Pop-Up Target Stand: Setup, Controls, and What Rounds Do to It

The pop-up target stand is a pressure-treated plywood stanchion that slips together with no hardware, with the same pop-out mechanism as the hostage rescue target mounted on its back and a 66 percent IPSC plastic silhouette on the arm. It ships in kits of four. A full-size 3/8 inch AR500 silhouette can sit inside the stand to protect the mechanism, and the two damage tests in the video show why: a stray round from the drill went through both sheets of plywood on a stand without steel, and a 9mm fired at a stand with steel stopped on the plate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lt6K9ka75A

Watch: These Targets Pop Up Randomly... Can You Hit Them? (19:53) on YouTube. The video covers the assembly, the remote, the laptop control, a four-target drill and the two damage tests.

What is in the kit

• Plywood side panels and two cross pieces, the lags, cut to slip together. Handles are cut into the sides for carrying.

• The pop-out mechanism, with the wall-mount bracket already fitted and batteries already in the remote.

• 66 percent IPSC corrugated plastic silhouettes. Any other shape works as long as its overall length matches a 66 percent IPSC, or it will show above the stand when it is down.

• The AR500 insert is optional. It is a full-size IPSC silhouette in 3/8 inch plate. The slot is 1/2 inch wide on purpose, so 1/2 inch steel will not fit. A locally bought square of 3/8 inch plate cut to the slot size does the same job.

The stand as it ships: plywood panels, the two lags, the mechanism and a stack of 66 percent IPSC plastic silhouettes.

Assembly

1. Slide the two lags into the slots in the side panels. They are identical and either one goes on either side.

2. Push the panels together. There is no hardware. If the wood has been wet or very dry it swells or shrinks, and a rubber mallet seats it.

3. If you are running the steel insert, drop it into the centre slot with the plate sloping down toward the front, so splash off a hit goes into the ground rather than up.

4. Slide the mechanism onto the bracket on the back panel, flick it on, and fit a silhouette to the arm.

5. Test it from the remote: target up, target down.

Slipped together, no hardware. The handles are for carrying it to its spot.

The mechanism slides onto a wall-mount bracket that is already fixed to the back panel.

At the end of the day the stanchions stay on the range and the mechanisms come off the brackets and go inside. On the next visit they slide back on.

What the steel does and does not protect

The mechanism uses motors and linkages twice the size of the hostage rescue target's, so a full silhouette rises clear of the stand and drops fully out of sight. The trade is that the AR500 insert does not cover the linkages in every position the way the hostage target's plate does. Straight on, the steel takes the hit. From a wide angle, a round can get past it. Set firing boxes so the shooting angles are known before the stands go out. Linkages are a wear part and swap out if they are hit.

The steel that sat inside the stand for the 9mm test. The plywood took the hole; the steel took the round.

Two shots in the video. Without the insert, the stray round went through both plywood sheets and into the backstop; had it been lower it would have hit the mechanism. With the insert, a 9mm went through the front sheet, stopped on the steel, and the splash stayed inside the sandwich. Treat the plywood as a consumable either way. Everything downrange gets shot eventually, and on a public range it happens sooner.

The remote

Same remote as the hostage rescue target. The joystick puts the target where you push it. Pressing the joystick button turns on a blue light and takes the safety limits off, which lets the arm swing far out to the side; that looks good and exposes the linkages, so leave the limits on for training. Bottom left is a pan, bottom right is straight up and down, top right is random positions with random delays. Top left records: hold it until the light flashes, move the target through the pattern, tap to finish, tap to play. The recording loops. The remote will not warn you when its battery is low. A blue light that will not come on, or a remote that simply stops, is the sign; four screws get you to the battery.

One remote per stand, or one laptop for all of them.

Running four stands from one laptop

With more than a few remotes in hand it stops being one person's job, and every shooter should get the same drill. The laptop control shows each target as a tile you drag around a map so the screen matches the range. The top bar drives all of them at once: up, down, pop, pan, random, stop. Each target can also be driven on its own, limits included. To build a drill, press record, run the targets through the sequence, stop, pull the timeline back to the start and run it. Every shooter then gets the same exposures in the same order.

The laptop view: four targets on a map of the range, a timeline above them, one record button.

Four stands, targets down. Nothing shows until the drill starts.

The drill in the video

Four stands across the range, a recorded pattern, five rounds in the magazine. All four targets rising together is the start signal; the rifle stays down until then. Each exposure is a double tap. Later runs used eight rounds with the same rule. The same stands work in a walking lane: targets spaced along the path, the shooter moving at the low ready, some targets rising and some staying down as they pass.

What it costs to keep running

• Plywood stanchions: consumable. Expect to replace them.

• Plastic silhouettes: consumable, same as any corrugated target.

• Linkages: a wear part, replaceable.

• The AR500 insert: buy it with the kit, or cut your own 3/8 inch plate to the slot.

The pop-out mechanism and its remote are the ones on the Hostage Rescue Target page, and the setup steps for that unit are in Hostage Rescue Target Setup: From the Box to First Shots. For the stands, call us for a quote on a kit of four.