Modern targets/pellet catcher

[markvulture]

I am starting to hatch a plan to make a pellet catcher/target system. My thoughts are a somewhat over height pellet catcher, but 1metre wide. I could then use it to plink at cans etc in safety. the unit would have bolt on end caps and you could actually bolt multiples together. For use with Umarex CO2 pistols I could make turning/pop up targets or even link 2 units to give a 2metre run and 0.5m each end covered so I could make a running boar unit. My ultimate thoughts are use a front plate that has holes in it to hit knock down targets that are randomly flipped up or lit, controlled by a Raspberry Pi so the unit does the scoring and could even score according to how quickly the target is hit and to make them available at random. in a club/group environment no resetting/manual scoring less arguments and more shooting per hour! I am going to n=make it out of fairly chunky steel to see if that keeps the noise levels down, I will be experimenting with that soon, then getting a Pi and writing some code to get it to do what I want.
Anybody ever tried anything similar?

[Phil Russell]

Good idea ... but, and I hope I am not teaching granny to suck eggs ... do not use steel Bbs anywhere near a steel target. They will certainly bounce back.
Years ago I used some old Meccano to make a moving target, powered by a 12v motor (Meccano?) and a 12v train controller. Worked quite well but a bit unwieldy. I only used it for small paper targets (4" x 4"?).
Cheers, Phil

[NewPaul]

Sounds good, I'm liking it already

[markvulture]

Phil, BB's were not going to be part of the equation at all! Over the years I have learnt what ammo and what backstops bounce back/ricochet, mostly through personal experience! Beyond just having a moving target it should be easy to use the Pi to use pwm to give the target 2 different speeds just like the ISSF target discipline.