near empty spray paint cans at 200 yards are good reactive targets as well. So many things to shoot but so little time!

Aspirins hot glued to golf tees. When those get boring plastic beads glued to golf tees. 

I like shooting at empty shotgun shells lined up in a row. The Valentine day little heart candy is a good idea. I'll have to buy a box of those and try it out.

I see no one has mentioned shooting a can of spray foam, the expanding foam to fill crevices and holes in house construction. I’ve shot up the half used cans that aren’t any good anymore cause once the spray nozzle that comes with it gets clogged(and if you don’t take the time to properly clean it) it’s of no use anymore. Talk about a reactive target, lol.

i save up all corks off of wine bottles, and the ones off of Pedrone tequila bottles are about the size of a squirrels head. Paintballs sitting atop golf tees(thanks, Iceman for the idea) and I’ve made a swivel target using super balls and Foosballs set out at 60 yards. Those Foosballs sure can take a beating off of a 30 cal.







Ive also had these made up, cut off of a plasma machine. 16 ga action figures at 10” in height

Some inspiration when packing after school snacks for my boys. Regular & "Big" Cheezits. 

One of my favorite

Being from the country in WV, we always had eggs around. The bad ones would be used as targets. They explode all over the place. We just take them out to were the rotten egg smell is far away from the house.

I like a lot of things mentioned here but I do not like targets that leave a mess. I shoot in my yard and I don’t want debris left behind OR have to do a major clean up every time I shoot.


One of the best reactive targets that we have are steel eggs. They jump good and give a satisfying sound when hit and they are easy to refresh when they start to get too beat up.

I make a pile of ice cubes, pack them in a cooler when heading out and shoot them off golf tees. Can't do much cheaper than that plus don't have to worry about clean up. Win-win.

Good idea mikep only problem is where I live they would melt by the time I got back to my shooting position

Gary