Gong size

[shafer44]

My gun club has a long range shooting section that is 500 meters for the longest shot, which has a fixed metal gong type target, along with some smaller metal plate shaped targets. There is one hanging gong at 100 meters and just metal fixed round targets at 200, 300, and 400 meters. I have a piece of 3/4" steel plate that is 40" by 19" that I am going to donate to the club. The metal is oval shaped and I was going to cut it twice and make 3 gongs out of it. If I cut even, than the pieces will be 13"x19". I know this size will be very visable at 200 meters, but will this size be visible enough at 300 and 400 meters to shoot open sights blade type or creedmoor with globe front sights? The ones I will put up will be suspended by chain, so they will swing or twist when hit, plus make that nice sound. I am not a youngster any more, but I can see the metal fixed gong at 500 meters, but it is 18x24.

[country gent]

Simple test is to cut a piece of corrugated card board to that size, Paint one side white and one side black on a stake and place at the desired yard lines to see how they sand out. The grey of the steel tends to bend I to others so most paint flat white or flat black. This will give you a good idea of what you want24" at 500 yds is just shy of 5 moa 19" will be just shy of 4 moa.
I would cut the card board and a stake to hold it at the height it will be suspended at and see what it looks like. Quick easy and your only out some cheap card board not the steel

[shafer44]

My best groups at 100 with my Sharps 45-70 have been about 1.5", so if I call my 100 yd, 3 inches, then I assume that that would be 6" at 200yds, 9" at 300 and 12" at 400. by this assumption, then 13" wide by 19" tall should work at all 3???

[marlinman93]

I think it's marginal at 400 yds., and I'd cut it in half if I was going to put it up at 400 yds. for iron sights. Two proper sized targets will be better than 3 you can't see well, or hit.

[Bazoo]

Thats about 2/3 ipsc size. Practical size in my opinion.

[marlinman93]

Thats about 2/3 ipsc size. Practical size in my opinion.

Not for 400 yds. and iron sights! Your front sight blade will cover up the entire target. And even if you use a 6 o'clock hold, the target would be so small that you can't tell if you're centered on it with iron sights.
This is a picture taken when I was shooting at the 990 yd. dinger, which is 30" square. Not 400 yds., but you can get an idea of how small a 30" dinger is at 650, and see that 13" x 19" is way too small for 400 yds.
The 650 yd. dinger is that tiny white spot in the top right area of this picture. 30" The 990 is the tiny speck just to the right of my cross sticks, and I believe it's about 48" square.

http://i.imgur.com/wCfkAejl.jpg

[Oily]

Great picture Marlinman really puts things in perspective for anyone not used to shooting at a distance

[marlinman93]

Great picture Marlinman really puts things in perspective for anyone not used to shooting at a distance

Even a standard front post of about .050"-.060" is too wide for 400 yd. and farther work. A .040" width front post is much better, as it's closer to the dinger or gong size, and easier to center on the target. Skinner used to sell special order .040" front blades, but he is busy with standard sights, and wont do custom special order now.

[Chill Wills]

I have a piece of 3/4" steel plate that is 40" by 19" that I am going to donate to the club. The metal is oval shaped and I was going to cut it twice and make 3 gongs out of it. If I cut even, than the pieces will be 13"x19".

The following might help some. The NRA black bull on most targets (not all) run about 4.5 MOA. Simple math goes like this,
100y = 4.5"
200y = 9"
300y = 13.5"
there is not 400y NRA target but if there was...
400y = 18"
500y = 22.5"

Using this as a guild as to what someone is expected to see at these ranges, I don't think you have quite enough metal. Almost, but not enough for three targets.
Maybe cut in half and post at 400y and 300y only

Someone else can make the 200y.

[Chill Wills]

By the way, if anyone will be shooting these and your steel is of the mild kind, your targets won't last anytime before they look like the moon.

Maybe you know this and I am over stepping.

[shafer44]

Chill Wills, thanks for the insight. There is a square fixed metal plate at 100 meters that is 9x9 and a swinging gong that is probably 12 x 17. Those 2 are pretty easy to hit. We have nothing at 200m, as they have shot them to pieces. At 300m is a 10" round plate and a couple smaller ones, at 400m, maybe 12" plates. Mostly high power rifles with scopes shoot all these. Today, no one was out at the range, so I walked down to the 100m to get measurements. I was too lazy to walk to the 300 and 400m... Yeah, I was thinking that cut in 3 pieces, one would probably be good for 200m, but the 300 and 400 would be small for open sights. I pm'd Marlinman93 and he also said cut it in 2 pieces. It was given to me, so no big deal, just trying to make it go as far as I can. By the way, it is mild steel, but it is 3/4" thick, so it will take a while at 300 and 400 for those guys to blast thru it, I hope. I wonder if I heat the plates up with my cutting torch and then spray them with water, if it will quench them enough to harden them up some???

[Artful]

Do you know what the steel composition is? You could do the old bone meal in an oven treatment to surface harden it if it doesn't have enough carbon.

As far has high power rifles shooting modern jacketed bullets if it's mild steel it will dimple/crater/hole it immediately depending upon which bullet (FMJ, steel core, AP, SP) they are using.

Before I cut it up I'd do a cardboard test at distance.

[marlinman93]

Most steel plates wont take a steady diet of jacketed bullets, even in pistol calibers. And moving out farther helps, but jacketed bullets will still make divots in steel at over 500 yds. I'd restrict all shooting on metal gongs to cast lead, but at a gun club that's tough to enforce. Guys will do whatever they want when nobody is watching them.

[shafer44]

yeah, unfortunately there are a LOT of members, over 1000, but there are times when no one is out there, like during the week when I go, there may be 2 or 3 other shooters...makes me like being retired!! There are guys that will shoot their ak's and ar's even at the pistol only bays that we have. Some shoot at the wood supports for the target backers, just to see them fall apart. The fixed metal plates at the different distances are beyond looking like the moon, they are almost completely shredded. I would love to have a rule of cast bullets only....but, that will never happen. I have about decided to cut the metal in two pieces and to keep from having to drill more holes, there are two that could be used to hang one plate if I cut it 22" and use that at 400 (22x19) and the 300 would be 18x19

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I don't believe that there's a hard and fast rule for it. About all I can say on the subject is that I've fired at several ranges that used the top cut out of a 55 gal. drum for a gong at 300 & 350 yds.

[shafer44]

wow, a 55 gal drum is about 22-24" in diameter

[Edward]

I have steel to 700 yds and have gone with 6" per hundred yards ,12 @200/24" @ 400 and so on and find it difficult but doable with my C Sharps and long range vernier and my aging eyes even with new glasses .Can"t imagine shooting smaller being hobbyist/amateur ,but it is a challenge/Ed

[shafer44]

Edward, that is a pretty good suggestion. My 300 will be 18x19 and 400 22x19, so that is pretty close. I was wondering about the size for 200. Someone put up a gong at 100 that is 17 tall by 12-13 wide and I think that one should be at 200 and a 6 or 8" gong at 100.

[marlinman93]

Our club only has one dinger plate, and it's at 150 yds. The rest of our range is target holders out to 1,000 yds., so we have to shoot paper. Not an issue usually, but it's tough to spot holes over 500 yds. Our 150 yd. dinger is 8", and not a problem seeing with iron sights when it's painted white. The background is dark, so if it gets dingy or painted black it's tough to center sights on it. I use the 150 dinger to sight in my old single shots for hunting season.
I think Edward's 6" per 100 yd. is a good scale.

[shafer44]

Well, I finally cut the plate steel in 2 pieces and took them to the range where the range officer helped me hang them. Man, the 19 x18 one weighed about 70# and the 19x22 was about 90#. They are heavy!! After hanging them, I could not stand it, I had to shoot at them. Of course during the week, no one else was there to spot. I shot at the 150m gong and was still on target with it and then adjusted my Vernier tang mid-range sight supposedly to 300m. I used QuickLoad and then imported into QuickTarget and the table said +80 clicks to get from 150 to 300m. I fired probably 6 shots and never saw dirt fly from the berm or anything, so I gave up and moved back to 150m. Yesterday, being a weekend day, I went out figuring someone would be there and we could take turns spotting for each other. There was finally 2 guys that were shooting an AK-47 type rifle, resting it on the banana clip...lol. Those poor guys could not even hit the 14x17 gong at 150, but about 1 in 10 times. I let them use my sand bags and they finally hit it more consistently. I shot once at 150m to make sure it was still on and hit the gong. Then I moved the sight(setting at 150m was 1/4") to 1" +1 line, which should have been 80 MOA movement as QT said. I let them use my spotting scope and nothing, nothing and on the third shot, the guy said I hit at the very top of the berm. I could not believe that, so I moved back to 150m, shot and was 1 ft below the top of that berm, I moved the sight down until it was at 1/2" and then it was about 2 ft high. I moved back to 300m and then hit beside it twice and finally the third shot hit the gong. I hit it a couple more times and then they had to leave. When I got home, I went back to QuickTarget, called my new friend at LSStuff, Glenn, who is very familiar with Quickload and he stepped me thru everything. There was a sight adjustment tab that I never saw that had 0.36" per click, so when I changed it to 1" per click, then QT told me 25 clicks, which was just about what I had moved. I truly felt like a dummy....I moved the sight 3 times what I should have. It would sure help to have someone else shooting creedmoor type sights, but all the other guys are into the long range scoped rifle shooting. Oh, well, lesson learned. I am still getting used to shooting these mortar rounds. I have never shot rifles that drop 2 ft between 150m and 300m.

[marlinman93]

I have an old sight card I found in some papers that came with a Ballard rifle I purchased. I had no idea what the marks on the Ballard Long Range sight might be in MOA, so had been guessing mostly. The lowest setting was for 200 yds. and said 43. The 300 was 66, and 400 was 80. It went close to around 15 per 100 yds., but not exactly. Once it got to 700 yds. that stopped, and 700 was 111, but 800 was 128, and 900 was 147, 1000 was 168.
But whoever had made up the card, and whatever caliber Ballard it was for had gotten pretty close! It puts me in the ballpark for both my .40-90 Ballard, and my .44-100 Ballard.

[Jackpine]

I find that a bulls eye, 5 to 6inches at 100 yards, scaled out to what ever the distance is, is generally ideal, so for me cutting your steel in half would be perfect. The other big factor mentioned earlier, is the color and background of the target. Given the right contrast and light, a target half sized of what I mentioned may stand out like a beacon, and in the other extreme of contrast and conditions, may totally wash out. If you said what direction your range faced, I missed it, but contrast and visibility can vary greatly from am to pm, especially if not north facing, making the bigger target all the better.

Jackpine

[shafer44]

Well, my quickload quicktarget was a lot more on the money today. It has sight correction in clicks, which I changed to be 1" since the small scale part of the Vernier is 1". The sight I have has 4 small lines, then the 5th is 1/4", then 4 small lines and the 5th 1/2". I have it sighted in at 150m, so quickload target said take the 150m setting (1/4") and add 25 clicks for 300m, so I moved it to 1/2" and shot and had to add about 3 inches or 3 small divisions on the left part of the sight and then hit at 300m. I next went to 400m and QL said add 45 clicks, so I moved to another 20 clicks or points and it was on enough that I hit that gong. Then I moved to 500m and it said to add another 20 for that, but I had to add 23. I did not manage to hit the 18x24 at 500 today, but I scared it.
so, with a sharps 45-70, 32" barrel, 520gr Postell bullet, loaded at 1175 fps the chart said
zero at 150m.....1/4"
no gong at 200m
300m (328yds) add 25 clicks or points (took 28)
400m (437 yds) add 20 clicks or points
500m (546 yds) add 20 clicks or points (took 23

oh, and the gongs are painted black against our light tan colored berm and stands out quite well. Our range we shoot straight south.

[marlinman93]

Gongs stand out well on light colored background, but black sights wont show up well on a black gong for my eyes. White works best for me to see my sights, and the gong.

[shafer44]

yeah, I painted the gongs white and then the range officer took his can of black and coated them black. There are mostly scope shooters out at the range and they paint the gongs black along with the chain or strap that they hang by. Those scoped idiots shoot the chains and straps just to see them fall. I would rather them be white....but, I did not have a say in it. Oh, well. The black does stand out good for me, but like you say, the black sights against black is not so good, but at 3,4 and 500 meters, the sight is a lot larger than the gong anyway. I recently changed front aperature to the cross hair that I took a little painters brush and coated the cross hairs a little to make them stand out more. The very fine one that came with the sight was so thin that I had a lot of trouble trying it at first. Now, with the hairs a little thicker, it makes it a lot better. I like the cross hairs for gong shooting and the lollipop for shooting round paper target black centers.

[marlinman93]

When I first shot my Ballard Pacific in .40-85 Ballard it had the original combination globe front sight. I thought the thin post inside the little globe would be just the ticket for longer distances. I sighted in the gun at 100 and 200 yds., and it was very nice. But them I loaded up 60 rds. of ammo and took it to our long range shoot. It was pitiful, as the very thin wire like post simply disappeared on the sidehill at even 400 yds.!
Fortunately a friend took pity and removed his front sight off one of his Rolling Block rifles, and I installed it on my Ballard. Day and night difference, and I could see his .045" post even out to 990 yds. on the mostly dirt and sagebrush background.
My Pacific is still sitting since late July with no front sight. Haven't got one like my friend's and don't want to put the old one back on it. Those combination sights are very collectible, but not what I want for a great sight picture!

[shafer44]

I have never tried the post in my aperature set, may give it a go some day. The thickened xhairs show very well for me out to 500m and that is as far as we can shoot at our range, so I don't have a need for a different one right now.

[Chill Wills]

I have an old sight card I found in some papers that came with a Ballard rifle I purchased. I had no idea what the marks on the Ballard Long Range sight might be in MOA, so had been guessing mostly. The lowest setting was for 200 yds. and said 43. The 300 was 66, and 400 was 80. It went close to around 15 per 100 yds., but not exactly. Once it got to 700 yds. that stopped, and 700 was 111, but 800 was 128, and 900 was 147, 1000 was 168.
But whoever had made up the card, and whatever caliber Ballard it was for had gotten pretty close! It puts me in the ballpark for both my .40-90 Ballard, and my .44-100 Ballard.

Boy - that sure sounds like the delta for the sight being a vernier scale; ten thousandths movement being about moa.
That is moving just like it should for that kind of rifle and chambering.

[Chill Wills]

I have never tried the post in my aperature set, may give it a go some day. The thickened xhairs show very well for me out to 500m and that is as far as we can shoot at our range, so I don't have a need for a different one right now.

An aperture, for most of us, as in a larger, round, with a kinda thick ringed annulus (aperture) and old eyes work best for most target rifle needs, white or black targets. Try it sometime. Check out Distant Thunder web-site for great front sight inserts for older eyes. or any eyes for that mater.

(annulus - a ring-shaped object, structure, or region.)

[country gent]

Keep in mind you don't want to make it a "seeing" contest but a shooting contest. When painted a gong does show hits very well and group size can be seen. A gong that's hard to see induces a lot of strain and becomes more a seeing contest than a shooting contest.

[shafer44]

I just have to say that a 24" tall x 18" wide gong or actually just a rectangular fixed metal plate at 500m in itself is very small. And regardless of which sight, you have to be able to see the target before you can shoot it. I am happy that they let me put up MY SIZE gongs the other day. It gets boring to shoot holes in paper. We have one of the ranges that has 100yds, 200yds and if you are lucky enough to get one of the 2 end shooting rests, you can shoot 300 and 500 off the benches here, but those are taken almost every time I go out. I also wish we did not have so many members, but living in a city with 150K and a sister city 20 miles away with 160K means there are going to be lots of members.

[marlinman93]

Keep in mind you don't want to make it a "seeing" contest but a shooting contest. When painted a gong does show hits very well and group size can be seen. A gong that's hard to see induces a lot of strain and becomes more a seeing contest than a shooting contest.

Good luck seeing hits at very long distances! And especially so if you're shooting very many people on the same gong! Even my much loved Kowa scope wont show hits beyond 650 yds. well enough to discern easily. And considering how long it takes to walk to 650 yds. or beyond, and halt all shooting during that time; we paint once in the morning and not again all day.

[marlinman93]

I just have to say that a 24" tall x 18" wide gong or actually just a rectangular fixed metal plate at 500m in itself is very small. And regardless of which sight, you have to be able to see the target before you can shoot it. I am happy that they let me put up MY SIZE gongs the other day. It gets boring to shoot holes in paper. We have one of the ranges that has 100yds, 200yds and if you are lucky enough to get one of the 2 end shooting rests, you can shoot 300 and 500 off the benches here, but those are taken almost every time I go out. I also wish we did not have so many members, but living in a city with 150K and a sister city 20 miles away with 160K means there are going to be lots of members.

Besides those gongs give such a nice tone to tell you if you hit or miss! And I love the time lapse it takes from firing to the sound coming back too! Especially as you get out farther with old single shots that leave the bore around 1350 fps!

[shafer44]

yeah on the sound when you hit. Last weekend, when I finally saw what I was doing wrong with the sight adjustment, I finally starting seeing my shots hit the dirt when I missed, so that made it a lot easier to "dial in". It is impossible to know where you hit if you can't see the dirt fly. Anyway, I was shooting and my new friends that were spotting and were talking to me, so I pulled my earmuffs back a little to hear them and some guy 15ft from me let one go from his M1 Garrand. It has been a week and my right ear still has a ringing to it. The next thing I did was to order a pair of earmuffs that has the sound amplifier. Today, I shot with those and man, what a difference! First, no worrying about someone shooting when I was not prepared, second, when I hit the gongs.....I heard it. That makes shooting so much more enjoyable to hear your shot hit something. I am still not there yet....to 500m, but I am hitting pretty consistently at 300m. As a long time "scoped" rifle shooter, it is learning all over, especially with the Vernier tang sight and spirit globe front. There were a couple of really nice guys shooting scoped rifles today and they were nice, but not very good of a shot. They were having trouble hitting a 14x17 gong at 150m...., there is also a fixed 9x9 metal plate, so every now and then I had to switch my sight back to 150m and shoot it for them. They were really kind of funny, as they admitted not being able to shoot that well. I don't think they started off at the paper range, to get their scopes tuned in. Oh, well. I let them shoot the Sharps and one of them hit it 2 out of 3.....said he may have to get a Sharps soon. Shooting is a sport that I really enjoy, but hanging out shooting with others that like it as much as me just makes it that much more fun. I too like the fact that when I shoot that 1175fps 520gr bullet, I squeeze the trigger, and then look to see if it hit, and then hear the sound.

[marlinman93]

It's always a problem shooting long range if you can't see bullet impact, or your spotter can't see it. I've often moved off the target and picked an object on the hillside or berm to shoot at instead. Sometimes that will give me a better indication of bullet impact and allow me to know where it's actually hitting. Then I can make sight adjustments to go back on the dingers and know where to aim.