What's new

Texas Star Build Thread

I agree, the angle iron was a bad idea all the way around, if I make an updated version the arms will be AR500 flat plate for the reasons I detailed above.



That looks like a lot of fun...for someone with some, above average, skills. Unfortunately that person is not me and that target would probably drive me to an early grave :lmao:.

Gotta be super cool watching a talented person take that thing down though :smokin:
They use them on the pro 3 gun circuit. I've shot one in a local amateur match, and I got 'em all, but it took near all the 21 rounds I had in my G34. :laughing:
 
I think it would be fun to get a bunch of guys to try and shoot the double star as a group. See if you can get all 10 off at once, but also see who is going to shoot the same one as their buddy.
 
Got the rest of the targets in and made some updates to the hinge design to something a little more robust now that I have a better idea of what I'm working with.

I went with some 3/16" plate with 1/4" threaded holes on the plates so I could set a gap in the hinge and then lock it down with a jam nut to keep things moving freely. This also allowed room for the spring to fit freely in between the hinges and might allow room for a cable to remotely reset the targets down the line.

IMG_20231201_195346240.jpg
IMG_20231201_195417340.jpg


And the full star, will throw some lead at it tomorrow and see how everything works fully assembled.

IMG_20231202_164215248_HDR.jpg
 
Got the rest of the targets in and made some updates to the hinge design to something a little more robust now that I have a better idea of what I'm working with.

I went with some 3/16" plate with 1/4" threaded holes on the plates so I could set a gap in the hinge and then lock it down with a jam nut to keep things moving freely. This also allowed room for the spring to fit freely in between the hinges and might allow room for a cable to remotely reset the targets down the line.

IMG_20231201_195346240.jpg
IMG_20231201_195417340.jpg


And the full star, will throw some lead at it tomorrow and see how everything works fully assembled.

IMG_20231202_164215248_HDR.jpg
Try punching it to see how it spins
 
I got to practice with the completed star today, there are still some minor changes that would need to be made for it to run reliably but I'd say it's 80% there which for a prototype I'm very happy with.

Even with some minor issues this thing is just a blast to shoot at and I'm already seeing things I can improve as a shooter which was part of my goal of having a Texas Star. The second being to just have fun and it far exceeds those expectations!

Here's a real quick video of how fast it can go if you shoot the targets sequentially, I made it to 3 targets before it got to fast for me :grinpimp:



There are 2 things for me to do next:

1. See if I can make a remote reset function (parts for that are here, prototyping should start soon)
2. Build the second version with AR500 arms and stand so I can really start abusing it and see if my current hinge design has any long term reliability issues. (No rush on this step, I'll keep playing around with this version for a while)
 
Top Back Refresh