TargetTalk

When did the Olympic rapid fire target changed from "men (with head/arm/leg) to "torso" (no head/arm/leg) to just circles?

What near era did Olympic think shooting men is not political correct?

From memory the "head and legs" went in 1985 and we then went to the circular target in 1989.

seamaster wrote:When did the Olympic rapid fire target changed from "men (with head/arm/leg) to "torso" (no head/arm/leg) to just circles?

What near era did Olympic think shooting men is not political correct?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN8R5T3ODTU

Cornelius van Oyen was shooting "men" at Berlin 1936, wearing his Nazi iron cross insignia on his chest lapel.

http://sain.scaa.sk.ca/items/cornelius- ... n-olympics

more like 5 of those https://files.tofugu.com/articles/japan ... -anime.jpg

David Levene wrote:From memory the "head and legs" went in 1985 and we then went to the circular target in 1989.

David is correct, I first shot an international competition on 'dustbin lids' in January 1990. If I remember correctly David was also on that team.

Brian Girling wrote:

David Levene wrote:From memory the "head and legs" went in 1985 and we then went to the circular target in 1989.

David is correct, I first shot an international competition on 'dustbin lids' in January 1990. If I remember correctly David was also on that team.

I certainly was.

Could someone post examples of what the old targets looked like?

The tall ones are those used up until 1985, they were changed to the oblong target (less head and legs) you can see in the other picture, which lasted until 31.12.1988.

In the early days, until Berlin Olympics, rapid fire targets were actual man figures. It was men with old boy scout style hat figures.

The oblong rectangular target with oval rings is still used in German hunting competition (and, I believe, also in CISM rapid fire? but please correct me).

No, CISM uses the modern circular 1989 targets.

Thank you, Rune !

Read 'On Killing_ The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society' by Lt Col (Ret.) Dave Grossman for a great understanding of why modern armed forces train their soldiers using human-type targets, but youth groups such as 4H Shooting Sports train their students with bullseye-style targets, and forbid not only the use of human-like targets but also forbid their coaches from referring to the firearms as 'weapons'.

It's not about being politically correct, it's about getting the desired outcome for the different sets of trainees.

It _is_ about being politically correct and anally retentive. I will of course acknowledge everybody's right to refer to his or her weapons (armes, armas, Waffen, whatever) as "noble sophisticated implements of agonistic recreation", if s/he so pleases.
I shall continue to call mine by their name. So does the law. Everywhere.

Alexander

In most places, firearms laws are pretty stupid, so I wouldn't point to them for justification. In Massachusetts, all pistols are legally defined as "firearms". Rifles & shotguns are not "firearms."

The $2000 target pistols I shoot are NOT "weapons". They were not designed as such, nor intended for that use any more than a baseball bat is designed or sold to beat people to death. Yes, they can be used as weapons, but that doesn't make them one until they are (mis)used as such.

Gwhite wrote:In most places, firearms laws are pretty stupid, so I wouldn't point to them for justification. In Massachusetts, all pistols are legally defined as "firearms". Rifles & shotguns are not "firearms."

The $2000 target pistols I shoot are NOT "weapons". They were not designed as such, nor intended for that use any more than a baseball bat is designed or sold to beat people to death. Yes, they can be used as weapons, but that doesn't make them one until they are (mis)used as such.

I think that's exactly the point youth groups like 4H are trying to make. There are firearms that are recognized as weapons, and firearms (or bows, or air rifles etc) that are recognized as tools for marksmanship training. The exact same make and model of firearm might be useful in either discipline, but naming something has a power of its own, especially when training children, so 4H says to call a pistol or rifle a firearm, not a weapon, in their shooting sports programs. The intended use defines the device, at least for the purposes of their training program.

My dictionary defines 'weapon' as 'a thing designed or used for inflicting bodily harm or physical damage.' That could range from sticks and rocks to poison gas and nuclear bombs. It would include the many devices used by hunters, or used for self-defense, or for military purposes.

4H programs are mostly open to children from age 9 through 18. We might have a lot fewer parents bring their third-graders to a program called 'weapons training' in which the coach announces:
'Load. Aim your weapon at the human target. Commence Firing'.

In any event, I think ISSF made a mistake. Not in switching to the "meatball" target...but in not permitting horizontally turning targets when they did.

Think about it. The old "coffin" targets had to use a vertical turn axis, the aerodynamic drag and mass moments of inertia forced it. But it complicates the mechanism. The "meatball" can be set up on a single frame, pivoting horizontally.

These days? I'm convinced that ISSF needs to tweak the rules to support shot timers at the firing point...which means either a fixed time-of-flight to be subtracted from the time (i.e. shot timer set for 3.9 seconds), or eat the time of flight (shot fired at 4.00 seconds is OK). Measure time from the firing point, not the target. Knock the cost of a target bay down.