Moving Turkey Head Shoot

[Carper]

Here is a little Southern Mountain Rifle I made around 89. I cut the rifles very narrow and deep. This little gun has won its weight in prizes. Some several years separate these photos. Looks like Dwayne won again today by the picture he sent me. That turkey head is on a pendulum and must be shot while moving on its arc. It’s harder than you think.

[Greg Pennell]

That looks like a lot of fun...I might build one for my backyard range. It’s nice living on your own “holler” !

Greg

[Darkhorse]

Could you give a description of how the pendulum is made? I'd like to make one for my range as it looks real interesting.
I've never shot a moving turkey head target but I did shoot a fixed one at 50 yards, just to get an idea if I could get one in the brain.

[Carper]

If you look in the photo where I am wearing the tan Carhartt you can see the base that is attached to a crib block.the base has a piece of steel channel welded to it sticking straight up about 15 “ high. Another picece of steel about 1/8 thick by 2”wide and a 28 or so long is attached with a center bolt like a pinwheel. The cardboard turkey head is attached at one end of this arm. A weight is attached to the other so the head when at rest is at 12 o’clock. To arm the target simply rotate the head to 6 oclock and make a “trigger” out of a length of dowel holdimg the arm in the upside down position. A long string goes back to the firing line. When it is pulled the out the arm starts spinning because of gravity and centrifugal force. To make it even more challenging about half of more of its travelled arc can be obscured by blocks, plywood “bushes, or it looks like they actually stuck a few pieces of brush into the ground in the photo. You can get pretty fancy with the trigger like putting a steel plate  with the string attached and when it falls the weight pulls the trigger. One person shoots the plate the other shoots the moving turkey which because of the obstructions you devised will after about three or four appearances hide itself from your sight. So you  can’t wait for it to stop because you can’t see it to shoot it. BTW the last time I shot this match the other shooters were kind enough to use their turkey calls at top blast to help with the shooters consentration.😂

[Daryl]

Tricky - elevation and windage.  Notice the group of low shots.

Adjusting the weight of the pendulum would adjust the speed of the swing.

[Carper]

Yes it’s harder to make a good hit than one might first guess. Those shots to the left are because of a tendency to lead the target too much. Which is what happens at first. The motion reached a point where the head just pops out from behind cover for just an instant. Sort of like shooting at a real turkey head. This shoot is usually timed to coincide with the start of spring gobbler season in the hills.

[Darkhorse]

Knowing the speed of your rifle's ignition, in my case a flintlock, would be vital for repeatable success also. And the ability to shoot accurately with both eyes open is almost a requirement.

[Daryl]

With clay's passing, I must slap the trigger after passing the bird 10" to 12" = poof!. 

With a caplock or modern gun, I slap the trigger when the muzzle 'touches' the bird = poof.

That is with a 1,000fps load of shot, not 1,600fps or more round ball from a rifle.

More equating to do - or practice at that game will work. 

Static holding (holding the rifle steady) and trying to shoot at something moving to your sights, is totally different.

[Carper]

Lots of missing occurs on this target

[Leatherbark]

Tell me about it LOL.  I missed the head last Saturday.  I did hit the cardboard though.  Some completely miss the whole thing.  I won this once by a hair.  I've missed it more by a mile.  Seems I do better at this target with a flintlock leading me to think I lead it too much with a cap popper gun.

Bob

[R.I.J.]

This looks like a must have for our smoothbore woodswalk event!  Since we cannot take turkeys with round balls I figure to count pellet holes in the kill zone. I am having a problem figuring out how to get the target to stop out of sight however. Can anyone help?

[Carper]

With the weight at the bottom of the pendulum the head always stops at 12 o’clock when it’s finished moving. Simply cut a piece of plywood shaped and painted like a cartoony looking bush and stand it up with one edge ubstructing the stationary and 12 o’clock turkey head. When the pendulum is relased and swings around in its arc only the part of the head that is not behind the bush  will be visible. You might have to make the bush out of something substantial enough to stop shot from shooting through it and then hitting the turkey head. Hope this helps

[Bill Paton]

Nicely designed and fun target, Johnny. It makes me wonder how many pounds of powder I would burn per hit. Up here, I only have to hit a moose standing broadside in its vitals. You turkey head-shot hunters using rifles are way beyond me.

Bill Paton, Anchorage, Alaska

[R.I.J.]

Carper, Thanks much. I believe that this will cause shooters to swear more that the rattle box does.

[smokinbuck]

Shot a similar match years ago, with rifles, and "lucked" one into the turkeys eye. Took home a nice handmade knife. Definitely a lot harder than it looks. Almost makes a rattle box easy, almost!
Mark

[recurve]

This was developed for traditional archery shoots(recurve ) but change the foam to playing cards or turkey head card board cut outs held with wood cloths pins and a thick board to protect the drill . The turkey is placed at 10-20 for archery BUT for gun 30-50 you place a card board behind turky body (so you can't see the next head coming up) as heads are hit they fly off till all heads are shot we timed the event, so fast reloading is  a must

for gun I would replace the turkey body(archery target) with a paper headless so the revolving heads would appear to popup (the speed of drill can be adjusted and reversed ) The clamp is how the speed was adjusted zip ties held the drill in place (or sand bag)

[EC121]

There is(or used to be) a meat shoot in Georgia that uses a geared down motor with a clay bird on two arms at about 70-80yds.  Back then it was $1 a shot for all the different things.  String cut at 25yds. for a ham.  Feather cut and ball split at 25 for bacon.  Tickets were sold at the scoring shed.  You gave the man your ticket and he turned on the motor.  It wasn't overly fast but it was behind a log to protect the motor.  The clay bird would pop up and travel in a low arc along the log and go back out of sight.  You got a frozen turkey if you hit it.  It was a challenge, but I saw a fellow with a T/C Hawken hit it about 9 times.  I went three for five.  At first, before you got your timing down, it was all you could you not to snatch the trigger right off the rifle when the bird came up.  Lots of fun.

[Jeff Murray]

this target looks like a hoot.  Years (many) ago the guys who ran the Mountain Man Aggregate at Friendship built a "split the ball on the ax" target with a swinging clay bird that moved back and forth in front of the ax blade.  If you timed your shot right you would shoot through the swinging bird and split your ball and break both birds sitting next to each side of the ax.  You got three shots for a possible 9 points.  That really spread out the scores.  The match drew more than usual number of spectators that year.