We started shooting on our Silver Mountain Electronic targets in the summer of 2020.  That same set of targets served us through that summer, through 2021 and 2022.  By the end of the 2022 High Power season, the target faces were starting to show a lot of wear from the thousands of rounds that had passed through them.   There were ragged holes in the center of the plastic and the faces were badly distorted with a large hump around the missing center portion.  Possibly we could have gotten another shooting season out of them, but we had gotten our money’s worth and it was time to replace them at our leisure rather than having to make emergency repairs in mid-season when they finally came apart.

Over the winter we gathered up the material we needed and on Saturday March 25th a group of high power shooters came out to have a target overhaul work session.  Eight shooters came out and it turned out that eight people was a perfect number to get the work done.  We started about 8:30. About half of the old faces had been glued on with Liquid Nails adhesive and they proved to be a tough job to get off the frames.  Gary Mabis and Doc Habel set up a demolition station to take off the old faces. 

Gary Mabis and Doc Habel work to pry the face off of an old target

Chris Hartwig took on the job of cutting corners and handhold inserts. 

Chris Hartwig setting up a work area to do cutouts.
(Note the shot-up holes in the old faces)

Martin Didion and Joe Freiburger set up one refacing station and Mike King and Mike Bailey set up a second.

Mike King and Mike Bailey mark target centers to match index marks on the frames

Larry Beardsley just brought donuts, made coffee and stood around while people worked. Things went much more smoothly than we had expected and by 10:30 we were done and had our mess cleaned up.

Some clubs who use electronic targets do not do a fine-tune calibration to align the X-ring into the acoustic center of the target frame; their philosophy is;  ”After all, – that’s what sighting shots are for”.  But, at FWRR we do a fine tuning calibration on our targets.  We were able to closely match the original index marks on the target frames and target insert holding fixtures, so there should be minimal effort involved in recalibrating the targets for the high power season.  Weather permitting we intend to do that next Saturday, April 1st.  With that done, we will have a fresh set of targets ready for the 2023 and following seasons.

Thanks to all of the guys who came out to lend a hand;  it turned out to be easy work with a bunch of guys who are a pleasure to work with.