Plinking Targets
 

I'd like some good suggestions for plinking targets. I use tin cans, which are OK, but you can shoot them full of holes without the can moving or shoot under the can and have it jump. The ideal target would do something only when directly hit and would not leave a mess to clean up. I liked MarkC's idea on another post about using charcoal brickettes but they would be too small, for me anyway, beyond 40-50ft. How about long range? I've got some 5 gallon plastic buckets but doubt they would move when hit. KFS

Clay pigeons can react very satisfyingly when hit right. Water filled objects can also give a good reaction.

Karl,

You can also pile several brickettes up to make them more visible. As the piles get smoked you can use left over pieces to make new piles.

mark

Karl, I have been using golf balls for many years now. Yes they are a challenge to hit but when you do they can go in any direction and if hit well they can fly several hundred yards. They are available here for around 5 cents each and can take multiple hits with out breaking apart. I just retrieve all I can find on the range and use them over and over. I look for people selling golf balls and ask them for their crummy ones. Jerry Burney

I use what's available, my favorite is 1lb coffee cans filled with sand. Wife's restaurant provides a steady supply of them, fill with sand, put top on, good targets. Also take scrap lumber, cut in 6" sections and attach cd roms to then with a nail. Also 1 gal plastic jugs filled with sand for long range.

rk

Ok Guys, Don't laugh... but necco candy wafers work great for close up... also far away, if your good!!! Exploding targ-dots are my all time favorite! till...later...G.T. <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" /> <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" />

I like bowling pins, but they work best with a 40 or 45 caliber handgun.

Thor, Where do you get bowling pins? I found one someone left out at the range and it only took a couple of magazines from my series 80 Colt 1911a1 .45 to blow the thing into toothpicks.Jerry Burney

I used to shoot them once a month in a kind of fun compeition. I had a friend that ran the pro shop at a local bowling alley and he would give me the old ones that they were going to throw away anyway. I learned that after we perforated them and then they sat in the arid air of the SW for a month the wood dried out horribly and they became match sticks and in one session of 6 or 7 of us firing 45s into them, the exploded into toothpicks. They didnt do this when they were "new".

Thor, Thanks, I will check out the local bowling ally. Jerry

Cheaper Targets than anything mentioned and with no cleanup required.

- Take one appropriate scrap piece of wooden 2x4.

- Saw a .25 inch deep kerf in the center of it lengthways on the wide surface (appropriately wide enough for the next step).

- Buy a box of the cheapest soda crackers that Wal-mart sells ( you get a couple of hundred targets for about a dollar) and stand them on edge in the kerf.

- When struck they disappear in a puff of cracker dust...

- and when you are finished, the local birds clean up the mess... what more could you ask for in a target?

P.S. you should use appropriate target shooting skills to avoid hitting the wooden cracker perch... and even if you do it was only scrap wood. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Water ballons suspended by a string can also give a good visual when struck...

Once a year, a few friends and I go out in BLM areas in CA-State and have a shooting outting.

My favorite target donation over the past two years has been a 40 lb. suckling pig. It is a little expensive, but really shows the dramatic effect of hollow-point rounds.

We usually freeze it solid and during the travel time, it thaws out and is usually just right...when it comes time for newcomers to see what a HP round can do...

It is also a very good visual aid for the lecture on gun safety.

Pete... <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

Folks:

I use GI helmet liners, they junp and spin around when hit. Most surplus stores have a few without headband or webbing. I gave a $1.00 apiece, they can be used all day.

Ken d

Don't know if I could handle shooting at the helmet liners, that's a little too close to home for me. I'd always see my head in them.

rk

Oranges and grapefruits are satisfying though messy. The half inch sheet of ice that formed overnight in my grandmother's rain barrel gave all the vandalistic thrill of shooting window glass without the risk of having the old gal confiscate my Mossberg.

Armadillos................ <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" />

Hugh, do you have a modified trap thrower for them?

I'd have thought some sort of blackpowder powered mortar arrangement might best suit resiliant rodents ?

That's one place the Romans had it figured out....catapults.... although you'd have to change the name??? Till...later....G.T. <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" /> <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" />

This is a little off topic but I found a book titled "Backyard Balistics". It is all about how to build things like catapults, tennis ball mortars, match head powered rockets and other such toys. It looks like fun but could get you into trouble really fast!
[img]biggrin.gif[/img]