JCN critiques cardboard targets

[Clusterfrack]

I still like the USPSA metric target with the Taran mod.

[Paul D]

I know, but we have to agree that the target is only good for a vertical face on person.
Because otherwise the same logic holds for the A-zone.
If someone is chin down or head turned to the side, "aim for the eyes" doesn't have the intended deep structure hit.

I think it applies the same way. Move the A zone to right over the ear hole. The medulla still sits on same equator of the head. With chin down, if you hit right between the eyes (which is still within the A zone target border) you will hit the medulla. Just like hunting animals; you just need to master a certain level of knowledge of anatomy and great marksmanship; and you can probably make a clean kill at any angle.

[Totem Polar]

I still like the USPSA metric target with the Taran mod.

That’s ‘tupid.

[Lost River]

I still like the USPSA metric target with the Taran mod.

I hear if you spend enough money they will even throw in a scented candle with the targets..

[Totem Polar]

I hear if you spend enough money they will even throw in a scented candle with the targets..

The reason that the zone is a different color and texture is that the targets are now scratch and sniff enabled.

[Clusterfrack]

But back on topic, I recall @Mr_White doing some cool cardboard origami to fold a metric target into a more 3D shape. It’s not a bad compromise.

[LittleLebowski]

I hear if you spend enough money they will even throw in a scented candle with the targets..

#GwynethTarget

[YVK]

The aorta in full frontal is only about 3cm in width, so not a great target.

Main PA is right next to it, they both have equal flow. You also have ascending aorta and then descending aorta, both in upper and mid chest and not overlapping each other. Left and right PAs are nearby and carry half of the output.


With my small experience in this subject, I would absolutely not try to figure where in CBD (see what I did here) zone the heart is. Human eye tends to go to the center of things. We've also been training to center punch stuff ad nauseum, dry fire, matches, etc. You punch through the sternum or close- there is a darn good chance that lights are going off in a few seconds. You hit a little high but still center - there is a C-spine right there. Good enough probability for me.

Incidentally, several GSW to the heart cases that I've been involved in, the entrance wound was not that close to the projection of the heart. Last one the dude was taken to OR for laparotomy before they figured he needed two patches on his heart.

[RevolverRob]

I was assuming that the cardboard target is a human with all the fleshy parts (it has ears!) so that the shoulders on the outline of that target includes all the traps and deltoids above the skeleton.
The point is that it's hard to guess what they were thinking of in terms of anatomy, but at the very least, the B zone should be flipped to the lower part of their C zone.

@DanM

Here is a male model superimposed.

I did a couple different scales whether you match the head or the torso size.
I did anchor based on the face T-zone.

Attachment 67393Attachment 67394

Again matching by T-zone, that's where I get the heart on the X-ray.
Attachment 67395

Even if I squash the skeleton image down to try and match shoulders, the circle is still too high.

Attachment 67396

You're going the wrong way.

Take the target and deform it to fit the shoulders and wrap the torso on your model. You're going to find the B and C zones deform nicely to correspond to the heart on average.

The reason I say this is because humans aren't 2D but carboard targets are. If you deform the target and the. Reform you're just seeing the flattening of 3D-space.

If you want to mimic the effect of real humans in 2D, the easiest way is to simply angle the target (or shooter) or both.

Which I suppose is why I'm still an advocate for focusing on shooting progressively smaller targets for most shooters. Smaller targets both correspond to a scale of distance, but also the perspective shift of angle between shooter and target. Both tend to help shooters achieve higher levels of accuracy faster.

As for shooting people. Well some folks who have done that a time or two advocate putting bullets inti a relatively small area about the size of a B8 target held up over the heart/lungs. So I like to paste a B8 at the top of the A-zone on a USPSA Metric and drive on.

[Erick Gelhaus]

But to run with it, I always thought it'd be a great idea for more companies to sell stencils or decals to spray anatomic sub-targets onto standard IPSC / IDPA cardboard.
Hopefully something actually anatomic...

I very much look forward to seeing what you design, produce, and bring to market.