DIY Dfat/Iota targets "to scale" ***updated with formula in comments***

[4066.5]

I think I got the math right , but feel free to correct anything you see that's wrong.

I wanted to get some "to scale" images of targets at various ranges to practice when running through dry fire drills.

Found out that Excel works pretty good. Basically all I did was take the distance my dfat focuses at (12ft or 4 yards) and divided it by the distances that I wanted to practice at. This gets you a number that you use to divide your target size, and comes up with a the proper size of what that target would be "to scale" ...



Here's the meat and potatoes... Here's a chart that includes 1760, 1500, 1200,1000, 750, 500, 300 and 100 yards for target sizes 24", 18", 10", 6", and 3" viewed at 12ft.


You can use a set of calipers to draw your targets on a sheet, or if you want to get fancy, use Excel .


To use Excel first open up a sheet, select the "insert" tab, then click on the shapes box, draw a box, then go to the upper right and input the size.




If you want to get real fancy , take a picture of your range first , go to the insert tab and select "picture" then put in your picture ..

then so the same shit as above and you'll get some targets that are to scale ..for example here's a full size ipsc at 1 mile, 1000 and 500 on a Windows background photo


Only problem with Excel is it only goes down to the hundredth so it's not going to be super accurate, but then again, neither is my printer. Be sure to select "no scaling" in the settings when you go to print.

I'll post some pictures of my setup when I get home , but I'm procrastinating at work right now and thought some of you all could get a kick out of it.


You can also use Excel to print your own targets and such using. Pretty badass for little 22 targets and dot drills.

 

[jharms80439]

This is GREAT!

Just did it for our 1/4 scale 22LR match from ~45 yards out to ~230 yards.

Thank you for your work!

John

 

[4066.5]

There's been some PM's about the math used and "what if my focus distance is different?" so I'll try to explain here. Hopefully I'll keep it short, but Ive had a couple stiff drinks and more are pouring so no promises...

First of all... Think of this like MOA sized targets at various ranges, it helps to dumb it down since moa scaling on targets is second nature to a lot of us by now..

Someone posts up a cold bore shot at 1000yards with a 5" plate, that's fucking impressive. Alot more so then a 5" plate at 100 yards. Why?
Easy right? 5" @ 1000 is 0.5 MOA, 5" @ 100 is 5 MOA.

Well how did you do that? Your basing everything off of 100 yards. Then scaling it up or down ... It's the same thing for your focus distance.. but almost backwards.

To find MOA size of a Target at a distance you're really finding out how many "100's" are in 1000 first.
1000÷100= 10

Then your using that solution to find out how what MOA size that target is at 1000

So you do 5"÷ 10 which brings you to 0.5 MOA


So here's the formula.
A÷B= C
D÷C = what you draw.
A= distance to simulate
B = focus distance
D = actual target size of the stage your simulating


That's it .

Here's a bunch of examples because I'm drunk and my dog and wife are ignoring me



Distance to simulate = 100 yards ( call this A)

Focus distance= 4 yards (let's call this B)

You want to find how many of "B" makes up "A" ( sounds familiar right?)

so first is A÷B= 25 ( call this C)

Then let's say your target @ 100 yards you want to simulate is 1" (call this D)


D÷C= what your going to draw .

so it would be 1" ÷ 25 = 0.04"

Bingo, Bango, Bongo! You just found out what a 1MOA target looks like at 4 yards. 1 moa is 1 moa right? So you now got a 6" @600, a 17.6" at one mile, a 2" at 200 and a 0.5" at 50... Draw a dot or square or use Excel to make a 0.04" shape and you got yourself a 1moa Target at 4 yards.


Now that you know that, you can insert any distance that your day/ iota focuses at or any size target at any distance and come up with your own solutions ...

Another example using a different focusing distance and a real life scenario for target. This months NRL22 COF includes a 2.5" swinger off a ladder at 75 yards.


Distance target is at in the event = 75 yards (that's A)
Let's say your dfat focuses at 10.5' ... 10.5' = 3.5 yards (that's B)

So you plug in the numbers

75÷3.5= 21.43 (well actually 21.4285714286 but fuck that)

Target for ladder stage is a 2.5" swinger.
So then it's
2.5÷ 21.43 = ~0.117

Put a ladder up 10.5' away and practice the shit out of that stage .

Here's my ugly set up, still had it set up in the garage from running through stages earlier.

1 hour later.. dog and wife are still ignoring me, I'll continue.

Here's some tips for making targets and setting up a dry fire or dfat stage / area

-Go oo your local carwash and ask for empty drums that they get their soap in. Mine charged me 5$ but most give away for free .. Makes for a great barricade.

-Walmarts LED flood light works great and is I think around 10$ really makes the iota / dfst more clear

- I don't trust harbor freight for much , but when it comes to cheap sawhorses ( the adjustable one is badass) and cheap latter's, they are good for the range.

- mark off an area in the garage/ basement / living room where you're going to be setting it up and spend an hour so so fucking with your dfat where it focuses best.. then put a piece of tape or mark and measure where that is for prone, offhand, ECT. Plug in your numbers and your good to go.

- if you have Excel learn how to use it to do solutions ... Aka math problems ... Id be happy to talk people through this over the phone or through text/ pm but it really makes life easier. You can set up the formula and just punch in the numbers, giving you the correct size dot to draw ... But if you have Excel and a printer , it's much better to use the shape tool they have and just create shapes of that size .. ipsc, circle , squares, are all easy enough to do more accurately then you can draw.

- if you don't have Excel and don't want to pay Microsoft the insane amount of money they want for it , download Libre Office. It's free and just as good to do basic tasks. I have this as well and can walk people through it .

- YouTube is better then I am at explaining how to use the above two programs . Way better, just go to YouTube, or pm me. Besides work and shooting / hunting /fishing i have no life (like that's a bad thing...)



If you have any questions or corrections post them up or pm me. I'm a GED certified oil field guy and probably fucked up somewhere.

 

[4066.5]

This is GREAT!

Just did it for our 1/4 scale 22LR match from ~45 yards out to ~230 yards.

Thank you for your work!

John

I really appreciate the feedback man. Had a couple long night shifts and started thinking about how I can simulate stages for NRL22 events and stuff. Thought I'd share I thought i got it figured out. Really makes you appreciate offhand/ positional and time/ minimize your "wobble".

What I really want is to find out dimensions on different game animals and come up with scaled down drawings of those for my hunting rigs.

Check out the post I just did on this thread, really helps if yours doesn't focus quite the same and kinda explains it better

 

[jharms80439]

@4066.5,

First, based on your post above, you weren't drunk at all! Cogent response and better that I could do drinking.

Your post above (2nd post above) illustrates that I may have totally mucked up my sizes too - so I'll recheck all of my calculations again, especially after I receive my DFAT to get the focal length distance (right now it's calculated at 12 feet from the DS Precision website).

FWIW, I shot a 22 match on Saturday and while I haven't really shot much since back surgery back in July, I had good stages and stages that I sucked. I took lots of time to set up positions and missed many awkward shots - back did fine, but the lack of practice really showed up for me - especially positional shooting.

So... Since this was the last long range 22 steel shoot for the year and it doesn't start up again until April or so, I started really thinking/examining dry fire practice with my Tikka. Anyway, I sort of backed into the DFAT/IOTA device as a training aid. I bought one first, then started working on targets while it ships.

Regarding targets, first thing I did was back into your math, then it was off to Bing to understand your math (you did ask us to check it). Then I built up a spreadsheet for target sizes and distances for my own range - building in formulas that worked as I cut and pasted.

Once complete, I built up another tab for targets & distances, then I had to figure out sizes of chickens, turkeys, pigs, rams, crows, deer, antelope, coyotes, prairie dogs, etc. for all the animals and entered all the sizes for known targets - IPSC, scaled IPSC, diamonds, rounds, etc. Whew.

Once that was complete, I pulled out a "map" that I've been adding to for target location & yards on my iPad (at this particular match targets move, but most are generally in the same area/distance) and I started building the images in PowerPoint. Yes, I also first started with the downloaded DS Precision powerpoint and built my actual target/image in PowerPoint v. Excel - just know that it looks/acts/works the same as you did in Excel - including building the shapes and the process for sizing targets.

The first thing that I noticed when making the symbols in Excel and "dragging" them over to PowerPoint brings them across, but at the wrong size that was specified in Excel. Unsure why it does that though...

Sometime early afternoon yesterday, the complete range was built and I am now working on getting a photo of the range to insert behind all of the targets that I made. BTW, building the Hostage Racks was the most difficult and it wasn't that hard. The process itself, once I understood the math, built up the spreadsheet and found target sizes, isn't hard at all.

As an aside, at my office, I work off of a 42" 4K TV as my computer monitor. At sitting distance away, the targets "looked" like my range does as I'm standing in a shooting bay. It was easy to visualize and sort of stoked my desire to dry fire. Haven't received the DFAT yet, so I'll be waiting for a bit (come on brown truck!).

Next what I noticed is the when I built the PowerPoint targets, I "colored" them similar to what the steel targets actually are - i.e. brown for deer, antelope, PDs & coyotes, white for IPSC & a crow, a few red squares, black diamonds, & crows etc. Then I loaded up an image from DS Precision as a background. I COULDN'T FIND ~1/2 OF THE TARGETS - sometimes that is just like shooting a range for the first time, so I immediately re-colored most of the images in white. Know that I'll likely change them back, but it was a very curious experiment with how the targets blend into an image's background and become quite un-see-able on the computer screen.

FWIW, I'm willing to share the spreadsheet and the powerpoint if anyone wants it. Just PM me with your email and I'll send out what I have. I just ask that if you modify it, keep it, but if you add to it - i.e. animal sizes or target sizes, pass it back over to me and I'll update my master and redistribute it out with the new info to keep it as a perpetual project.

I also added several additional tabs for Mil and MOA targets sizes. Essentially I wanted to "know" how many Mils for a target. Most at people speak of a X MOA target at XXX yards. I know the math to convert and can usually do it in my head, but for my own edification, I added it.

Well, it's off to work for me. Hope your head's okay after drinking. Again, THANK YOU for putting this up - It saved me time and it will help me be a better shooter this Spring. MUCH appreciated...

John

 

[jharms80439]

@4066.5,

You posted your setup, so I'm posting mine in case it helps others with the possibilities of using the DFAT/IOTA device for dry fire practice.

First pic is an exported screen grab from PowerPoint - note that once I get an actual pic of the Erie, CO Green Mill range, I'll insert it. Also, the targets have moved from my original drawing in the second photo - but were current as of last Saturday's shoot.

I also need to confirm the actual range's chicken, pig, turkey & ram sizes as to whether they are full size or 1/4 size - well that plus what the scale is of the smaller versions of those same targets that are next to the larger versions. I truly don't know whether the larger ones are 1/4 scale and what scale the smaller versions are. I'll eventually correct in PowerPoint once I do know the scale.

Third and fourth pics are from my tripod barricade setup. From here I can do top of post, parapet, roof top, a "rope" rest and multiple barricades. Of course the tripod goes up/down and I can rotate the barricade to create more angles & holes.

At the last shoot, we used a sideways table with round steel tube legs to simulate a fence post/cross bar. I need practice with that obstacle too so I'll be building a steel pipe version of my tripod barricade setup in order to practice that too.

FWIW, if anyone is interested in building the tripod barricade setup, there is a thread here on SH on building one - and that's where I built mine from, though mine is a bit different as it is what I had on hand.

One last item - I bought some paracord to make the pulls on both the tripod and barricade setup. The original little pulls were a bit flimsy so they were replaced with more substantial ones in order to be easier to manipulate as well as to last longer.

BTW, I had never tied the knots in paracord, so that was a good skill to have in my pocket too (thank you YouTube). Since I learned the skill, I've replaced the pulls on many of my bags too. Just sayin'...

Hope all this helps!

John

 

[jharms80439]

One more for you all (please check me, but this is what if found via the inter webs). Some are rough guesses too (wind chime, hostage rack, prairie dogs, etc. Others are actual found data. Hostage rack heads started at 8"x5" as full size and scaled down from there. KYL is known and scaled accordingly.

FWIW, I did the Mil & MOA spreadsheet just for my own giggles. You all are likely all better than this than I am, I really just started long distance 22LR in June/July of 2019. Still learning - and I know that I need to practice more.

Also remember that I did this for a 22LR steel match/range - i.e. as a 25% of .308 - not for long distance PRS.

Here's the target size spreadsheet for Mils

Here's the target size spreadsheet for MOA

 

[Carlos0311B4]

Gooder Idea. Making some. Thanks for the info.