Only have 6-7 yards shooting distance in my basement

[airguneditor]

I'd like to practice at that distance.

What's the drill -- scale down the targets accordingly?

I'd welcome suggestions.

[pgfaini]

I'm assuming that because you're posting on this, the pistol board, that you're not shooting a rifle. (Reduced distance air rifle targets are available, they use them for spring rifles at 5 meters). I can't find any reduced 10M. air pistol targets, and would suggest you use the full size targets, concentrating on keeping your group size as low as possible. If you'd like to see what your score would be, just measure the distance to the target, and multiply your score by the proper factor. For example, if it's 7 meters, multiply by .7 (7/10).

Paul

[airguneditor]

Thanks!

[wbbond]

I'd like to practice at that distance.

What's the drill -- scale down the targets accordingly?

I'd welcome suggestions.

I have seen 6 meter targets for sale but can not rember where. Are you can print your own. Try here http://www.airguninfo.com/6meter.pdf

[Tom Amlie]

When I first started shooting AP I had limited space and no AP targets. I did, however, have a few hundred old A-17 50-foot smallbore rifle targets (conventional, not metric). I did the calculations once and I think they're reasonable for about 6 meters. Good part is you get 11 bulls per target. Bad part is I understand they're using cheaper paper now so they probably won't punch out well. The ones I had had spent 20+ years sitting around, and were good and brittle...cut better than Edelman or Kruger.

Although you can't compare your score on such a target to those using 10m targets at 10m, that's not really the point anyway. Group size and improvement are measurable no matter what target you use.

The A-1 target is the single-bull version. If you go with the A-17 and they tear out when shot, try mounting them on cardboard.

[dflast]

Also, Scatt and Rika software contain utilities to print scaled targets; the software can be downloaded free. The targets won't be perfectly sized for live fire scoring (no allowance for the full-size pellet) but are just right for practicing hold & shot release.

-David

[RobStubbs]

In the UK we shoot scaled down AP at 6 yards, and we have a range at that distance in my club. Our governing body sells the appropriate targets but I don't know whether any other companies do - I would imagine they will, perhaps a 5M version (?) (check out www.best-targets.de - they will ship to the US).

Rob.

[Anders Turebrand]

One thing I have have done when shooting free pistol at 25 meters is to cut the center out of a target (actually a replacable target center) and turn it around and place it over the regular target, giving me the impression of a correctly sized target.

For 6 yards that would be a hole measuring 32.9mm or 1.29"

/Anders

[jwstewart]

Here are some 5m targets for you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5m-Air-Pistol-Prati ... dZViewItem

[ColinC]

Anders,
At our club we shoot free pistol over 25m on the official ISSF scaled down target. It is exactly 50% of the normal target which makes it only about 20 % bigger than an air pistol target.
Looking through the sights at the scaled down version is just the same as looking at a normal target at 50m
I am sure you would be able to locate some from official suppliers without having to cut centre out of a target to get a scaled down black.

[RobStubbs]

Here are some 5m targets for you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5m-Air-Pistol-Prati ... dZViewItem

Despite the claims to the contrary the paper looks of poor quality and the holes are ragged. That said it's still much better than nothing.

Rob.

[Anders Turebrand]

Colin,
/off topic/
Our club has gotten quite a lot of half scaled targets now, it´s a little simpler but the cutout system worked well, especially when I kept the shots in the black ;-) , I only exchanged the target center behind the cutout.
I did pin a large cardboard piece with a 30x30 cm cutout to the target frame to give the correct outside dimension too.
This winter I´ve been thinking of making a outward scoring gauge with caliber compensation but I haven´t gotten around to it yet, a quick calculation gives that it should have a scoring ring that´s 22.2mm in diameter.
/on topic again/

I just felt it was an easy way of making a correctly sized target for training at any distance...

/Anders

[wbbond]

Here are some 5m targets for you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5m-Air-Pistol-Prati ... dZViewItem

I don't know how good these targets are, but I have bought pellets from this guy before and he was a pleasure to do business with.

[Shin]

This target is scaled incorrectly - at 5m diameter of the inner ten ring should be 0.25mm, and 10 ring should be 3.5mm. The quality of the 10m AP Cibles targets is not very good. The paper does not look like short fiber target paper - more like construction paper.
Here is the link to correcly scaled 5m AP target:
http://www.targettalk.org/images/Attach ... Target.pdf

Here are some 5m targets for you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5m-Air-Pistol-Prati ... dZViewItem

[bjsulla]

I use a scaled downed target for 7,5m that looks like this: http://fw.beast.racing.gs/postal/MissPostal.jpg

It works fine but the scores are generally lower than when I shoot at real targets at 10m. Good practise though.

[Nicole Hamilton]

I was interested to see how this question would be answered. One room that's 11 or 12 meters long (10m + space behind the line) is a pretty big room, bigger than a lot of folks might have, but I expected most people might be able to find some way, shooting through a doorway and down a hall or whatever, to find somewhere in their house or apartment where they could just barely make it work.

But I'm probably underestimating the difficulty simply because I had already started shooting air before I bought this and my previous house. I didn't even consider anything that wouldn't have accommodated a full 10m range. But if you don't take up shooting until after you already own the house, it's a different proposition, isn't it! I mean, how many people (and especially other family members who don't shoot) want to move just you can set up a full-size range?

But when you shorten the range that much, what I'm not surprised to see are some comments to the effect that merely shrinking the target does not fully compensate. I assume that's because it's easier at 6 yards to keep both the front sight and the target in somewhat decent focus at the same time than it is at 10m, where you do have to pick one or the other and would see a greater reduction in score if you pick wrong. For those of you trying this, is that what you experience?

The other problem I expect when you shrink the distance that much is that you probably have to adjust the elevation on your sights down several clicks when go back to a full-size range, is that right? (The sights are higher than the bore at the muzzle but the sights and the barrel are angled toward each other so POA and POI will converge at the target distance.)

[Mike M.]

Ha! Nicole, that makes two of us who bought homes with a range in mind. I've got 10 meters, plus shooting position, from my dining room to my living room. The pellet trap is in a bookcase.

Seriously, I seem to recollect a thread about two years ago where targets had been identified...ah, here we are. The TQ-9 25-foot free pistol target, which I think was OK for 5 meter AP.

[Fred Mannis]

Nicole,
The biggest problem I notice at the shorter distance is that my wobble takes up a larger area of the target, which translate to a lower score.

[AAlex]

Shooting at lower distances, even with the target black and scoring rings appropriately scaled down, accounting for the projectile diameter, etc. is still substantially different.

1) Imagine extreme case of shooting as close as 1m. The sight alignment would not matter at all, and the primary source of error would be the primary hold. At 10m, or even more so at 50m we have exact opposite, where the sight alignment is of utmost importance compared to the hold. The sight alignment errors at half distance would matter half as much compared to normal distance, even if the target is appropriately scaled.

Annother way to illustrate it: imagine shooting at 0m, with the muzzle just about touching the target. If you move your arm 2mm to the left, you need to move the front sight 2mm to the right to counteract the error, while at 50m you'd need to move the front sight by 1/130 of that, since the front sight displacement sums over every sight radius to the target.

2) The triggering errors that are the result of front-sight's-angular-velocity-during-the-shot-release * projectile-travel-time would also be reduced by a little more than half, since it takes half the time for the pellet to travel to the target. Triggering errors that would put the shot into the white on a normal target+distance could still be a 9 on the scaled one.

Overall, shooting at reduced distances is an excellent training tool but the scores cannot be compared between distances, because, as illustrated above, hold, sight alignment, and triggering errors have different contributions at different distances.

Consequently, whether the rings are scaled down exacly is of no importance.

[Nicole Hamilton]

Imagine extreme case of shooting as close as 1m. The sight alignment would not matter at all, and the primary source of error would be the primary hold. At 10m, or even more so at 50m we have exact opposite, where the sight alignment is of utmost importance compared to the hold.

This is a pretty interesting point that has come up at our club when we've shot FP indoors at 50 ft. Most of us felt it was much harder than at 25 or 50 yds. I wondered if the greater importance of parallel error might be the reason and several of us kicked it around. But I don't think we really decided for sure if that was the problem or if indeed indoor really is more difficult. It's possible we'd all just had a bad day and were looking for excuses!