I'd like to hear your experiences on targets you've made for simulated hunting practice. In an effort to get away from the bench, I'm thinking that targets cut out of cardboard to make a silhouette of a deer would provide more realistic practice. Targets with bullseyes are fine for load development and sighting in, but I haven't shot a deer yet with a bullseye painted on his shoulder.

Anyone out there made a deer silhouette for practice? I'm looking for general dimensions you've used. Any other suggestions for realistic practice? For now, I'll be practicing at 100 and 200 yds off of sticks, braced up against a post and from the sitting and prone positions. Then for grins I'll try offhand.

B.Doerr
Your idea is an excellent one. I just buy life size deer targets at a local gunstore. They are a lot more fun to shoot and they are great for new hunters to practice on. You can also cut them out of cardboard [hard to find it big enough] or plywood.

I was discussing making some life size steel siluette targets and painting the vitals onto them over the weekend with a friend.

You would only need to touch up the paint from time to time.

Express
The steel targets work very good, especially at the longer ranges. You can usually see the bullet splash and can shoot several rounds before having to go down range and re-paint the targets. You can also hear the hits which adds to the spectator appeal.
One caution: Depending upon the quality of the steel, the velocity of the ctg. and the bullet type, and the distance you are shooting at it is possible to shoot holes in your steel target.

[ 06-23-2003, 23:58: Message edited by: N E 450 No2 ]

Wasn;'t someone talking about putting a target in the middle of a tire and bouncing it down a slope while another took shots at it?
Wonder if there'd ever be enough interest to get a "Practical Rifle Shoot" together, like the do for self-defense pistol shooting, and have different classes, like small/big bore, open country/dense cover, stalking (could use a ultra-sensitive microphone at the target to see how close the hunter gets before "being seen," and stuff like that. Maybe even a Dangerous Game trial with a big target and small vitals moving wuickly toward you.
Might get dangerous, bt if done right, I bet it would a) keep hunter's sharp, b) bring people into the shooting sports, and c) maybe keep some of the trigger-happy whippersnappers occupied while the rest are out hunting.

I use .5"X10" round steel targets, hanging from a tubular frame. An '06 dents it pretty good but hasn't gone through yet. Closest I've shot it is 160 yards. The sound is great when you hit.

Ive got an article about a guy using a Sheep pattern and it is 1/3 scale, it suggests that groups @ 100 yds on that target will simulate actual groups @ 300 yds. Not saying I buy into that logic but there it is.

I'm up in the mountains, so tend to walk down old logging roads, and shoot rocks and pinecones at various ranges. I can generally get up to around 600 yards around here, so this gives me good grounding to remember not to shoot at game that far!

Nothing wrong with a paper plate attached to a long stake and stuck in the ground randomly...

Id like to do somethignlike that with steel targets, as you know right away whether you've hit them or not (whhhaaaacccckkk!)

3-D foam archery targets like full size deer can be patched easily with expanding foam. Just tape over the hole on one side and fill the other side with the tube from the can.

I do quite a bit of long-range shooting out to 1000 yds. at a couple of ranches out here in CO. I came up with a portable target system that wotks pretty good for shooting at those ranges. They're cheap, lightweight, portable and easy/quick to make.

Go to the local junkyard and get 5-6ft. lengths of 3/4 electrical conduit. Also get some kind of 2 or 3 ft. lengths of rebar or other suitable metal to use for stakes. Get a couple bags of zip straps (available at the Dollar thrift-type stores). Simply attach any size piece of cardboard to the conduit with the straps, paint a target on, pound the stakes into the ground, and place the conduit over the stakes. Voila, cheap,portable, etc, etc.

Standard IPSC or IDPA targets turned sideways work pretty well for an impromptu game target.

Here in Finland we practise to moving moose picture. Picture is natural size and moving by some kind of railway tracks. Here is link to picture of moose target:
http://cat.teho.net/software/mkj/e-site/index.php3?mother=1&group=00000007&level=1&mag_nr=1

Shooting distances are mostly 75 and 100 meters and speed of moose is about 20 mph. Forward allowance needed is approximately 1 meter.

I had friends save me the metal one pound coffee can cut outs. Nailing these to stakes at various distances and heights, gave me a cheap target that approximated the kill zone of deer. It's my idea that if I can hit this size target, off hand at most reasonable distances I could most likely hit anything I felt needed shooting.
Jim

I picked up some life size deer targets at wal-mart, and use them on my home made target stand. The place I work has a print (blue-print) copier so I will never run out of targets. Unfortunately I can only shoot safely at a public range so it limits me to 200yd.

I use the carboard cutout fopr archery too. alittle tape and go again. Lots of cool ideas to try here although. It really give a beter sight picture of what your scope or iron sights look like at a given range.

Hcliff

Getting away from the bench is a good start. Standard targets are meant to be easy to see so shooters can hit them easily. That’s why they have dark aiming points on light backgrounds, and their sides are square and straight. But live targets have none of those things. If you’re getting ready to hunt, your targets should look like what you’re hunting.

Last year, two brothers-in-law and I started preparing to hunt hogs in Hawaii, and I decided to bring in as much military and practical shooting wisdom as I could. I cut odd-shaped targets out of cardboard, carefully avoiding any straight, horizontal or vertical lines. I made them the size of the smallest hog we meant to shoot and spray-painted them black with a few brown or green diagonal stripes to break up their outlines. I did not want a clear aiming point for the X-ring, just something to show if we had found and hit the vital zone, so I marked it in pencil on top of the paint.

Then we went to the mountains and put them in steep, brushy, wet draws similar to where we expected to hunt. We put some in twos and threes, and others on a hillside where a “hunter” who wasn’t paying attention might fixate on one 30 yards away without noticing the one 10 yards to his left behind a light screen of grass. We started in full daylight with simple two- and three- target courses. We ended up shooting at dawn and dusk on courses that incorporated anything we could think of that might influence how and whether we would take a shot in real life: shoot/no-shoot targets (to simulate a dog or goat among the hogs), choices on which route to take into the area where the targets were waiting, the chance of houses or people on one side of a field, etc. We also designed some runs to require tactical reloads, a real possibility on the place we expected to hunt.

Did we overdo it? Probably, but it was great fun after having spent too much time on standard targets. It also humiliated us completely and made us rethink a lot of our assumptions about gear and technique.

Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Training lets you study and correct mistakes that might ruin a hunt. The more realistic the training, the more mistakes you’ll catch. If you find yourself screwing up, your training is doing its job.
2. Training is the place to test gear and techniques. If something doesn’t work in training, it won’t work on a hunt. Train until it works properly, or replace it with something that does.
3. Train with a partner. He or she can point out mistakes you don’t know you’re making.
4. Talk about what you did right and wrong. After a training day, review everything in chronological order and make notes. It’s hard to make the same mistake twice if you’ve written down what you learned from it.
5. As you review your notes, look for patterns and think about what you could have done better. Then write down how you will do it better next time and try it that way.
6. When you figure out the best way to do something, force yourself to do it that way from now on. Make it a habit so you won’t have to learn it again.
7. Start slowly. Don’t make the problem harder until everyone in the party is up to speed.
8. You hunt the way you train. Train in conditions as close to what you expect when hunting as you can. Try for the same weather, light, elevation, time, terrain, vegetation, etc. Use and wear exactly what you use and wear when you hunt.
9. You can get huge sheets of cardboard from appliance stores and body shops. Show up with a box knife and they’ll probably give you all you can carry.
10. The skills you build for one hunt or type of hunting carry over to others.
11. If you train all the time, your gear is ready all the time, and it’s a lot easier to go hunting on short notice.
12. An expert is the one who can execute the basics on command--every time.

Things changed as things do, and our 3-man hog hunt turned into a solo feral cattle hunt. The shots were about what I had expected, and in one day I got three feral cattle with three shots. I ended up doing almost everything I trained on, including tactical reloads with a bolt action rifle. After two of the shots, I snapped the bolt and tried to hit another animal as the herd bolted. I missed both times, probably because I hadn’t practiced shooting at a stationary target followed quickly by a mover at the same distance. Next time that won’t be the case.

The last shot of the day came at dusk. I had hiked several miles up and down the side of a volcano, gotten between a sow and her litter, killed three cattle, been soaked by rain twice, and was dog tired when I jumped another herd of hogs at about 30m. They scattered, then stopped in confusion. I dropped the only one I could see with one fast hit to the vitals. As I squeezed the trigger, I remember thinking it looked just like a target on the range at home.

Hope this helps, Okie John.

B,
I bought a life size target at a gun store and I use it to trace targets on old construction prints("blueprints"). I use a larger than average felt tip marker to trace the outline and a light pencil to draw in heat/lungs. The resulting targets are life size with no aiming points but you can still see if you are hitting vital areas. They are also free so I shoot up dozens of them each season.

Use a .22 similar to your deer rifle for some good, cheap practice. Practice shooting standing with no rest for a realistic challenge - your first few targets will humble you.