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Duraseal Spinner Target

Duraseal Spinner Target

You have probably gathered from my ramblings over the years that I am a serious long range varmint shooter. This not only involves live quarry species at extreme range with some weird wildcat calibres but also practise or just plain fun shooting at silhouette targets. I have used “steel”, cut out to mimic the size, shape but not body mass of quarry for decades now. The only problem is if they are not sufficiently thick or armoured you soon start to blow holes through them. My rabbit steels have all lost their ears and countless patching up has turned them into some strangely mutated bunny subspecies.

The other real pain is that sometimes a shot will knock over the steel and if that’s at 500 or 1000 yards it’s a pain to keep going downrange to reset it.

So happily help is at hand with a product called the Duraseal Spinner, a really useful target that I bought from BushWear in Scotland. These targets are self-sealing synthetic targets mounted on a steel hoop that spin when hit and are capable of taking hits from .17HMR right up to centrefire cartridges. That’s a big claim so I instantly took them out and started blasting. The targets come in two sizes, one is the double target with circle on top and diamond on the bottom while the other target is a prairie dog shape and would suit my needs far better. Although when they arrived the dog was actually half the size that I was expecting at 7 x 4 inches including tail, however this would make it even more challenging. If you scaled it up to our own rabbits then set it at 50 yards range it would actually be the equivalent of shooting at 100 yards.

Make Up

The Prairie dog is actually well sculptured with raised features and textured body although I am sure the day glow orange colour is not natural! It is just over 0.5 inches thick and made from a flexible substance called Duraseal which is a flexible rubber like substance that is crucially self sealing when hit which lets the bullet through with minimal damage to the target.  This target is about 80 % lighter than equivalent steel targets, cheaper and can be used over and over again. The minimum distance you can shoot it is 25 yards, so great for .22 rimfires, whilst .17 HMR or .22 Magnum and centrefire rifles the minimum distance is 50 yards. Air guns are not recommended as pellets can rebound off the Duraseal, I tried it and my dads green house is now minus one window pane!

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To set up the target to make it spin and then reset itself there is a simple counterweight (or pendulum) of alloy that slides onto a spur of Duraseal protruding from the bottom of the prairie dog. It’s a bit fiddly as it is on a dove tail joint for security and I would lay it flat and then “G” clamp it into place with compression. Now all you have to do is thread the supporting steel hoop through the target base and stick the two prongs of the hoop into the ground. The target will now self centre upright but when hit it is free to rotate around the hoop but self right itself due to the counterweight – simples!

Testing Shots

Set at 25 yards the target spun one revolution as the 22 rimfires hit it and after twenty shots I inspected the Duraseal for damage. Amazingly all that was evident was a small lead smear and pin hole on the entry hole with a slightly feather edge at the exit. Similarly the .17 HMR set at 50 yards produced the same results although some times the extra velocity actually failed to totally spin the target, but no matter as you still got a reaction to show a hit.
Next up were the centrefires. I lined up a .17 Rem RPA , .20 Satan RPA, .22-250, .243 and .308 and for good measure an extreme range 300 Remington Ultra Magnum rifle set for 1500 yard work, that’s my hooded crow rifle… yes, honest.

Repeated shots showed slightly bigger holes but the Duraseal had really taken the punishment even when shots were nearly on top of each other, only when they clipped the sides did small fragments of the material come loose. Again dependent on bullet type i.e. expanding or soft point the target would either totally spin several times or just rock back and forth. Trying to shoot this small target at 500 yards was great sport and 1000 yards was even more challenging and here I did have a few strikes on the steel hoop, but no matter as you can just bend it back to shape.

Conclusions

I really had great fun shooting these Duraseal Prairie dogs and will certainly order some double target versions and have them set up in Scotland across the fields to test my accuracy at ranges out to 1000 yards and beyond. They need little or no maintenance, they are non- resetting unless you hit the hoop support and I have yet to destroy my two yet and they have had hundreds of rounds (all sorts of calibres) through them. We now have the 1500 yards Duraseal challenge where you have five shots to make it spin, really good fun and it now saves on shooting a genuine haggis that we previously used! One thing to watch is that the hoop hole above the counterweight might need a little reaming out or light grease just to stop it sticking some times, other than that you can get excellent sport and value for money from this product.

For further details contact BushWear on 0845 226 0469. Prices are around £21 for the Prairie dog and £31 for the double target version.

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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  • Duraseal Spinner Target - image {image:count}

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