Talk:Metallic silhouette shooting

Targets sizes

Image caption: "Chicken, pig, turkey, and ram, scaled to appear as they would if placed at the correct distances from the shooter." Really? Chickens are as big as pigs? Explanation in article required if this is so. Thank youz. Huw Powell (talk) 06:52, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

If you take the width and height for each range (I'll use the full scale rifle for this), and convert those to minutes of arc (1 MOA is about 1.05" at 100 yards), you get the following sizes:

Silhouette angular sizes

	w (in)	h (in)	range (y)	w (MOA)	h (MOA)
chicken	13	11	200	6.24	5.28
pig	22	14	300	7.04	4.48
turkey	19	23	385	4.74	5.75
ram	32	27	500	6.14	5.18

So, yes, the chicken and ram are almost exactly the same size, in terms of angular width and height. The more distant targets are harder to hit because of increased effects of drop and wind drift at longer ranges. Since ranges are fixed, adjustable sights can cope with the drop for each range, so wind drift becomes a large factor. Since wind drift causes horizontal dispersion, the tall, narrow turkey is for most shooters the most challenging target.

I'm not quite sure at the moment how to stick that into the article, though. I think the current organization is less than ideal, and I think moving the target layouts up, and maybe splitting it. Since it was originally a high power rifle sport, I think covering the that layout first, and then going into the derivatives later in the article, might be the best approach. Then the topic of angular size can be established at the beginning, and later it can note that smaller scale targets are used to preserve the angular size at shorter ranges within a discipline (i.e. rifle and handgun use different angular scales, but most rifle variants use the about the same angular scale, most handgun variants use about the same angular scale). Any thoughts on that? scot (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Scot, thanks, I get it now, at least. So the reason for the different silhouettes is exactly to create "range" challenges, while having a consistent "size" (minutes of arc) target? So a shooter could just use different size bullseye-type targets at different distances to get the same challenge, but it wouldn't be as "realistic" ;) Thanks for the heads up on my talk page, by the way. Huw Powell (talk) 21:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that's pretty much it--the different "animals" are put at ranges to make them about the same size. However, the different shapes add to the challenge, like a simple, say, 5 minute arc round plate would not. The pig and ram, being wide, are more sensitive to vertical error, while the tall turkey is most sensitive to horizontal error. In addition to the range issues, the rams are stinkin' heavy, and they require a heavy bullet at high velocities to knock then down reliably. scot (talk) 21:42, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Very interesting. How come turkeys are bigger than pigs? Having not seen pigs in the wild, I guess I just wouldn't know. Although I do know turkeys are big birds! Huw Powell (talk) 00:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the turkeys are bigger than the pigs; my guess would be to alternate the "tall" and "wide" targets. Turkeys do get pretty big, and 23 inches high actually seems kinda small; record setting wild turkeys get to 25 or 30 pounds in the South Texas area. I have seen feral pigs, which are the predominant variety in the Americas (they're an imported species) and they tend to run on the small size, two to three feet long looks like it's about average (see here for Wisconsin feral pig hunting info). So the 22 inches from snout to tail is a bit on the small side, but not unreasonable--especially given that silhouette shooting comes from Mexico, and desert pigs are likely to be on the small side. This is all pure speculation of course; I've never seen any definitive history of the sport, other than a general consensus it evolved from origins in Mexico. scot (talk) 01:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That image showing MOA seems a bit, well, wrong. The chart showing all the targets are 5 MOA in height are a little... well, if the chicken target is 13" high and is at a distance of 100 yards for large bore pistol then it's almost exactly 13 MOA in height, not the 5 MOA that the chart shows. Unless the 5 MOA on the chart is intended to indicate that the center of mass of each specific target is 5 MOA, but in that case why would it be listed as a vertical scale on the left? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.190.21.154 (talk) 10:44, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Governing bodies section incomplete

While I can understand the decision not to include defunct organizations of only historical interest (such as the American Silhouette Association) the omission of any mention of the International Metallic Silhouette Shooting Union surprises me. While the IHMSA and NRA hold sway in the USA and the IHMSA also sanctions a few matches in Brazil and Australia (and New Zealand and Canada, iirc), IMSSU sanctions active matches in France, Finland, Czech Republic, and South Africa. IMSSU member organizations also include Austria, Australia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and Zimbabwe, though not all of them actively conduct competitions. For the world outside the USA, silhouette shooting generally means an IMSSU sanction. This is especially true for rifle shooters. Benenglish (talk) 01:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

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