Every now and again, a package arrives at my door and to the best of my ability, I just cannot figure out where it came from. Most of the time, I bounce some emails around to the guys and we figure it out. But sometimes I put the thing away in a corner and forget about it. The Right Now Range that’s been sitting in my shop for three months is one of those things. It just showed up after Dan met the company owner at SHOT, I later found). I got busy. I totally forgot about it. And then I unearthed it, slapped myself in the head, and took it to the range. After a day of poking holes in it, I’m very pleasantly surprised . . .
Before I get started on what will perhaps be the most words that have ever been written about cardboard, a small disclaimer: yes, the Right Now Range is made of cardboard. I am aware that many a target stand can be cobbled together from whatever bits happen to be within arms reach. If you get to the end of this review and your only compulsion is to crap on someone’s idea, don’t. The product might not be for you, but it very well may be for someone else. The free market is going to sort it out.
Moving on, the Right Now Range is the most well-thought-out and engineered piece of cardboard I’ve ever laid hands on. It has a very broad bit of surface area with targets preprinted on it. Obviously, those don’t last long, but the cardboard is STOUT so you can continue to staple and tape fresh targets to your heart’s content.
Setup is a breeze provided you follow the instructions and is much easier than anything you’ve ever bought at IKEA. Assembly takes about five minutes and can be performed by one person, though I had help from my dad. He wasn’t keen on my insistence on taking photos of us like the ones that adorn the packaging. He was however extraordinarily keen on how well thought out and finished everything was.
The part that really seemed to get him was the top half. It has little elastic pieces for hanging cans as well as handy little spots for holding clay pigeons. Say what you will about our concstruction skills, but I’ve had hell trying to make a fixture that holds clays reliably. If the Right Now Folks just made an easy-to-set-up cardboard fixture to hold clays, I’d probably buy a couple on the spot.
Once complete, the whole unit is held in place with thick metal stakes driven into the ground, five of them in all. And once it’s set up, it bucks the wind and everything from .22LR to .300 BLK to 6.5 Creedmoor. I shot the hell out of it and it stayed upright.
Before we set it up, I asked my dad to take a guess at the price. He rubbed his chin and said, “Mmmmmm $20 + shipping and handling and I’d buy a couple.” Once we set it up, I pulled up the website for the Right Now Range and broke it to him that the actual cost was $29.99 + shipping. He looked it over a couple more times and said, “Borderline worth it. It’s very well made after all.” That’s about as rousing an endorsement as my father gives anything.
Overall Rating * * * * *
Even if it’s not for you this is a damn useful and fun item. I hope they find a way to get these into traditional retail stores as I see this as more of an impulse purchase than something you deliberately order off the internet. But if you find yourself wanting to do that, $29 plus shipping is a good deal. It’s an awesome little fixture that holds paper, fruit, clay pigeons, and cans. Buy it, set it up, and shoot stuff. How fun is that?
Now I just need a Texas ranch…
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/05/20/500000-acre-waggoner-ranch-in-texas-for-sale-for-725-million/
TTAG Ranch….
Kickstarter.
I’m in for $25.
I just bought the thing seen next to it, the green rebar connector bracket.
It is also slightly overpriced, but looks to be a very useful item that should pay off. Should have it any day now.
Got the rebar unit. Its good for metal and paper. just a little hard to carry far. I like it though.
I think your dad was right. Twenty bucks and free shipping for buying 3 or more sounds right.
I do have a couple clay pigeon holders, from tandemcross, they were ten bucks but I got them for half price. They are 7.99 right now. They are made of corrugated plastic, and hold 9 pigeons each. Having 2 makes it cool for letting 2 kids duel it out. The plastic holds up pretty well, at least with 22lr.
The Right Now Range looks like a great idea for plinking up at the cottage. I have some nice and nephews who might enjoy them.
I use those tandemcross pigeon holders for the same thing. Kids dueling. They love it both for pistols and for 100Y carbine. Never got so much use out of $15.
Oh those are cool! Gonna have to order a couple.
On sale right now for 7.99 http://www.tandemkross.com/Sale-Items_c_43.html
As I’ve gotten “older”, I find myself just not wanting to do/build certain things myself. I no longer change my own oil, perform the annual on my outboard, or do “difficult” home repairs. This is something I could definitely see purchasing if it were at Academy, or Bass Pro. Especially if I just wanted to take the wife, and kid out for an impromptu afternoon of plinking.
+1 …granted, I’m only 32 but with kids and a job it can be hard enough to find time for the hobby (shooting), so I’ve pretty much entirely stopped doing those sorts of things myself as well. As much as I used to love working on my own cars, doing household repair work, building target stands, etc, at the moment the time is worth too much and it’s too hard to get so I’m happy enough to pay somebody to change the oil and mow the lawn, etc… and a whole target stand system that snaps into place quickly and is ready-to-go for a couple hours of enjoyment definitely has its place also.
That said, if I actually lived on property on which I could shoot instead of having to travel to public land, I’d invest the time and would end up with something of a scaled-down Hikock45 steel range for sure.
I bought one a while back, then managed to arrive at BotW without it, was actually surprised they didn’t sell them! I am responsible, in fact, for the option to order more than one, when I went through the ordering process it wasn’t there (I planned to order 4) and I complained, it was there the next day. You didn’t mention that if you fail to completely destroy it, it breaks down again to shove in your truck and use again next week. I think the idea is spectacular, wish them well. I have a nephew with a ranch, I imagine I’ll give him a few for Xmas.
Not having a range in the back yard, but having to set up on BLM land, this looks like a great idea, especially given its lack of weight and price compared to a gong set up. Steel is great and lasts for a long time, but not if you have to drag it fifty or a hundred yards down range every time you want to shoot. Especially at my age, just like Red.
Boy, that’s the truth. I saw some steel for sale at TIFF last year that I purely loved, but I couldn’t imagine what I could do with it that would not have me breaking my back each time I wanted to bust a few caps, unless I set it up and left it, which did not seem smart. So they stayed where they were.
I’m going to add to the “if I saw it in a store” crowd.
This thing would be real handy for when I go to visit the in-laws on their land.
Hell, if it was on Amazon Prime, I’d just have it sent to their house before I went down.
Darn it, you had to bring up in-laws! My wife’s brother has a nice place for plinking, even a been for backstop, but targets are wanting.
This would be perfect.
Give them a while, they are trying! And open to suggestion!
They probably could get it stocked at the Amazon warehouses…
I hope they are petitioning Academy , Dick’s, etc…
Best luck to them…
That’s a pretty brilliant contraption. I’m tempted to say that I could build something a lot like it in my garage out of materials I already have…but how long would it take me? And would it work as well?
For $30 plus shipping I’d want it to last more than a couple/three range sessions (I’m cheap that way), but there’d still be a lot of fun in that 30 bucks.
…even though I’m not supposed to (city rules & regs), this would be cool to setup in the backyard for BB plinkin’.
As a person who sold corrugated boxes with a major mill, I take umbrage (means I”M OFFENDED) with folks saying 29 dollars is is too much to pay for a box die cut box. What’s the matter with you people (hands outward with slight wavy motion)?
Bobst die cut 3-4K dollars (that’s birch plywood with steel knife rule). Thing that cuts the corrugation (perhaps you want to use your tact-i-cool knifey to put perforation for folding. Non of you got the stomach, nor coin to effectively perforate a straight line.
Flood coat printing (the red stuff). Like to see an army of plinkers with a roll brush do that.
Throughput about 30-40 per minute. That means when all the machinery is set up, printed flat sheets loaded in the hopper (union guy doing that) and the go button pushed they can make that many per minute.
Targets. Well you all know the cost for that.
CUT String included….oh the horror to pay for that.
Brink & motar, distribution and retail.
AND THE MINIMUM run of 5000 thousand…non of you 2A, constitutional, need bang stick practice for the apocalypse bas-ta-gesz got the capital to make one yourself.
That is all….carry on….I feel better now.
I hope you own stock in them then.
This looks like a pretty fun/cool idea for back yard BB or BLM. I’d pick one up at a store if I was away from home, but I’m a trash digger/recycler/re-user for stuff to shoot at. I bring a couple saw-horses and a board to set stuff on and some old real estate signs to tack targets to and good to go. $30 is cutting into ammo budget.
That’s where I’m at, too. All the household recycling gets shot at before it finally goes out to the curb. I’m always on the lookout for bits of flotsam that might do interesting things when hit by a bullet.
And my budget is super tight, so every $ spent on targets comes right out of my ammo supply. The few reusable targets I do own were in the $30 range, and I’ve been using them for more than a year. (Heck, I’m still shooting at newspaper photos of that murderous little shithead from Newtown.)
But if I had a few extra $ and wanted a deluxe plinking experience, this cardboard contraption would be on my list of things to try.
I wouldn’t buy a ton of them or use them all the time, but this is something I would definitely like to keep around for the odd time I am at the ranch and want to do some impromptu target practice. Save tons of hassle of building a frame and finding suitable “targets” to hang on it.
Or sometimes I want to brush up on my holds for the various spots I hunt from that allow for longer shots so I coul haul something like this out to the field a known distance from the blind where I see lots of deer and make sure I’m still on. This is far more useful than scrounging through the recycle bin for the odd beer can or water jug to toss out there.
Cool find!
This is great. My range doesn’t allow metal target stands, so this would be a great alternative to making one from wood.
I built a target rack with 2×2 legs, 1×2 cross members with eye hooks holding binder clips. The binder clips hold clay targets perfectly. It’s all cheap enough that it doesn’t matter when you shoot it up. The only complicated piece of it is making the 2×2 legs and I keep targets far enough away from them that they rarely get shot. It also works great for holding cardboard for paper targets.
If shooting with kids, maybe 25 bucks is reasonable, because shooting objects is more engaging.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t pay more than 15 for something like that. Shooting fruit or clay isn’t my thing.
If it were $20 and avaliable at Walmart, I might give it a try. Other than that, I will pass.
Oops, just posted this in the “preview” article, sorry about that…
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When I read this review, I purchased one and it’s been lurking in my garage ever since. The opportunity finally came – we spent a bit of time in the great outdoors on some land out near Jade Helm central (Bastrop/LaGrange) and I needed to make sure we could have some ballistic fun with the kids even though I had NO IDEA what kind of territory I’d find once we got there. This cardboard wonder was PERFECT for this. Light, slim, easy to pack, took maybe 100 seconds to set up, and since I had no qualms about trying to save it for a second outing, we let loose with everything up to and including archery and shotgun. We put clays pigeons on it, and we even put cans and empty plastic bottles (which we refilled with water) on the “stands” and it just kept ticking. Even the water that eventually rained all over it ran off most of the cardboard due to the ink/paint/whatever they use that covered the entire surface. I wouldn’t want to blow away $30 every time I went shooting just to have paper targets to shoot, but as a free-standing, stable place to place all the kinds of things we like to shoot at, this means all you need to find is a good backstop and you are in business. Recommended.
OUCH! Slap my rear and call me Sally. Just found that you can now get them from Amazon! Still $29.99, but if you’re an Amazon Prime member – that means FREE SHIPPING and that’s a pretty significant savings (currently it’s $10 to ship a single unit). Wish I’d noticed BEFORE I placed that replacement order 🙂