Ian M
Well-Known Member
This thing is TOO much fun - closest thing I could compare it to would be shooting trap with a hunting rifle. We shot today on big ShootnSee targets and then at 10" balloons at 100 yards. Stapled four balloons to the target carrier - those suckers were plain ugly to hit when we cranked the motor speed up to about 50% (will try to figure out what ground-speed that is, it is very repeatable with this rig).
Fantastic shooting practice but like trap shooting - you go through a LOT of ammo. My son and I did not fare well today - we were running 20% hits on balloons, but that will improve as we shoot more. Point is tho, we had a bloody ball! Will require much more time on the reloading bench.
Assembles easily and is pretty much idiot-proof (as in Ian-proof - one of my precision shots hit the steel target carrier but no real damage except for a .30 cal. hole...).
For transportation I put the two key components into large Rubbermaid plastic tubs so that they are easy to haul around - heaviest one is about 45 pounds. The little generator also fits into another tub, and the controls, steel pegs, crank-handle and earmuffs fit nicely into an old tackle box. Only other parts are the bases for the 4"x4" posts and the two wooden posts.
I also cut some wooden target holders that fit into the 2 1/2" x 1/2" slots, cut the slats about 24" long and stapled a 2'x3' piece of that plastic corrogated "carboard" type sheeting on them. This plastic "cardboard" really stands up to bullets, much better than ordinary cardboard.
I run the system with a little Yamaha 1000 watt generator. The Yamaha is ideal as it is very easy to carry, puts out more than enough juice for the 1/2-horse motor and it runs like a little sewing-machine.
Although shooting was the real fun, I enjoyed operating the system almost as much (watching my son miss those **** balloons!).
The control box has two switches and a dial. One switch is simply ON or OFF. The other is a toggle that has three settings - forward, stop and backward. The dial is calibrated and sets the motor speed. The dial has 10 increments, we got a fair number of hits on 30% by leading about 1/2 foot. Moving up to 50% seemed to require about 2 feet - truth is I never broke enough **** balloons to figure it out, ran out of ammo.
Strangely we both had more hits when the target moved from right to left.
Will report more on the system as we use it.
Fantastic shooting practice but like trap shooting - you go through a LOT of ammo. My son and I did not fare well today - we were running 20% hits on balloons, but that will improve as we shoot more. Point is tho, we had a bloody ball! Will require much more time on the reloading bench.
Assembles easily and is pretty much idiot-proof (as in Ian-proof - one of my precision shots hit the steel target carrier but no real damage except for a .30 cal. hole...).
For transportation I put the two key components into large Rubbermaid plastic tubs so that they are easy to haul around - heaviest one is about 45 pounds. The little generator also fits into another tub, and the controls, steel pegs, crank-handle and earmuffs fit nicely into an old tackle box. Only other parts are the bases for the 4"x4" posts and the two wooden posts.
I also cut some wooden target holders that fit into the 2 1/2" x 1/2" slots, cut the slats about 24" long and stapled a 2'x3' piece of that plastic corrogated "carboard" type sheeting on them. This plastic "cardboard" really stands up to bullets, much better than ordinary cardboard.
I run the system with a little Yamaha 1000 watt generator. The Yamaha is ideal as it is very easy to carry, puts out more than enough juice for the 1/2-horse motor and it runs like a little sewing-machine.
Although shooting was the real fun, I enjoyed operating the system almost as much (watching my son miss those **** balloons!).
The control box has two switches and a dial. One switch is simply ON or OFF. The other is a toggle that has three settings - forward, stop and backward. The dial is calibrated and sets the motor speed. The dial has 10 increments, we got a fair number of hits on 30% by leading about 1/2 foot. Moving up to 50% seemed to require about 2 feet - truth is I never broke enough **** balloons to figure it out, ran out of ammo.
Strangely we both had more hits when the target moved from right to left.
Will report more on the system as we use it.
