Canadian Airgun Forum

By nature I'm analyzing a bit much but am pondering making some targets. Is there a specific pound force / psi it takes to activate the knockdown arm?

Are they just ready to fall after being hit with a cooked pea out of a slingshot or does it take a frozen one?

Just wondering how easy to knock down they're supposed to be or if there is an official way of certifying them. I'm assuming somebody has to check. Couldn't imagine one out of 10 targets takes the force of a .22 slug to fall.





J.

Yes, there is.
The official WFTF target tester that we use is the equivalent of 5.5 foot pounds. This is the maximum force that must drop the target - most targets will drop with significantly less than this. I often test targets by shooting them with a P17 pistol that is putting out about 3.1 FPE.
If you were tuning targets for a sub-500 gun you would want them to trip with a lighter strike since even at 35 yards you will likely only have about 2 FPE of energy left. Even less if you stretch the yardage out more.

If you venture into this rabbit hole you will soon discover that what seems simple - hit the paddle, make the target fall - can be excruciatingly frustrating.
It is fairly simple to make a mechanism that works when the paddle is struck perfectly, but then a hit on the edge of the paddle can cause the paddle to twist and jam and not drop. Or a hit to the face plate in a certain spot might make the target shake in such a way that it triggers the paddle, or the target is too sensitive to being mounted less than absolutely level.....
Many small details that will add up to many prototypes and lots of tuning.
I have one target on my bench right now that was working well - except that if you struck the upper left of the face plate it would drop every time. I think that I have it corrected - it worked well for half a dozen tests - lets see how it does in the real world!

Just to add some information for you.

https://bsamson.github.io/WFTF-Target-Checker/

https://www.maestro-design.co.uk/produc ... t-checker/

_________________
Geoff - CAFTA Governor

I'm gunna stick to my other rabbit hole projects [emoji1787]. I'll take a lesson from your experience on this one. Variables my friend, I hate em lol. Glad to hear you ventures down that path, technical skills FTW.

Mac that's a great tool, leave it to the community right? Just a matter if it's been adopted by WFTF officially.

J.

The target checker that Brian Samson created has been accepted as the official WFTF checker.

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Tim
CAFTA Governor and lifetime learner

Well there it is then I'm solved lol [emoji1360]

J.