Spinning targets offer a great target to shoot at without the hassle of setting them up all the time or resetting them between shots like knock over targets. These are great reactive targets for your garden or shooting range and can be a lot more fun than shooting paper.
Spinning targets (spinners) come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, buying the right one for you is important. They can be set up in minutes by sticking them in the ground or set up permanently by screwing them into trees, walls, shed or posts.
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Spinning Target Safety
Because of the nature of spinning targets it’s important that you have a strong and suitable backstop to catch pellets that may miss and continue traveling in your garden or rifle range. Do not attach these to fence panels, boundary fences or anything else that offers no real protection for the occasional miss.
Best Spinning Targets for air Rifles
That’s fun, but the most useful part of this product is it fits in my ruck sack which I take on hunting trips and it simply folds out and it’s ready to shoot. It’s so useful on hunting trips as it allows me to quickly check my zero before heading out to shoot quarry.
This target is ideal for someone’s garden where you may not be allowed to set up targets permanently. It takes 2 seconds to fold out and put away. It stores perfectly flat so it takes up no room in your shed.
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I ended up putting them inside my shed, when I wanted to shoot I would open the door and they were screwed into the back wall on brackets I made up with a 5mm steel backstop. I would shoot them from my kitchen window so neighbours could not see me and it also helped keep the noise inside. It was brilliant.
These targets are great value and are still working like new 5 years later. For what they cost me I am stunned, they are one of my best purchases in all my years shooting.
They are what they are, bits of metal and a screw but for a few quid each I love them.
They are what they are and work fine. These screw into things such as sheds, posts, walls and trees. They blend in quite well, I tend to repaint them with cheap spray paint once a week so I can see pellet strikes for find tuning but they work exactly as you would expect and offer great value for the price point.
I have a friend who bought one of these who has to screw it in at his allotment every time he goes, he ended up replacing the screw shortly after purchase as it was soft and quickly got chewed up. That’s not a surprise but if you have to set targets up every time consider a different type of target or screw this to a small post you can poke into the ground instead.
I also had an issue where it poked a hole through the bottom of my hunting pack, but that could be my own fault. The pokey end of this is very sharp which is a good thing for what it does.
The target is a great option for hiding inbetween garden flower beds or hunting for all but those winter months. It’s not very good for concrete though so if you have a paved garden it may not be for you.
If you want screw in targets like this get the Jack Pyke multipack above. I feel bad for saying this as the Gr8Fun products are better made and also made in Britain but for something this simple go with the cheaper target set. You could get multiple Jack Pyke sets for what these will cost.
Spend the extra on pellets, or just buy more targets. This 5 set does come in multiple sizes though which is a nice feature.
It’s a competition, by shooting the spinners on the side the Gamo logo in the middle moves. The first person to move their logo to the opposite end wins. This can bring out the inner competitor in anyone, particularly when tactics begin to play. If you can make your target move you can also make your competitors move in the opposite direction…
This is a game of skill, accuracy and speed are important. It’s great fun though, highly recommended if you have friends to shoot it with.
My main problem with this is the spinning targets themselves are welded (poorly) to the arm that holds them which are separated by further blobs of poor welding. This was built for a price and it’s immediately obvious. The target lasted me less than a year before the welds started to fail, targets came off their stems and also travelled next to each other and got tangled up.
The discs are also quite big, it’s really not much of a challenge to his things this big. This is one to avoid.
Spinning Target Backstops
If you’re looking to buy some of these targets for your back garden it’s important to know the safety aspects and legal side to shooting at home. This guide from BASC covers all of the basics from building a back stop to knowing what you can and can’t legally do.
It’s great information. Thinking about where your pellets go after missing is extremely important when setting up some permanent targets like the screw in spinners listed above. A solid backstop is required and learning to make a silent backstop might just keep your neighbours friendly.
As listed in the article spinning targets have safety concerns as the pellets can go at almost any direction after striking the target. It’s best that these targets are placed in boxes which stop this, or even outbuildings like sheds or garages.
The backstop you can see above is a simple solution made from 5 paving slabs which you can probably find for free on gumtree or facebook and a £2 bag of sand from B and Q. It should contain every pellet that enters it extremely quietly as the sand will absorb all the energy of the pellet.
It’s a good idea to prolong the life of the sand bag by taping over holes, or you can just replace it. These sand bags are just a few quid.
Another option might be to utilise an old bookcase or shelving unit as my friend has below.
This was an old bookcase from his parents house that they were clearing out. He removed a few shelves, modified the top so water doesn’t settle and placed thick rubber horse stall mats at the back to absorb pellet energy and reduce noise. It’s not as effective as sand for noise but it does a fantastic job of prevent stray pellets from exiting his property.
You can see he’s done a great job of adding a few spinning targets below, most of which I believe he made himself at work.