Gamo Moving Target Airgun Training System

Shooting at life-sized targets shaped like quarry species, has long been an accepted way to hone marksmanship for when out in the field after the real thing. It has now become a sport in its own right, and there's the British Sporting Rifle Club based at Bisley dedicated to it, where they shoot deer targets at 100 metres and boar at 50 metres. Airgunners have obviously got many reactive targets to shoot at, and the sports of Field Target and HFT employ static vermin shaped faceplates on the targets. The Spanish airgun company Gamo have just come up with the one to beat though, and I can see it becoming very popular with individual shooters and clubs alike.

Practise Makes Perfect

The system has at its heart a device that is referred to in the instructions as the 'vehicle', and I suppose it's the easiest way to describe it really. The sturdy moulding houses the 6 C cell batteries that power the four, rubber tyre shod wheels, and the cradle that the deer silhouette is mounted on. The deer's steel plate body, complete with two tails (you'll see why later) pivots on a hinge, and there's a head facing left, and another facing right on similar hinges. At the front, there's an ON/OFF switch, and to the left of it is a speed controller, marked 1, 2, 3 and Random. The whole unit looks to be well designed and made, and rather ingenious to boot.

That's the 'deer' part of the system, now for the 'track'. This consists of 6 shaped stainless steel plates that lock together with plastic strips and clips. The front part is angled at 45 degrees, to deflect stray pellets down, and the back forms a trough that is hidden from view. Once joined, the track/wall is 6 feet long, with strong plastic end pieces. Self-adhesive metal plates are fixed to the upright front of the trough, to provide extra protection from stray pellets. Bent steel bars are fitted to both ends – these are for re-setting the target after a 'kill'. The vehicle's wheels are positioned on the track, with the battery compartment fitting into the trough. When the unit is turned on, it starts to travel left to right and back again. At the end of each run, the cradle hits the end piece of the track, which flips up the appropriate head, so that the deer is always running in the correct direction. As one of the heads flips up, the opposite end of the body is revealed to show one of the two tails that I mentioned earlier. When a direct hit occurs, the deer target falls back onto a micro switch that increases the speed of the unit, thereby resetting the faceplate quicker. Whoever came up with this target deserves a bonus, as it's pure genius.

The deer takes about 5 seconds to travel from one end to the other on the slowest setting, and around 3 seconds on the fastest. The slowest speed is plenty of time to take aim and shoot, without it being too easy, but at top speed it's another matter entirely! The target can obviously be placed at different distances to make things that bit trickier, or the random speed selector can be used. Gamo have printed a table on the box, which shows how different distances and pellet speed can relate to full bore calibres; this allows you to practice shooting deer with your airgun instead of your stalking rifle. I don't know how accurate this is, and it may just be a clever bit of marketing, but who cares when the target's such fun to shoot anyway?

Range Time

I took the assembled unit to my local club, and boy was it popular! At 30 yards it proved to be a challenging, enjoyable target to shoot at, and highly addictive. It's possible to work out how much lead is required when shooting on a specific speed setting, but the 'random' option is really tricky, and all the more fun because of it. The metal deer heads and body stood up well to the onslaught, as did the rest of the package, and I can see no problems with thousands of shots being fired at it. I expect the antlers will eventually bend from direct hits, but will be easily sorted with a bit of judicious bending. On the first outing, one of the nuts came off one of the body securing screws, which disappeared into the grass on the range. I'd probably not done it up tight enough, and it stopped the fun for the evening, which was a shame, as we were really getting into it. I later fitted a replacement nut with a drop of thread locking compound, and put some on the others while I was at it. I've since had no more problems. The target works best on level ground, but it might be easier to drill a hole in the bottom of each steel section, and screw the track to a length of timber. This way it could be placed on any surface and still work well.

Conclusion

The Gamo Moving Target System is well designed and constructed, and looks like it'll give years of use. It's good value at £120, and highly addictive. Extra track sections are available to increase the overall length. One word of warning though, if you buy one of these targets, make sure you've got plenty of pellets. For more details and stockists, call BSA on 0121 772 8543.