Best shooting targets for rifles: what works at rifle distance

Most target advice is written from a pistol bay, where you are seven to fifteen yards from the paper and can walk down to look at it between strings. Put the same target at a hundred yards and two things break at once: you cannot see where you hit, and you cannot see what you are aiming at either.

Rifle targets solve those two problems, and almost nothing else. That is why this page is organized around size, contrast and hit feedback rather than around standards and scoring rings. Our best shooting targets for pistols page covers the other case.

What changes at rifle distance

• Apparent size collapses. A 12 x 18 inch sheet at 100 yards subtends roughly what a 2 x 3 inch card does at 15. Everything on it has to be bigger or brighter to survive the trip.
• Walking downrange stops being free. At a pistol bay you check your group in thirty seconds. At a 100-yard line you wait for a cease-fire, walk two hundred yards round trip, and your session becomes about logistics.
• Groups get small and overlap. Five rifle rounds can land inside an inch. On a target with no hit indication you cannot separate them, and you certainly cannot tell which was the flyer.
• You need a reference, not a picture. Rifle shooting is mostly about whether the group moved, so a target with a grid, a scoring table or a repeatable aiming point earns its keep.

How we picked

Bench & Berm does not test gear, so nothing here is a measurement of ours. Picks are researched from published maker information and scored on the target rubric published on how we pick: hit visibility and feedback, indoor-range compatibility, size and standard, and pack contents and portability. Steel only ever qualifies when its maker publishes a minimum safe shooting distance.

Within the rubric, the rifle-specific weighting on this page is: published sheet dimensions first, then documented hit feedback, then whether the pack size makes a 100-round afternoon practical.

Size first

The simplest upgrade for rifle work is a bigger piece of paper, and it is also the cheapest. Birchwood Casey's Eze-Scorer BC27 is 23 x 35 inches, 100 targets to a pack, with what Birchwood Casey describes as a high-contrast green silhouette printed on brilliant white paper, a scoring table for recording hits and values, and a score card printed on the target itself.

Two honest caveats, both on its card. BC27 is Birchwood Casey's own B-27-style design rather than a target labeled B-27, so if a class or a qualification specifies a B-27, ask whether this counts. And 23 x 35 inches needs a backer that big, which is a real constraint at a range with 18-inch target carriers.

Seeing hits without walking downrange

This is the feature that changes a rifle session more than any other, and the reason a target named for handguns leads on contrast here. Birchwood Casey's Shoot-N-C 12 x 18 Handgun Trainer uses a self-adhesive coating that reveals a bright chartreuse ring around each hole, and it comes 5 targets with 110 pasters.

At a hundred yards a chartreuse ring on black is visible through an ordinary riflescope and often with the naked eye on a bright day, where a bare hole is not visible at all. That is the whole argument. You do not need a spotting scope, you do not need a cease-fire, and you can correct between shots rather than between strings.

Zeroing is a different job

Sighting in a scope is not practice, and it wants a different target. You need one unambiguous point to aim at, small enough that your aim is repeatable, with enough paper around it to find a first shot that lands four inches off.

Birchwood Casey's 6-inch Target Spots are built for this: self-adhesive, in what Birchwood Casey calls high-contrast radiant orange, 10 targets and 120 pasters to a pack. Stick one in the middle of a cardboard backer, and the orange circle gives you a crosshair reference while the brown cardboard around it shows you where the misses went.

Note the honest limit on that pick: the page we checked describes the color rather than how hits show. If you want documented hit feedback as well, that is the Shoot-N-C argument above.

Side by side

Published figures only, each linked to the maker page it came from.

Rifle steel has a hard floor

Steel is tempting for rifle work, because a plate at distance gives you an audible hit with no paper to change at all. It also has a distance requirement most new shooters cannot meet.

Champion's published steel warnings set "100 yards is the minimum shooting distance when using standard rifle ammunition under 2,500 fps upon impact and less than 3000 ft/lb of energy upon impact", and 250 yards for magnum class rifle ammunition under the same limits. Champion also recommends angling the shooting face down toward the ground, 10 to 20 degrees from vertical.

So: if your range's rifle line is 50 yards, steel is not a rifle option for you there. And Champion lists the ammunition its steel is not rated for, which for rifle shooters includes steel core, steel jacketed and bi-metal jacketed rounds, plus solid brass and solid copper bullets. A magnet on a loose round answers the first three in two seconds. Our best steel targets for beginners and steel target safe distance pages go through it properly.

What holds the target up

At rifle distance the stand matters more than it does up close, because wind has a longer lever on a tall frame and because a target you cannot see squarely is a target you cannot read.

• A 23 x 35 sheet needs a real backer. Cardboard on a 2x4 frame, or a commercial stand rated for a full-size target. Our best target stands page covers both, and DIY target stand covers building one.
• Staple, do not tape. Tape fails in wind and sun, and a corner flapping at 100 yards reads as a miss. A stapler lives in the range bag, which our what to put in a range bag page covers.
• Square the frame to the firing line. A target angled away reads smaller and distorts your group.

And check your range's rules before you arrive with a frame. Public agencies publish what is allowed: Georgia DNR's range rules and Florida FWC's range safety rules are two examples, and the NRA's gun safety rules make knowing your target and what lies beyond it a rule rather than a suggestion.

What to look for

1. Published sheet dimensions. For 100-yard work, bigger is better, and 23 x 35 inches is a size you can actually see.
2. Documented hit feedback. A splatter ring or color change beats a bare hole by a wide margin at distance. Look for the maker describing it, not just a bright color.
3. High contrast, stated by the maker. Birchwood Casey names radiant orange and high-contrast green; a dark target on buff paper is invisible at a hundred yards.
4. A scoring grid or table if you are tracking progress. The Eze-Scorer prints one on the sheet.
5. Pasters in the pack. Covering a small rifle group lets one sheet serve several strings, which matters when a round trip downrange costs you ten minutes.
6. For steel, a published minimum distance you can meet. One hundred yards for standard rifle is a floor, not a recommendation.

Beginner mistakes

• Using a pistol-size sheet at 100 yards. You will spend the session guessing where the shots went.
• Taping targets to a frame. Wind and sun defeat tape; staples do not.
• Zeroing on a busy target. Multiple bullseyes give you multiple places to have aimed, which is exactly what you do not want while sighting in.
• Buying steel without checking your rifle line length. Under 100 yards, rifle on steel is outside what Champion publishes.
• Shooting bi-metal or steel-core ammunition at steel. Champion lists both as not rated. Use a magnet.
• Throwing away a sheet after one string. Pasters exist, and rifle groups are small enough that a sheet has several lives.