SASS target sources?

[Currahee]

What manufacturer does your club use for targets?

[Flinthills Dawg]

local weld shop or steel manufacturing companies

[Laramie]

1 hour ago, Currahee said:

What manufacturer does your club use for targets?

Try targets by Vixen. Good people. 
Laramie

[mean gun mark]

I will second the nod for vixn targets. Sass shooters and they put a lot of time and energy into our game

[Assassin]

Just buy some AR500 plate steel and cut it into squares and rectangles. If you cut it into fancy shapes; circles, animal shapes, etc. , you will waste 15-20% of your steel and little tails, feathers, hands, hat brims, etc will break off easily. I have a plasma table and have cut hundreds of targets. Might be cheaper to buy a plasma cutter for $1200-1500 than paying a shop. Then, weld or bolt on some hanger brackets.

 

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

14 hours ago, Currahee said:

What manufacturer does your club use for targets?

Vix-n produce custom cut steel targets AR500.  Any shape any size.  You email at vixntargets@gmail.com

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

 

I always use to suggest "Arntzen Targets," but Arntzen has been sold and I don't remember to Whom.

 

Where ever you get your targets, DO NOT use Re-Bar for stands.

Edited June 16, 2024 by Colorado Coffinmaker
Add a Caution

[John Kloehr]

2 hours ago, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

Where ever you get your targets, DO NOT use Re-Bar for stands.

Kits to use rebar for stands are amazingly common, so I did a bit of searching. Apparent splatter concerns most easily found on this forum.

 

Is there something about our all-lead non-jacketed ammo which makes it worse?

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

1 hour ago, John Kloehr said:

Kits to use rebar for stands are amazingly common, so I did a bit of searching. Apparent splatter concerns most easily found on this forum.

 

Is there something about our all-lead non-jacketed ammo which makes it worse?

It is the bumps on the rebar that creates the splatter.  Round bar stock works better

[Missouri Marshal SASS #50682]

Does Vixn Targets have a web site?  I can't find it.  Does anyone have a link?

 

[mean gun mark]

1 hour ago, Missouri Marshal SASS #50682 said:

Does Vixn Targets have a web site?  I can't find it.  Does anyone have a link?

 

Reach out to blue eye drifters post above, as good as your loading blocks are, he is a pard to ride the river with and will take good care of you

 

1 hour ago, Missouri Marshal SASS #50682 said:

Does Vixn Targets have a web site?  I can't find it.  Does anyone have a link?

 

 

[Dream Chaser, SASS #79316]

Have not bought targets for years but when I did the shipping cost was staggering.   Make or buy but try to get the best you can for your purpose.  The ones I bought have a 20 degree slant and at this time are so high that the cost will take your breath away.  Mine are from action target but as much as I love them I would sure shake the bushes trying to find someone to make them who can put a nice slant on them or find a company that works for you.

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

3 hours ago, Dream Chaser, SASS #79316 said:

Have not bought targets for years but when I did the shipping cost was staggering.   Make or buy but try to get the best you can for your purpose.  The ones I bought have a 20 degree slant and at this time are so high that the cost will take your breath away.  Mine are from action target but as much as I love them I would sure shake the bushes trying to find someone to make them who can put a nice slant on them or find a company that works for you.

Chaser

 

you are correct that steel prices are high right now (so is everything) but they have appeared to stabilized for the moment.  Since Vix-n and I travel to a lot of out of state shoots. Shipping may or may not be a issue.

our target stand have a 10 degree slant as well as a straight up slot. Anymore slant reduce target impact area.

Vix-n targets

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

4 hours ago, mean gun mark said:

Reach out to blue eye drifters post above, as good as your loading blocks are, he is a pard to ride the river with and will take good care of you

 

 

At the current time we do not have a web site but I am working on a Facebook page.  Hopefully soon.  Since we custom cut shapes and sizes we can cut what ever you dream up. 

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

5 hours ago, Missouri Marshal SASS #50682 said:

Does Vixn Targets have a web site?  I can't find it.  Does anyone have a link?

 

If you want to email me I can send you some designs with estimated cost vixntargets@gmail.com

[Sedalia Dave]

19 hours ago, John Kloehr said:

Kits to use rebar for stands are amazingly common, so I did a bit of searching. Apparent splatter concerns most easily found on this forum.

 

Is there something about our all-lead non-jacketed ammo which makes it worse?

 

That's because only SASS has targets so close that the splatter reaches the firing line. If the target distances were doubled the splatter complaints would drop by 75%.

[Toby Two Mules]

Mr mikes metal art, amarillo tx.  He will cut anything you want 

[Hoss]

We bought 4x8 sheets of AR 500 steel. Had a local community college with a welding program cut it (for free!) with plasma cutter int 16” squares. No waste! Drill hole in center of one edge and a corner so they could be hung as diamonds or squares. 
 

interesting enough, more misses on diamonds than squares despite being exactly the same size! 

[Blue Eyed Drifter]

7 hours ago, Hoss said:

We bought 4x8 sheets of AR 500 steel. Had a local community college with a welding program cut it (for free!) with plasma cutter int 16” squares. No waste! Drill hole in center of one edge and a corner so they could be hung as diamonds or squares. 
 

interesting enough, more misses on diamonds than squares despite being exactly the same size! 

They were able to drill AR 500 ?

[Hoss]

1 hour ago, Blue Eyed Drifter said:

They were able to drill AR 500 ?

Cut it 

[Flinthills Dawg]

or get in touch with a local vo - tech welding class 

[SGT. ELI 35882 GUNFIGHTER]

Another vote for Vix-n targets. Fantastic people.

[Jefro, SASS#69420]

On 6/16/2024 at 10:17 AM, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

 

I always use to suggest "Arntzen Targets," but Arntzen has been sold and I don't remember to Whom.

 

Where ever you get your targets, DO NOT use Re-Bar for stands.

The absolute best targets and stands. We already had some of their targets and stands, we retro fitting our existing targets and had some stands made without  the collapse feature. The free hanging style all but eliminated any splash back.

Shop | MADE Targets

 

JefroRelax-Enjoy

 

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

On 6/17/2024 at 7:56 AM, Sedalia Dave said:

 

That's because only SASS has targets so close that the splatter reaches the firing line. If the target distances were doubled the splatter complaints would drop by 75%.

This is such a simplistic and mostly incorrect assertion.

 

Splatter is a component of MANY things - and the least of them is distance.

 

Splatter is dependent upon target hangers, target face condition, impact cupping, target angle and ground cover/ surface.

 

To mitigate splatter; the projectile must be destroyed by impact and by its destruction have it's velocity negated OR if the projectile is NOT destroyed - it's energy has to be properly redirected.

 

A target set at a 30 to 45 degree downward angle will send splatter into the ground at the base of the target.

 

It is important that the target face is smooth and undeformed - pocked surfaces and cupped target introduce weird angles into the equation and make splatter take unpredictable travel.

 

It is also important that the steel be strong enough that it does not "flex" or introduce "spring" into the angle equation.

 

Hangers that protrude from the target surface or frames that are strikable also create angles and surfaces that can send splatter oddly. 

Rebar sucks - wood is sacrificial, but easily destroyed; square stock costs a fortune; sadly - stands are a "pick your poison" type of thing.

 

Once the projectile has left the target in a safe direction - you can still get nasty splatter from stand legs and the ground itself.

Baked desert earth in the Southwest, rocks and gravel elsewhere - lead impacting any hard ground cover can be redirected toward the shooter.

Carpet, haybales, mud, even water channels - anything that can absorb and slow the splatter makes it less likely to return to the firing line.

 

As for distance:

A 105 grain round traveling at 750 feet per second has about 131 ft/ pounds of energy at the muzzle.

The mass of the bullet doesn't change without deformation - so velocity has to decrease to have any decrease in energy.

 

So at what distance is that bullet going to lose "a majority of" its velocity and energy?

With our cowboy loads - probably at around a 100 yards (give or take).

 

But we don't shoot cowboy at 100 yards - we shoot pistols at 3 yards, 5 yards, 7 yards, 10 yards?

The drop off in velocity between 3, 5, 7 or even 10 yards is negligible.

Without proper splatter control - any small number of paces of additional distance (anything that would be even remotely aceptable to our shooters) would offer very little degradation of velocity or energy.

Our targets are not there to "stop" the bullet - but to redirect ithe bullets trajectory; it is this controlled redirection that makes shooting at steel somewhat safe.  But it is this designed and controlled redirection that makes distance the least important component.

 

The two hardest times "I" have ever been hit with splatter were ONE when it came off of a mis angled plate from a neighboring berm (well over thirty YARDS away); a distance that no one is going to accept pistol targets being set at.

 

And the SECOND was a round that struck a hanger and flew upward arcing back to me as I stood at my guncart.

 

In neither of these instances was it my shot that got me.

 

No one wants to ever see anyone get hit by splatter; but as long as we are shooting lead at steel - there will be splatter.

Proper splatter mitigation requires thought and properly prepared stands, plates and ground prep. 

 

IF a club has NO other abilities or options; then adding distance is the only choice - but it will require MUCH MORE than a simple doubling of distance.

 

Honestly, I would suggest going to paper, bowling pins, clay pigeons and sand filled water bottles long before subjecting shooters to a non action match of 20 - 30 yard pistol targets.

 

But the answer is never as simple as

"Just move the targets out further".

[Marshal Stone, SASS #53366]

 

We have targets from Action Target, Provo, Ut.

and MGM (Mike Gibson) Cauldwell, Id.

 

Marshal Stone

[Bailey Creek,5759]

Go to your local Junk Yard, see what they have.

A cutting torch will work. May not be as nice as a plasma cutter will work thou.