On Oct 31, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Bob Camp wrote: > The gotcha is that the gong can move / twist when hit. The plate buried in > front of the electronics has to just sit there and take it. More energy > transfer to the anchored plate. > > I'm sure there are alloys that will get you under 1", the issue will be > making sure you have the right one...
Ah, good point. Also, it won't matter if the steel stops the bullet from penetrating if the shock turns the enclosed electronics and optics into powder. As an aside, when I bought my high power rifle rated steel gong target (which, sadly, I haven't taken for a test drive yet), I looked at pre-shot samples from about four different vendors who had displays at the gun show, and there was a noticeable difference in the steels that they used. The vendor I chose had little more than faint dimples surrounded by lead spatters where .308 rounds allegedly hit their target, while other vendors had substantial craters. Back to the topic at hand: If muzzle velocity and time of flight alone would provide enough data (*), then one possibility would be a downrange target with an attached transducer (piezo?) to register the bullet impact, with a wire pair going back to the shooting bench. In this case, the downrange sensor would be cheap to replace when it eventually fails, and all of the expensive/delicate stuff would be back at the shooting bench. (*) I haven't studied ballistic equations carefully enough yet to know whether this would provide enough information to estimate fun details like ballistic coefficient. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <[email protected]> Web page: http://www.nf6x.net/ GnuPG public key available from my web page. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
