Al righty we are now carrying a full line of plasma cut AR500 targets. Plasma cutting is a cheaper alternative to water jet cutting, that still yields a quality product!
Water jet cutting is the preferred method for cutting hardened steel as there is no heat input into the material while cutting. This results in the utmost quality and durability. Plasma cutting does create HAZ (heat affected zones) to an extent. Basically the material is heated up and the hardness of the material is affected to a certain degree. The benefit plasma has over water jet is cost. That is why it is commonly used for "economy" lines of targets. Is it as good as water jet cut targets, no but does the cost benefit out weigh the drawbacks in certain applications, we think so.
On plasma cut targets the edges can be a little weaker and wear quicker than water jet cut edges. The smaller the target, the larger the effect. So on smaller targets like a 6" circle HAZ will be more noticeable than say a 12" target.
Competition Dynamics recently used a large number of our plasma cut targets at the Snipershide cup, as well as our water jet targets. There were 0 failures of any kind.
So in celebration of our new target line, we would like to run a group buy for the forum here!! We would like to limit it to a couple different targets sizes/shapes to make things a little smoother for us.