Target rope

Abstract

The TARGET ROPE is a new and innovative target holder for shooting sports that enhances the pleasure of casual, informal, and rural target shooters, by reducing the effort and increasing the satisfaction shooters derive from their hobby. The TARGET ROPE employs modern synthetic materials to create the first new idea in target holders in decades. The inventor has conducted extensive testing under actual field conditions with a dozen or more witnesses. The shoot-through polyethylene sticks and the range of motion of the TARGET ROPE are an improvement over other target holders in terms of capacity, portability, durability and affordability. Capacity The TARGET ROPE has the capacity to hold multiple targets (sixty or more) on the standard twelve stick model. Portability The lightweight structure and portability of the TARGET ROPE, which weighs less than a pound, is so evident that the inventor feels obliged to demonstrate the durability of his product. The simplicity of implementation is almost instinctive to any coherent adult. Durability People who have observed the TARGET ROPE sticks resilience to projectile damage are astounded that such a slender stick can survive impact with projectiles wider than the stick itself. As evidence of the durability of the TARGET ROPE, the inventor has in his possession, a 6.35 mm wide stick that survived a nearly central piercing with a 7.62 mm wide hollow point projectile. This type of survivability has been demonstrated on every occasion of impact and has never failed. To date, no polyethylene stick has ever failed after more than one hundred intentional impacts and dozens of unintentional impacts. Projectile impacts cause damage to the sticks of the TARGET ROPE, but all impacted sticks have remained serviceable. These damaged sticks have been retained as substantiation of the durability of the TARGET ROPE design by the inventor. Affordability The simplicity of the TARGET ROPE lends itself to fast and simple manufacture and is very affordable. The intended price of the TARGET ROPE is twenty-five dollars in 2005.

1 . I, Glenn Brant Hensley, claim that I invented the TARGET ROPE, a versatile target holding device currently consisting of one or multiple sticks made of polyethylene plastic sticks suspended below a rope of parachute cord. The implementation of my invention is to tie the TARGET ROPE in a clothes line fashion in front of an adequate backstop. Clay pigeons or balloons can be suspended directly from the notches on the sticks of the TARGET ROPE. Additionally, paper targets can be clipped to the sticks of the TARGET ROPE with the provided small, black, grip-style binder clips and aluminum beverage cans can be suspended beneath the sticks of the TARGET ROPE with the provided modified chain link hooks. 
 A distinguishing characteristic of the TARGET ROPE is the fact that it is made of plastic sticks and nylon rope. No other such target holder has been discovered after a detailed search of print and electronic media of the shooting industry. Furthermore, the TARGET ROPE is the only target holder that weighs less than a pound and operates by being suspended in the fashion of a clothes line.    The TARGET ROPE is the only target holder versatile enough to hold aluminum beverage cans, various sizes of balloons, and clay pigeons, as well as standard size paper targets. The TARGET ROPE has the capacity to hold multiple targets (sixty or more) on the standard twelve stick model which weighs less than a pound. The plastic and nylon construction of the TARGET ROPE makes it virtually immune to the impact of stray bullets because it gives and moves upon impact, as opposed to the violent and potentially dangerous ricochets caused by projectiles impacting steel targets or steel target holders. The TARGET ROPE depends on its slim, compact design and incredibly durable materials instead of a mass of rigid metal or a bulky wooden frame, as is the case with common target holders. Furthermore, the ability of the TARGET ROPE to be tied above ground obstacles give it a wide range of applications in terrain that would obscure ordinary target holders that are set on or driven into the ground during use.