Action Target "PT Torso"

13 Nov 09

Action Target "PT Torso" steel rifle target:

During our Urban Rifle Course last weekend in UT, Action Target, headquartered locally, was kind enough to proved six copies of their new "PT Torso" steel rifle target.

It's a super-hard, steel torso, rated for rifle bullets, the size of an IPSC silhouette, mounted on a self-supporting stand and quadra-pod. It can easily be moved around the range, and presents the target to the shooter at the normal height of a standing person. The target portion itself it pitched slightly forward in order to deflect bullet-splash downward. Hardness is AR550, about as hard as steel gets!

Hits are distinguished from misses by the distinctive sound of the impact. We shot them between twenty and sixty meters from the line (the longest distance our particular range accommodated) and experienced no back-splash at all. Each student (of fifteen) fired eight-hundred rifle rounds over two days, mostly at the steel targets. So, each target was struck between 1,500 and 2,000 times (223, 308, 7.45x39). They were new when we started, and, at the end of two days, they were barely scratched, and no hint of warping! The only bullet making even a discernable mark was steel-core Russian ammunition in 5.45X39, from the single Kalashnikov in the Class.

The PT Torso is perfectly useable out to at least two-hundred meters, so long as impacts can be heard back at the line.

It was the first time I've used this particular AT product, and I now know enough to recommend it. At $300.00/copy, it's useable, durable, and much less expensive than electronics.

For an Advanced Urban Rifle Training Program (ever-popular these days) it is hard to beat.

Once again, Action Target provides us with something genuinely functional, reasonably priced, and elegantly simple.

Good show!

/John