Advise on Target Board and Scope Purchase

[Marina]

Hi there, 

The birthday of my boyfriend is coming and I thought of a target board and a night vision scope. 

I have a couple of questions and hope you can kindly help me with that. 

Regarding the target board: well shooting at boxes is soon annoying on many points (cleaning, destructed boxes, hard to see where he has shot). I saw in a video once some kind of electronic square board target made of sticky foam. As far as I understood it enables to see where one shoots on the display. Has anyone had any experience with that and could informe me on where to get one? 

Regarding the night scope vision:

Would you say it is a nice added value and actually an useful feature to have for air soft guns? Where does the price range start and where could I get one? 

If anything else pops up to your mind, I'd also love to receive your suggestions on any other nice thing to get for a air soft player. Knowing that both need to be delivered in Germany. 

Hope you can help me with that, many thanks in advance. 

 

[RR01]

Not heard of a target board before, but I would imagine something that clever would be expensive.  As for night vision, telescopic night vision scopes that are very good are in four figures (so probably above €1500.  The cheapest I've seen are about €350 and, whilst they work, are not that good. Probably a bit too expensive for airsoft, but fine if you are hunting game or pest species.

 

[Adolf Hamster]

There are various target types available, everything from simple boxes with a paper board to electronic popper style ones (think old school fairground shooting galleries).

As for night vision scopes its a tricky one. A gen 1 is going to be into the low-mid 3 figure range and tbh its of limited utility in airsoft. You need an ir torch to get any useful vision once it gets dark, and even then you end up with being able to see daylight through a drinking straw that will ruin your natural night vision rendering you blind when your not using the scope, so pretty much only useful on the defensive against an opponent that doesnt have night vision (because an ir torch is going to light you up to anyone else using night vision).

The gen 2 stuff is a lot better, good enough to be used without ir which can then be useful, but again in an airsoft context your better off with a helmet mount for movement rather than a rifle scope. Of course the price of these gets into 4 figures very fast.

Gen 3 is better still, but you can understand by now the price trend is getting much higher.

Nv is cool for sure, but its a lot of money to get good enough equipment to really be useful and if you dont play many night games then it's not worth it.

 

[Tommikka]

An electronic target system will be reasonably ‘simple’ for the electronics techie types or very expensive to buy.

Anything for sale will either be quite simple and just an electronic alternate to a self resetting or wire pull resetting basic target to a shooting gallery business style.

I had a go on one a couple of years ago, and there’s video on my IWAC Facebook (she’s not me - I’m behind the camera)

https://www.facebook.com/651246304985249/posts/1611213758988494

Our resident tech then told us that he had already made a prototype before, so would just need to build the target frame and a set of touch/hit reactive panels.

There’s a target system shown on a recent thread here:











Many years ago we ran a target gallery for an officers mess summer ball, they provided ‘pop up’ targets on a pulley control system - a weighted target that would be down by default, wires at the bottom running behind, through rubber hoses around the fence, and over to the front where we sat a guy popping random targets - the better they were doing the quicker he would pop up and down - and choose the smaller targets.

Reverse the weight ratio and targets will be up by default and can be reset by wire.

Also think outside of the box for choosing  targets.  Not just things to know down, but hang stuff up on strings - hit then once and when they are swinging they become harder to hit

 

[j22s]

Regarding the night scope vision:

Would you say it is a nice added value and actually an useful feature to have for air soft guns? Where does the price range start and where could I get one? 

If anything else pops up to your mind, I'd also love to receive your suggestions on any other nice thing to get for a air soft player. Knowing that both need to be delivered in Germany. 

Whoah... 3 points of caution, given this is for Germany:

1. Night vision and thermal imaging are heavily restricted compared to the UK (NV and thermal scopes are forbidden - no exceptions)
   
2. Use of NV or thermal to aim firearms is generally forbidden (Dual-use some exceptions for licensed hunters)
   
3. Afaik air soft guns are legally classed as firearms, thus mounting NV and IR illuminators on them get's you into really tricky territory real quick.
   

I'm not sure about 3, but I do know 1&2 because I've been deer stalking there.

I'd stay well away from all things NV until I got some sound legal advice on it.

 

[Adolf Hamster]

Damn, didnt notice the germany bit, that is a fair point about the legal status of nv over there.

 

[Marina]

Hello everyone, 

Thanks to all of you for your replies. 

I think I can sum up by saying that both ideas should be dropped ?

Concerning the night scope, after having a look as well, regulations are going to be tricky indeed. Regarding the quality/price ratio you indicated and the limited use he will make of it, I do not feel like it is worth it. 

Concerning the target board, it is mainly to use at home, just looking for an alternative to cardboard boxes. 

I am still very openned to related suggestions if you got yourself any nice gear recently that made your experience nicer. 

Thanks in any case for everything so far

 

[Heath]

Concerning the target board, it is mainly to use at home, just looking for an alternative to cardboard boxes. 

How about this?

They're wireless targets that can be programmed to pop up randomly, or in sequences, and drop down when hit. They're not cheap (€150 for 3, and you need the host one which they don't sell separately) but it's certainly an alternative. They're only available to pre-order at the moment though. 

 https://www.weapon762.com/search?controller=search&orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=stage+target&tm_submit_search=

 

[emilianoksa]

Hello everyone, 

Thanks to all of you for your replies. 

I think I can sum up by saying that both ideas should be dropped ?

Concerning the night scope, after having a look as well, regulations are going to be tricky indeed. Regarding the quality/price ratio you indicated and the limited use he will make of it, I do not feel like it is worth it. 

Concerning the target board, it is mainly to use at home, just looking for an alternative to cardboard boxes. 

I am still very openned to related suggestions if you got yourself any nice gear recently that made your experience nicer. 

Thanks in any case for everything so far

The Valor target box might interest you. Not cheap but under a hundred in most places.

Apparently it works very well both indoors and outdoors.

Sorry. Please ignore the first video.

Hoorah.