Had a chance to shoot the Texas Star today.
What a blast. Lots of fun.

I used the shoot the top two plates and then quickly move to the bottom plates.

https://youtu.be/SmqKHGyPI3o

That looks like a lot of fun. Pretty challenging.

Looks like a blast to shoot!

They are fun. Wish they didn't cost so much.

Yep. Start at the top and work down. They are fun.

Very fun...had one of those on the shotgun portion of a 3 gun match. Hit it in the middle and shook 3 of the 5 plates off!

The Texas Star is the most challenging and enjoyable target I've ever used in both SASS and ICORE. A great training aid. Would like to have regular access to one.

Thanks for the great video.

The guy shooting it in the demo video was doing it wrong. Start at top and shoot highest targets first to prevent spinning it.

My club has one, but it's locked up between matches, would love to be able to shoot it any time I want.

 
The Texas star is fun, but also my nemesis. The best I've ever done is to clear it with one single stack magazine. I've seen several methods of shooting it, such as starting with the top two. One of our revolver guys starts on the middle left plate, leaves his gun in place and lets each plate rise into his sights. Not as fast, but effective if you hit each plate in turn. The top shooters I've seen usually have all of the plates gone before the thing is barely moving.

If you shoot it fast enough it doesn't matter where you start.

I used to advise some people at shotgun matches shooting pump shotguns, to start at the bottom and let them come to you.

Either way, if you don't clear it right off, the key is not to chase the plates. My club has two of them and we shoot them often, they're old hat now.

Yep, start at the top and work your way across and down...bery fast be mo betta The swinging plate racks will make your head spin. Even tougher to master, is that why it's the Polish plate rack?

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
 
The Texas star is fun, but also my nemesis. The best I've ever done is to clear it with one single stack magazine. I've seen several methods of shooting it, such as starting with the top two. One of our revolver guys starts on the middle left plate, leaves his gun in place and lets each plate rise into his sights. Not as fast, but effective if you hit each plate in turn. The top shooters I've seen usually have all of the plates gone before the thing is barely moving.

I’m afraid I have to agree

It is a lot of fun, but the fact that everyone has to stop and holster up so you can go down range and reset it keeps it from getting as much love as the plate rack or my personal nemesis, the spinner. That one is more of a challenge than the star for me and doesn’t need resetting.

Starting at the top is like shooting from the ladies "Tees". In our matches, they make us "man up" by painting two plates a different color and putting them at the two bottom positions, 7 o'clock and 5 o'clock, and make sure the wheel is completely stopped. On the buzzer, you MUST draw and hit either one of the bottom two plates first, before engaging any of the other targets. Sometimes this goes well, other times you can be left with a single plate that goes round-n-round without stopping. We call it a "death spiral" and it has eaten up more rounds than I care to count...but they are fun!

We shoot them often in Cowboy Action shooting.

Shooting it from stationary is easy!
You can set it up with a stick under one of the plates, a heavy weight on the arm of that plate, and a rope from the prop stick to an anchor. Put a pepper-popper so that when you shoot the pepper-popper and it falls, it knocks down the rope which pulls out the support stick and causes the Texas star to spin like an airplane propeller. Now that's a challenge!

Or the Death Star, where is spins but also pendulums back and forth...

 
I've shot it sometimes where the stage designer placed a non-threat or two in front of the Star. That is pretty low.

quote:

Originally posted by Arty:
Shooting it from stationary is easy!
You can set it up with a stick under one of the plates, a heavy weight on the arm of that plate, and a rope from the prop stick to an anchor. Put a pepper-popper so that when you shoot the pepper-popper and it falls, it knocks down the rope which pulls out the support stick and causes the Texas star to spin like an airplane propeller. Now that's a challenge!

It spins pretty freely. I tend to just reset it and give it a good spin before walking back and shooting it. It will spin for a good long time.

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
 
I've shot it sometimes where the stage designer placed a non-threat or two in front of the Star. That is pretty low.

Another fun one is a wall in front of it with only the bottom 20-25% visible. Guarantees lots of spinning.