Review: LaserLyte Laser Plinking Cans
United States –-(Ammoland.com)- Not long ago I had a package show up here at the Gunmart Blog Test Kitchen from the good people over at Laserlyte. Inside of said package was their newest addition to their catalog of laser training devices… the LaserLyte Laser Plinking Cans.
I have long been a fan of laser training devices and I have talked at great length in the past about how well suited they are for both improving the skills of experienced shooters as well as for introducing kids/new shooters to the basics of marksmanship. Long story short, if you dont own some type of laser training device then you are doing yourself a disservice and wasting an opportunity to save a lot of money in ammo costs.
What Laserlyte has done with these new Laser Plinking Cans is to bring the reactive-target aspect of shooting/plinking to the arena of laser training. What you get with the new LaserLyte Laser Plinking Cans is a set of three training targets that “pop” and fall over when you hit them with a laser (They are powered by a 9V battery and a spring loaded plunger in the bottom makes them topple when hit).
‘Yeah, so whats the big deal about that?’
OK – I will be upfront and very honest with you here… When the LaserLyte Laser Plinking Cans were first announced I thought they were gimmicky and silly. I thought, “yeah, whats the big deal? … Thats not really something people are gonna actually spend money on.”. I watched the video that Laserlyte released and I watched the cans fall over but I was honestly under-whelmed in every possible way. I just didn’t really get it.
BUT once I got these in-house and started playing around with them I very quickly changed my mind on these. In fact, I will go as far as to say that these are the most fun that I have had yet with any laser trainers, and I was already of the mind set that laser trainers in general were a good way to break the monotony of dry fire practice and make it more engaging. Yes, they are in fact silly, but that is actually what makes them so engaging… and it honestly makes them rather endearing.
The concept here is stupid simple – Its a can. Its a bit smaller than a traditional cola can and it doesn’t really look like any can that you have ever seen before, but you instantly recognize it as a can and EVERYBODY instantly connects with it because EVERYONE understands how much fun it is to plink cans. Men, women, children, …. even if you are not a gun person… Everyone and their grandmother knows the joy of plinking cans. That is because everyone on planet earth at some point in their life has shot cans with either a firearm or a BB gun, and they know how much fun it is. Everyone I show these cans to instantly gets a big, goofy grin on their face and EVERYBODY wants to shoot them. Thats saying something.
So, I got these in-house and I started playing around with them and the first thing I thought was that The Kids are going to love these. Sure enough… we spent about 45 minutes straight playing with these on the first night (We were using the Laserlyte Compact Trainer Pistol to shoot them with – full review of that product to come soon). They worked great. No problems to report with their functionality, and The Kids had a ton of fun!
Over the next several days The Kids literally kept begging me to bust them out again because they absolutely loved them. They also have kept the adults who have played with them engaged… and that big, goofy grin comes back every time that the cans topple over. Just like with shooting traditional firearms, reactive laser targets like these are exponentially more fun than just plugging away at a traditional target.
The bottom line… The Laserlyte Laser Plinking Cans are just a bunch of fun. The only thing that I really didn’t like was the fact that Laserlyte didn’t send me about a dozen of them. After knocking over all three cans you are going to have to walk over and tip them back up (Ahhh, such a chore) so after a while you really do end up wanting more than just three off them to play with. But thats where The Kids come in… Luckily They are still young enough to not realize that I am only “letting them be the one to set the cans back up” because I am too lazy to do it myself. Buying three or four sets of these would indeed be pretty costly, but they are still pretty fun as a single pack of three. Or they would certainly make a great addition if you already have some of their other more traditional laser targets.
About:
Eric at the Gunmart Blog – Eric is a gun blogger, firearms enthusiast, and sorry excuse for a hunter. He is also an AmmoLand Shoting Sports News Columnist. Leave him some comments on this article before you go. You can also follow Eric on Facebook, Twitter and at his blog, Gunmart. Visit: Gunmartblog.com