Genesis Closeout: Why We’re Retiring our AR500 line
The short version: The Genesis closeout is official. We’re ending our Genesis AR500 steel line. The Genesis brackets and base stay. What’s left of the Genesis gongs and Grounder 500 is 20% off through November 22, 2026, sold as-is. If you’re buying your first steel target, start with the Reduced C-Zone A-DAP.
Most companies pull a product when it fails. Genesis didn’t fail. It put steel in front of shooters who would otherwise have waited years to start.
The Shooter Genesis Was Built For
The man we pictured when we started TA in 2015 wasn’t a pro. He was a dad on a few acres with his kids learning to put rounds down range.
We wanted that guy on steel, and price was the wall standing in front of him. Genesis was how we tried to knock that wall down. We took AR500, built a simpler system around it, and priced it for someone who wanted to train but couldn’t justify a legacy system yet.
It worked. A good share of you rang your very first plate on Genesis.
“So Is Something Wrong With It?”
That’s the first question I’d ask in your shoes. The second would be whether TA just decided it’s "too good" for regular shooters now.
The answer to both is no. Genesis does what the back of the plate says it does. Shoot it with the calibers and at the distances it’s rated for, and it can serve you for a long time. Nobody who bought one last month got a lemon, and there’s no recall hiding behind this.
What changed is the bar we are willing to put our name on. “It’ll probably hold up” used to be good enough for an entry-level line. It isn’t anymore.
What Legacy Actually Means Here
I say “legacy” so often it can start to sound like marketing, so let me pin it down. A legacy is something that passes from one generation to the next intact. You don’t wear it out. You hand it down.
Picture a plate leaning against your garage wall thirty years from now, and your son loading it into his truck for his own kids. That’s the test. Every target and every range we build either passes it or it doesn’t.
The question that wouldn’t leave us alone was whether one company can run two standards at once: a “good enough for now” line sitting next to a “built to outlive you” line. Year after year I watched the lower one tug on the higher one.
Four Reasons Behind the Genesis Closeout
It came down to four things pointing the same direction.
- One standard. Our goal is steel that lasts anyone who uses it right, for good. That takes better material, more time and more cost. Genesis was built below that line on purpose, which made sense when we launched it. It doesn’t fit where we’re headed.
- The mission points at durability. We exist to help people become capable providers and protectors. Targets and ranges are just the tools for that. A tool you outgrow and replace serves that mission worse than one you keep.
- A small team can’t split itself. Every hour spent sourcing, cutting and supporting an entry-level line is an hour pulled off AR550 systems and range builds. Spread that thin, you get average results everywhere, and I don’t want TA known for average.
- Ranges raised the bar. We fell into range building when a client asked for help, and it turned out to be the clearest picture of why TA exists. A range that carries a family’s name can’t be stocked with steel we only hope will last. Once ranges became our future, everything in the catalog had to rise to meet them.
AR500 vs. AR550: What’s Actually Different
“AR” stands for abrasion resistant. The number is the steel’s hardness on the Brinell scale, a standard shop test that presses a hard ball into the surface and measures the dent. Higher number, harder plate.
The rating on a target is important because a harder face shrugs off cratering and dimpling better, and a smooth face is what sends fragments down instead of back at you. But not all AR550 is built the same. The grade tells you how hard the plate is. What the steel is made from counts for more than the number stamped on it.
Virgin metal, not recycled, stands up to steady abuse year after year. That’s why we don’t buy any plate that happens to be sold as AR550. We search out the highest grade of steel we can find, and we build to that.
Both lines share the same ammo rules: lead-core, copper-jacketed bullets only, never above 3,000 feet per second. No armor-piercing, steel-core or penetrator rounds, ever.
What “Cheaper” Can Cost You
The math tells this part better than I can. Say the plate gives out in year three.
I’m not predicting Genesis breaks in year three. Inside its ratings, it may outlast you. But if it doesn’t, that table is the real price of the cheaper option.
I’d rather you spend $445 once than $253 twice.
Genesis Closeout FAQ
Is Genesis being discontinued because of a defect?
No. It performs to its ratings. We’re raising the standard for everything that carries our name.
I already own Genesis. What should I do?
Keep shooting it inside its ratings. The Genesis AR500 manuals are staying up, so check your calibers and distances there.
Are the Genesis base and brackets going away?
No, only the Genesis AR500 steel is. The Genesis Target Base is the standard base on the Reduced C-Zone A-DAP today.
What’s on sale, and until when?
Every remaining Genesis gong and Grounder 500, 20% off through November 22, 2026.
Does closeout steel come with a warranty?
No. Closeout steel is sold as-is.
Will you make more?
One final production run to fill closeout orders, then the line is done.
What should a first-time steel buyer get instead?
The Reduced C-Zone A-DAP. It’s where I’d start anybody.
Where TA Goes From Here
Eleven years of this work has convinced me of one thing. Whatever is worth building should still be standing after the builder is gone. Targets, ranges, a business, a family: same rule.
So the catalog gets smaller and the standard gets higher. Fewer products, each one something we’ll stand behind for the rest of your life. If you want more on where that’s taking us, read Sold Out of Steel: What a Year of Growth Costs and You’ve Built Generational Wealth. Now Build a Generational Shooting Range.
Ranges are where more of our time is going. We design and install them to last, from a Meridian install that gets you shooting fast to a full Ironclad build where I walk your land before a single target is ordered. If you’re planning one, start at range.tatargets.com.
Become Capable.
Genesis Closeout: TA Targets Retires AR500 Steel Targets