Please help! Wood shroud design for reactive steel targets!

One of the guys at Ridgedale made steel plates, swing from the top with the face of the target angled 20 degrees away from the shooter. They seemed to work very well with the chance of a ricochet coming back towards the shooter minimal.
 
I angle my plate forward and have no problems. I use flat AR500 3/8 stell in the shape of IDPA target 2/3 scale the ricochets end up melted to the metal base never had one come back yet. The reason for the shroud is so we can us it at my friends club this is a club rule for shooting steel. Thanks
 
forward falling targts don't solve everything, and don't always do what the MD wants. Sometimes we want reward falling.
Shrouds, at least in BC, are only really ever used on indoor ranges.
 
I've never really understood WHY these shrouds are needed except maybe to keep indoor ranges a bit cleaner. After all, nobody is going to be standing adjacent to a piece of steel when you are shooting it, and they are certainly not going to be hovering in the air above it either!

Splash from properly made steel covers a very narrow band and doesn't go all that far anyway. At my club, I can always tell when a certain member has been practicing on steel (he shoots a lot at a time) by the thin line, almost a "tide mark" of frag.
 
Slavex said:
forward falling targts don't solve everything, and don't always do what the MD wants. Sometimes we want reward falling.
Shrouds, at least in BC, are only really ever used on indoor ranges.
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As Mick once said, you can't always get what you want.

You are right that forward falling poppers can still have issues. When there is concern that the stage design will promote "driving down" poppers, they should be set to fall forward. If you need to activate with the popper, you can always use pulleys or redesign the stage.

Sandy
 
7.62mm said:
Shrouds obviously won't stop fragments coming back at the shooter!

I am no expert on the steel to use for plates and poppers, but it is my understanding, that if stuff is coming back at the shooter, something is amiss!
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This tends to happen more with plates (but can happen with poppers). the plates many times have a flat steel base welded on that is 90 degrees to the face of the plate. If this base extends past the face of the plate the splatter and sometimes intermediate sized bullet fragments can hit that and be sent back on the way to the shooter. This problem can be minimised with a plate stand design that has a lip that projects up to catch anything that is headed back toward the firing line.


Sandy
 
why would someone discourage "driving down" poppers? it's a chance for good shooters to attack a stage a different way. that is precisely why I like rearward falling poppers.
 
Because as you drive it down, the angle of the bullets striking the falling popper will cause the bullets to leave the range. Very bad in urban areas.
 
true, but a person should know that when setting up the match. If its an issue, use forward falling, if not use rear falling.
 
Our plates have a bracket welded to the back, which accepts a 2x2. The 2x2 post is mounted in a stand. The plate has a natural tip foreward, so the splash is uniformly directed down. The spash pattern in the shroud is very uniform. The splash will also eventually cut through the 2x2s.
I just do not see the relationship between the shroud and anyone on or behind the firing line. And no one is going to be below or beside the plates.
 
HB, yes I can understand that in urban areas, but if you look at a lot of the ranges where shrouds are mandated, the only place the splash is going to go is into the berm.
 
Well, with driving down rearward falling poppers, it's no longer a splash issue, it's ricochets. My understanding is that any ricochets leaving the range is very very very bad.
 
same difference, if you look at a lot of the ranges that are required to have the shrouds, the ricochets would still stay on the range.
 
The shrouding requirement is in the federal range regulations. Only a few CFOs require their use (Ontario & Quebec come to mind). Splatter will cut through any thickness of wood with enough rounds fired at a target. The conveyor belt liner does help a lot with that problem. Some of the Quebec IPSC clubs have light weight sheet metal shrouds that seemed to work pretty well. With all of the designs that I've got experience with you're more likely to have fragments richochet off the shroud back towards the firing line than if there was no shroud in use. But on the bright side, I guess it promotes a culture of safety!! ;)
 
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