Why aren't smart reactive targets more prevalent?

[Skultas]

Hi

I was wondering whether the knowledgeable folk here might be able to give me some insight on the following!

It seems there is a range of different smart targets on the market but these don't appear to be particularly prevalent at either commercial or private shooting ranges. Below are just a few of the ones I found online, these offer certain advantages over traditional steel plinking targets but yet their adoption seems limited. Is there any particular reason for this lack of mainstream adoption?

I gather that it could be one or all of the following factors.

• The benefits of the system don't validate the higher price point
• These systems lack repeatability and so the scoring is in essence arbitrary
• Durability concerns
• Tedious maintenance e.g batteries etc

Super excited to hear your thoughts on this and thanks for the replies!

 

[lemaymiami]

I was in charge of training for a hundred man police department for a few years (years ago... ) and from my experience -it's purely a cost factor... There might be outfits with serious funding that can afford serious gear and the very real costs of keeping folks trained up and ready to go - but that was never our case. Just paying for quality ammo, competent instructors, and the serious manpower costs to keep a small force competent was often a struggle (and too often all we were able to do was meet annual state requirements..). .

Maybe Delta, Secret Service, or other high end outfit can have the latest in range gear - but that was never my reality... Still, if actual results are the measure we did pretty well with what we had - particularly in the area of officer survival... In my era (22 years 1973 to 1995..) we never had an officer wounded or killed on the job. Can't say that about off-duty stuff since we did have suicides and other mis-adventures...

By the way "officer survival" is much more about tactics and procedures than weapons skill.. How you go about dealing with very dangerous situations is very very important - and a key factor in reducing actual gunplay on the street (where the good guys don't always win...). Watching actual video of critical events (these days is there anywhere where someone isn't recording an incident?) I'm dismayed at the tactics I see in armed encounters... Looks to me that everything we learned the hard way in my era has been forgotten or ignored in training young folks to work our streets... This is just my opinion - take it or not...

 

[jmorris]

Cost is almost always the problem with new tech.

A shock sensor on the back of a steel target isn’t that expensive though, I generally trigger a trailer tail light though vs having a transmitter/receiver, as I have line of sight. Can even get it to work on cardboard targets.

I’d probably already have a https://autotrickler.com/pages/shotmarker but they were months out and after I felt the hundred dollar bills with my fingers, I decided I shoot a lot of stuff that’s not supersonic at the point of impact with the target.

So limitations are another. Like the low resolution of the ones you linked to, not very useful for someone that wants a higher degree of accuracy, pertaining to actual point of impact.

I have played with the free iTarget software, using paper and a laser “gun”. It’s pretty neat but also isn’t using a firearm.

 

[CapnMac]

The simple answer looks like this:

Now, as the prices drop on smarter, and/or reactives, they will be come more popular.

But, it's tough sledding for expensive targets on ranges, public or private.