somehow "blasting away" and "better practice" don't usually go in the same sentence for me except for that one doesn't usually lead to the other. most of the ranges up here provide paper to sight in and practice on prior to the match. still pining.

Every time we have shot Smallbore Rifle Silhouette on resettables, it has been a fiasco with targets hanging up, linkages not working right due to bullet hits, string getting tangled and so forth. We always spent more time working on the targets than shooting. At one resettable match we could not make any of the chickens work. So we had to go down range every relay and set them back up by hand. This was not as fast as the "find them in the grass" method. I think these problems have a lot to do with the distance that the string has to be in Smallbore Rifle and the energy of the bullet especially at the Chicken distance.

Resettables for Air Rifle and Air Pistol have been a great success everywhere we have shot, just the opposite of Smallbore. I have never seen Air Silhouette shot on traditional targets placed on stands or rails in fact.

I think that to some competitors shooting Smallbore Rifle Silhouette ductile iron targets made by Varn or Ray would be comparable to a "purist sport" like fly fishing with handmade rods and flies. Do not take this as a criticism of resettables but just my observations.

I do not shoot Air Rifle but my son does. When running matches I use Resettables for Air Rifle because of convenience in moving and storing equipment and also because of our range layout. I would like to attend a match or hear some input from folks who actually shoot Air Rifle Matches where the Targets are placed on stands or rails.

Bobby R. Huddleston

Interesting: resetables work fine with airguns but not .22's??? Sounds like design, manufacturing and or setup? The principles are the same for larger targets and will work just as well if properly built.

Airgun targets off rails work fine, the chickens fly a long distance with the scuba guns and are sometimes hard to find. 1st air rifle silhouette match was held in May '83, pistol Aug '83. We shot them from rails until the Stimson targets a several years ago.

Hey Bobby,
We don't use any resettable targets here in the east. The first time I saw resettable targets was at Haltom City in Texas. They made the match go very quickly but they were evening matches so you want to move them along. Our weekend matches, both smallbore anmd air rifle/pistol are shot with targets set on regulation stands. ( Now that I think about this Delaware County uses resettables but they don't run NRA matches). Delran and Falls put fencing around the air rifle chicken targets to keep them in the "barn yard" so to speak but the rest are really no problem. We've been shooting at Delran since 1989 and have probably lost less than five animals. We paint the fronts white and the backs day-glo orange so they are not tough to find when we keep the grass cut. Somebody some years ago started using magnets on long handles to pick up the targets and boy that was nice for us old guys because we don't use target setters. They sell telescoping things with magnets on the end to pick up dropped tools and they work fine. One Of the guys gets magnets out of old computers and makes wooden handles which works well too.
I personally prefer standard targets shot off stands but resettables are fine if that's what's available.

Sounds like you guys have had bad experiences with poorly constructed resettable targets. Where they 2-bank designs?

I'm not experiencing what you're describing with smallbore. In fact, the smallbore resettables I've shot have been more reliable and easier to operate than the airgun resettables.

After giving this some thought while typing this reply perhaps the air resettables are prone to string hang-ups mainly because they have a dual bank design. They would likely be more reliable with a single string pulling a lever and a steel link cams the second bank into position.

Thanks to everyone who has sent in pictures and information on the resetables. If anybody else has any more pictures or plans please send them in. You can use the Fourm or PM me. If you would like you can e-mail me direct at [email protected] or call me at 425-301-0977

Thanks again

Byron