Posted: 9/22/2008 10:40:34 AM EDT
| Do you go to the range or do you have you own shooting backstop. Im thinking of building my own backstop with railroad ties and a sand pile. Any other ideas? |
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someone posted on this a long time ago with a suggestion of making a 4x4x4 wood cube (I think they used pallets) and filling it with sand. iirc they lined it with ply, and replaced the front occasionally. My experiance (yours may vary) is that sand berms will erode very quickly if they are not supported. I still have a railroad tie and sand berm, but my target holder is an 18" deep box of sand (plywood box - 32x48x18 - suspect it weighs over 1000lbs). I have not tested it with high power rifles yet, but 100's of .22 shots have not eaten up the front much. |
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Railroad ties and dirt would be great. Pure sand tends to spread out and grass doesn't grow on it as well as dirt. |
That would be the difficulty at our range. We have a hard enough time trying to keep people from perfing the steel targets. No matter what the rules the backstop would look like a cheese grader in no time! |
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built one last year. 12'x12' in size got the railroad ties for free. its 5' tall and an i filled it with sand. Got 20tons in a dump load and that was too much so the extra filled some low spots on the property. its exactly 100 yards from my deck and can handle anything. (within reason..no 120mm sabots though) make sure you brace the sides before you fill with sand |
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I have a shooting backstop in my garage that is used for function testing/checking as well as some 22LR fun. Mine is basically a 2x2x2 Ft 3/4" plywood plywood cube with a 1+ ft square hole cut out of one side. The 1ft size hole then has a smaller type type walls going back inside the box about 8 inches. This creates a 1x1ft by approx 8 inch deep plywood tunnel going back into the box. The tunnel section is filled with about 12 layers of 1ft square rubber gym flooring. You can buy that rubberized flooring that interlocks together and cut off the interlocking tabs and the chop it into 4 sections. The 12 layers of flooring and then glued and ductaped into to approx 6 layer blocks. (cant remember the exact specifics on the number of sheets used but you should get the idea) These two individual 4" deep by 1x1 foot sections of rubberize foam flooring are then stuffed into the "tunnel" in the box from the front. Then another piece gym flooring covering the whole front of the box as well as a 1/2 inch plywood with a slightly smaller square hole is screwed over the front of the original box. This extra piece of gym flooring as well as the front board keeps the main two foam rubber blocks from coming out the front of the box as they are now have a larger piece of gym mat over them as well as 1" plywood "lip" all the way around them. The box was then filled with sand. So far I have found it will handle up to 223 without issue but really don't have much need for anything more than that. I have not yet had the need to replace any of the foam but in theory I should be able to remove the front plywood cover and single sheet of gym flooring and pull out the first of the two foam blocks, leaving the second one to hold back most the sand. (the deeper of the two blocks also got two screws put into it to hold it in place) Then replace just the front block and single sheet of flooring, screw the front plywood back on, and repeat as necessary. I assume eventually the rear block will get to a spot where it won't hold back the sand by itself anymore, but hopefully I will be able to get a handful of front block replacements before a complete rebuild is in order. I also have a concrete pad behind the box and a pane of window glass between the box and concrete pad. In the event anything managed to make it through almost 2ft of sand and out the back of the box, it should break the glass (which acts like a safety fuse), and stop at the concrete pad. Total cost was under $150 bucks. The nice thing is there is basically no chance of richots like steel and the impact noise is greatly reduced, since you are shooting into foam rubber and sand. I wouldn't expect this to replace a shooting range and I put at most a couple hundred rounds into it a year of which most are 22LR. But it serves its primary purpose well when needed to function test something and not have to drive an hour round trip to the range to shoot 3 rounds. Crappy paint jpeg attached for reference.  (edited to reflect actual dimentions after going to to the garage and meauring...) James |
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I have a large hill as a backstop and want to put in a 75 yrd range.. I want to add a berm for added safety... I have some dirt that came out of my driveway when it was paved, but it does have some small #57 rock in it.. Would the rock cause a problem? thanks Brian |