Red Stitch Dueling Target: Grunt Ingenuity

So last week we got a call from an old friend of Slim’s, a character that was old friends with one of our handlers. They were Marine grunts together a few years back. This guy is out now (he was a Gunny) and runs Red Stitch Enterprises LLC. They’ve got some 6” dueling targets out and asked us to check ‘em out—the sheer brilliance of that simple request lies on too many levels for even a naked grunt to number (21, so we’re clear). We naturally agreed.

Anyway we yapped a bit about adult beverage consumption, good libo ports and this one time we overdid it in Colorado and woke up in a vomitrocious haze in a commercial building…typical grunt conversation. A couple days later the target arrived in a box addressed to the ‘World Tape Ball Champion’, which apparently was a nod to some sort of exotic grunt behavior. He’d just sent the target itself, rather than the entire stand, because we’d planned on just putting it up on a sawhorse until later down the road. Damn thing was packed in enough bubble wrap to mummify a Corpsman (if you wanted to). It’s a pretty simple design, just colored steel plates that swivel back and forth when they’re hit, but it works for a number of good drills. Here’s a snippet of the installation.

Slim and his handler took the target (AR400 steel), four 1 ½” deck screws, 2 large washers and an old sawhorse out to do a hasty set up and check it out. Over the next several hours they shot this thing from 20m out to about 50m, with 9mm, .40 and .45; mostly .40, and all of that from a Glock 22. The target held up well, performing as Darin from Red Stitch said, and never hung up or stalled. The only thing that might have stood some improvement was a little play between the target and the cylindrical piece of steel, which apparently developed sometime during the shooting. The bolts attached to it were slightly loose (though not hand loose).

Slim called Darin to ask about it, but was beaten to the punch. Darin asked him about the bolts. Apparently they’d identified and corrected that problem in by using lock washers and a little lock-tight instead of regular washers…something to do with all the vibration created by the impact of the rounds and the constant swiveling back and forth. As for the target, there wasn’t a dent at all. It just looked like someone had peppered the steel with a paintball gun (this was a dueling target for pistols—if you want one that can handle rifle ammo, you’ll want the AR500.

Here’s some video of it being shot back and forth.

All in all it’s an outstanding practice target; common sense in design and concept and very simple to assemble. Wish we’d have thought of it ourselves. As for Red Stitch Enterprises, they’re a Veteran Owned Business established by two former Marines with over 40 years combined experience. If you contact Red Stitch, ask for Darin. Tell him the Mad Duo sent you; if you can visit him in person, get a few beers in him and ask him about the “World Tape Ball Champ” thing.