Our target shed at the SDM school was pretty rich and we had ALL the hostage targets and shit. No idea where we got all that shit from though. Anyway, anytime we pulled out the hostage targets and after all the scored shooting was over and it was just sort of a free fire practice, the guys would always shoot ragged holes and hundreds of rounds --all through the hostage and completely missing the bad guy. Smart asses even shot the hostage such a pass through would miss the bad guy. When we used the good guy/bad guy targets (some were cops, some were "bad guys" in the classic watch cap) they'd only shoot the cop targets and leave the bad guys.
At least they shot what they were aiming at and grouped well in general and that was the point. We never quite understood the psychology behind this but it was axiomatic regardless of the class.
Best targets though were these mannequins that were held up by a balloon in the head and one in the chest connected to a string. Pretty slick and in low light or smoke they looked pretty real too.
