Radar Guns

I have been setting traps using height and distance. Recently, members have been asking for traps to be set using a radar gun. I'm looking for any input about which gun to use, any tips on using a radar gun, that sort of thing. Thank you all for your help.

 

If you are interested I do have a Bushnell Velocity http://www.bushnell.com/spectator/outdoor-technology/velocity-speed-gun for sale. Used very little. Price is $70.00 shipped. If you have any questions PM me.

 

Get in touch with Bob Schultz, he is one of the advertisers and has a lot of experience with them ... He is a good guy ... That is a good deal that Ken posted also ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

Thank for the boost Bill. Mine is for sale because our club President bought a new one from Bob Schultz for around $400.00.

 

Did you notice any difference in target speed or distance with new radar gun. We use a small radar gun at are club. Use it right behind trap house to set speed. Also have stack to set distance.

 

The expensive radar gun shows speed in 1/10 increments while the Bushnell does not. Comparing the two on targets they run very close on the same speed from back of house to the 16 yard line. I would say it would be best to be used right behind trap house.

 

A gun reading to 1 MPH is just as good as one reading in tenths for setting targets.

If you use one of the low power (cheap) gun, you have to commit yourself to kneeling down right behind the house and holding the gun to take your speed readings. If you stand up (which is far more comfortable) you will set a target that is a lot faster than the rulebook requires them to be.

Here's a gun held at the roof of the traphouse and right behind it. It reads 44 MPH for a 50-yard target in still air.



But stand up, as this photo illustrates, and the reading you get will be four miles per hour slower, requiring you to speed up the target by almost 10%!



Here's a graphical representation of the intermediate heights.



Note also the inset. Some setters just lay the low-powered gun on the house. That's worse than standing up with these guns. In this test it read 5 MPH too slow which would lead to a target 5 MPH too fast.

All this is in the rulebook which has detailed instructions on how and where to use both low-power and high-power guns. If you get one of wither type, just follow the rulebook exactly and you will be fine, as will your shooters.

Yours in Sport,

N1H1

 

"either type, " not "wither type" which I can't change. Is everyone shackled as I am, with only eight minutes to make spelling changes or punctuation or that kind of thing? I suspect not. Could you come back and fix something?

Neil

 

The rule book gives height limits so your concerns should be limited to target speed for distance ..? WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

Neil you are getting a reflection/deflection off the roof at that angle, in the lower picture and it appears to be a metal/corrugated roof.


GB.....................DLS

 

WPT If speed and height are correct, the distance HAS TO BE RIGHT on level still air/no wind.

Yeppirs

GB..................................DLS

 

The Hill in the front of the Traphouses in Marietta, Ohio Requires/Demands a RADAR GUN to properly set Targets

GB......................................DLS

 

If my memory serves me correctly set your trap at 21 degrees and set your speed you will have a 50 yard target.

 

Longshot: "Neil you are getting a reflection/deflection off the roof at that angle, in the lower picture and it appears to be a metal/corrugated roof."

Reflection of what? It's a new house with a concrete roof which hadn't been painted yet. But that makes no difference, of course.

I've done multiple tests comparing low-power guns right down there, just peeking over the traphouse roof, and high-speed guns used at the 16 yard line and the speeds match well. If anything, the low-power Sport Radar 3400 from Bob Schultz long ago was as good or better at matching the speed reported by a multi-thousand-dollar Oehler 55 as the high-power guns were. But the others were always within one MPH and that's about as close as you can hope to be.

Still you have to take the speeds of several targets and you can't just take the fastest one and call that the speed. You have to do a bit of mental memory and arithmetic and come up with a fair estimate. The speeds, of course, will not always be all the same down to the 0.1 MPH the high-power guns but you can easily come up with an honest speed.

I personally think that expressing the measured speed of a group of targets is accurate to about a mile-per-hour, no closer than that.

Yours in Sport,

Neil

 

Get rid of the radar guns. Quit trying to make the targets perfect and taking the sport out of the game. Throw them a minimum of 52 yards and slow down the shells. No more pink targets for pussies.

 

As long as they don't try to register the targets, they can set them any way they want - or not set them all, for all I care. Likewise, if anyone wants to do the work to change the rules, the field is open to them.

N1H1

 

You don't want challenging targets?

 

52 yard targets are legal aren't they?

 

"FLIGHTS AND ANGLES Singles targets shall be thrown not less than 49 yards nor more than 51 yards. Distance measurements are on level ground in still air."

 

Jim/Canton
Sticking up for ATA rules the targets needs top be consistent no matter which trap or club you shoot at. There is some variance such as 48 to 52 yard and other. It is not 0 tolerance rules. Like Neil stated if you are not registering the target throw them how you want and the shooters will decide if they want to shoot them.

 

Neil
I thought that it was 48 to 52 yards not 49 to 51.

 

That's right off the website, Ken. It used to say what we both remember but no longer does.

Neil

 

So....you see a bird coming out and you think "damn that's a 52 yarder. Turn that one down!" Can you turn down the 52 yard bird?

 

Thanks Neil.

 

Thank you all for the input. We have a level trap field, and this makes it easy to set for height and distance. I think I will borrow a gun from another club and compare the results. Thanks again and have a very happy new year.

 

Setting targets over a level field at a distance of 49 yds with less than straightaways from post one and five makes for the most breakable target. Unfortunately, not every trap range is granted such a luxury-especially here in the East. For the rest, the radar gun fills in the gap quite nicely.

 

Neil not answering?

 

99% of shooters cannot determine how close to the 50 yd. stake (if there is one) a target lands. I'm still waiting for the remaining 1% to show their faces.

 

When I did all the testing to verify chronographs and radar guns, Ollie, an observer stood at 50 yards and had 4 painted sticks laid out from the 50 forward or back. - one color per yard - and he radioed back where the target fell to an accuracy of half-a-yard.

Do I get inducted into the 1%?

I agree about the rest, by the way. I certainly can't do tell much from the shooting posts!

N1H1

 

Correction. The sticks were 6 feet long and 2 colors on each. So it was one color per three feet. Still it was possible to estimate to half-a-yard which we tested by having two observers rate the same targets to half-a-yard and got a good match. Still, we almost always threw at least 5 targets to get a reading. Then I'd dial on a turn or two and do it all again. That way we could draw a straight line relating speed to target-fall distance.



The results were very consistent, day-to-day.



as were the results from two brands of radar guns clocking the same target.



Sometimes just a few targets told us what we wanted to know. Are readings more consistent from inside the traphouse than from the 16 yard line? No they aren't. If anything, they are not as consistent.



People think that a radar gun reads the same speed every time, right down to 0.1 MPH. They don't, but a few targets will tell you the speed to the accuracy you need.

The target clocked from inside the house reads faster than one read from the 16 yard line, as does a chronograph. Your homework assignment is to figure out why. Clue: What is a radar gun reading? What does the number it shows "mean" about the flight of the target?

The speeds in the rulebook were the result of throwing thousands and thousands of targets all over the country, from Denver to the Gulf Coast winter and summer, Remington, White Flyer, & Midwest targets.

Yours in Sport,

N1H1

 

If a shooter is waiting until the target is at the 50/52 yard stake you are one of the few and far between shooters that I have seen over the years, and missing a lot of them ... See it, shoot it, makes a new pile of chips in front of the trap house ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

Sure, I can also make an exact determination of target fall distance by simply standing at the 50 yd. stake on level ground. Put me on the 16 yd line and ask me to say how far from the stake a target landed from 66 yds away and I'll be a member of the 1% club.

 

Your right. I shoot in a Pa. league, and very few traps are on level ground.