I putting in a 100 yrs range on my land. I want to build a back stop using cross ties. Does anyone know how many I will need to stop a 300 win mag.
-
Having trouble using the site?
Contact support
Back stop at home shooting range
- Thread starter Don-n-Texas
- Start date
I would recommend making a frame/wall and then putting dirt or bulk mulch piled 7-10ft high in front.
I have the terrain to my benefit so I can let it hit dirt to spot misses and then smack up into the telephone poles if anything does bounce.
The local schuetzen range has a railroad tie, a foot of caliche base, and then another railroad tie. It’s overkill but if you are going to stack at least two deep it’s worth it to fill with some dirt inbetween the two for free insurance.
The local schuetzen range has a railroad tie, a foot of caliche base, and then another railroad tie. It’s overkill but if you are going to stack at least two deep it’s worth it to fill with some dirt inbetween the two for free insurance.
dirt works really well in a berm . who don't love a hill of dirt
think of all the joy it will bring to you and your family in your very own back yard .
think of all the joy it will bring to you and your family in your very own back yard .
2 ways to do it. Stack ties and pile dirt behind them. Stack ties and pile dirt in front of them.
4 feet of dirt will stop anything once it's compacted and settled.
Rent a skid steer for a weekend. It's not a huge job.
4 feet of dirt will stop anything once it's compacted and settled.
Rent a skid steer for a weekend. It's not a huge job.
When I had my own place( sold it 7 yrs ago ) I had a bunch of off road tires , I stacked them three wide and thee deep and filled with dirt , then covered with more dirt , that was my 600yrd backstop worked purty good , till the cows started playing king of the hill on it , still held up for the last 4 yrs I was there.
If you put dirt behind the ties, won't you eventually have dirt in front of the ties? And fairly soon if your targets are in the same place all the time.
Better to make a wall, or better a V or C shaped wall sand put and in front of it.
Better to make a wall, or better a V or C shaped wall sand put and in front of it.
Last edited:
- Nov 3, 2010
- 9,880
- 20,915
My backstop is a horseshoeish shape with dirt in front of the ties.
Better be over built than underbuilt.
Rocks and other things can cause richochets
Rocks and other things can cause richochets
I am sure RR ties won’t be an issue with rifle fire at 100 yds, but I’ve seen handgun rounds bounce off and come back when fired at RR ties also. Some dirt or gravel in front is a good idea.
I can say one thing for sure, 300 and 338 Norma sails right through a single crosstie.
Stacked RR ties, by themselves, do a poor job of stopping projectiles, even from a pistol. My former headquarters range had RR ties protecting the mechanisms controlling the turning target frames. Rounds would find their way between the ties and impact the target frames causing enough damage they became useless and non-working as a result. Pistol or rifle projectiles made no difference.
Crossties are great for framing. 300 WM will start going right through them if you don't put dirt in front like others have mentioned. You'll have to repair them over time if you shoot into the ties, but you could just cover them in plywood as they start getting busted.. I've used tires and dirt, trees, and lumber. A berm of dirt is always your safest bet. I most shoot steel with rifle, so keeping the targets maintained is more of a pain than the backstop, which doesn't get used all that much.
Just pile up dirt and go to town. There's no reason to complicate it or make it more expensive to shoot at something that requires replacement. When you get some good erosion from impacts, push up some more dirt.
As I did earlier, I always recommend gravel. Pretty sure it was here, years ago, that I found/read the write up discussing material. There was penetration data for the different types of materials used.
Wood was obviously not good. The study more detailed different types of aggregate. Like Burt said, larger material can create a ricochet problem. The gravel allowed less than 12" of penetration.
Wood was obviously not good. The study more detailed different types of aggregate. Like Burt said, larger material can create a ricochet problem. The gravel allowed less than 12" of penetration.
NRA used to have a free manual that helped with stuff like this, but their materials section seems to be down and the only one I see is their Range Source Book for purchase (under the FAQ section).
May have more info:
rangeservices.nra.org
May have more info:
Range Services
NRA Range Services offers a number of resources to public and private ranges across the country including on-site assistance, educational seminars, grants and much more. Take an online course, learn from the NRA Range Technical Team and find other educational materials and resources.
I prefer dirt/clay to anything else, so built a 15' high berm on my 250 meter range. Let the trees and brush grow on it, for the root system. Just elevate the targets so the bullet impact is in the face. Nothing goes through it.
A dirt pile is way easier to build or rebuild, just a tractor with a front end loader and a bucket is all you need.
A dirt pile is way easier to build or rebuild, just a tractor with a front end loader and a bucket is all you need.
Geez... 15' high? With a tractor???
I started building a berm with a 40hp Kioti and it's taking forever. Real heavy equipment would have been nice.
I work for a tree service, so I rented our 27' Grapple Truck. Sits 11' high at the seat and will lift 1000lbs at 27'. The worst part was driving it back to my woods. I drove it back after 2 weeks of sub zero temps on bare ground and I still have to mow over the damn ruts in the summer lol.
I need to make mine higher and longer though. You always under estimate how long, tall, and how much dirt is actually needed for a big back stop lol
One thing I can add is to take into account 'compression', settling, etc.
We bought a little more than 40+ acres, in the woods basically, and had about 3-3.5 acres cleared, for the house and basically for a "yard" for my (now-passed, but perpetually beloved) 4-legged-son ... and the professional excavating service we hired had specific instructions ... a certain amount of the trees and Saw Palmetto bushes/roots/etc. were to be used to build up a backstop for my firing range. Well the guy in charge was a firearms fanatic and took to the job with gusto. Within a day or two I think it was almost 30 feet high, extremely thick at the base (obviously got thinner as it got higher, like one of the pyramids) and quite wide. It was great. Well, I think it's down to like 16 feet. I'd say it was about 8.5 years since it was built, and it has settled *tremendously* ... no big deal, still more than adequate and every once in a while, my Dad - who likes to play with his tractor anyway - will "backfill" stuff he's dug up randomly onto the back. But the point is, it settled and got smaller and smaller on a significant basis. No big deal if you start waaaaaay more than you need... but if you make it juuuust enough, you might find down the road, it's no longer capable or safe.
And that brings me to the safety lesson of the day - I know everyone here is a professional, knowledgeable, and safe shooter- but on the off-chance someone reading this doesn't realize - you're responsible for every round you fire ... Contrary to what some believe, it's not "OK" to just "try your best" ... When we moved down here, one of the neighbors joked how he hopes he doesn't hit our house when he shoots - uhh, what now?? "Well yeah we go out on the back porch and shoot into the woods, and we generally try and hope that we hit the trees ... hopefully none get through everything and get down your way! But hey, we try ... that's all you gotta do ... all you can do ... you just gotta TRY not to shoot someone or something, and you'll be fine... "
To this day he and his wife don't seem to understand, that's completely false ... My Dad as a (retired) cop and me as a law student tried to explain ... Every round you fire "has your name on it" ... First-day-law-school-students are taught the difference between "Murder 1" (1st Degree Murder - Premeditated Murder) / "Murder 2 (Murder in the 2nd Degree - you didn't go to the dude who's cheating with your wife's house to kill him, but he mouthed off and you then decided to shoot him in the heat of the moment...) / and what would be called Murder 3 but is popularly known as Manslaughter - and one commonly-used scenario to explain Manslaughter is, you're out back shooting a legal gun on your own property, but you don't have a proper backstop or have taken adequate precautions &/or are shooting negligently or in an unsafe manner or you just didn't have the right "range" in your yard ... and one of your bullets accidentally and inadvertently leaves your yard, goes somewhere and hits & kills some innocent. You absolutely didn't mean to kill them, but you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing - in this case, shooting unsafely, - and someone died as a result. Every round that leaves your firearm "has your name on it" ... They honestly just couldn't accept it ... "Nonon ... as long as you try , everything's fine ... it's not my fault if I shoot randomly into the back yard and someone somehow gets hit ... I wasn't aiming at them!"
Yeah, No. Safety Reminder Of The Day: You own and are accountable for every round you fire. Thank You & Have Good Day.
We bought a little more than 40+ acres, in the woods basically, and had about 3-3.5 acres cleared, for the house and basically for a "yard" for my (now-passed, but perpetually beloved) 4-legged-son ... and the professional excavating service we hired had specific instructions ... a certain amount of the trees and Saw Palmetto bushes/roots/etc. were to be used to build up a backstop for my firing range. Well the guy in charge was a firearms fanatic and took to the job with gusto. Within a day or two I think it was almost 30 feet high, extremely thick at the base (obviously got thinner as it got higher, like one of the pyramids) and quite wide. It was great. Well, I think it's down to like 16 feet. I'd say it was about 8.5 years since it was built, and it has settled *tremendously* ... no big deal, still more than adequate and every once in a while, my Dad - who likes to play with his tractor anyway - will "backfill" stuff he's dug up randomly onto the back. But the point is, it settled and got smaller and smaller on a significant basis. No big deal if you start waaaaaay more than you need... but if you make it juuuust enough, you might find down the road, it's no longer capable or safe.
And that brings me to the safety lesson of the day - I know everyone here is a professional, knowledgeable, and safe shooter- but on the off-chance someone reading this doesn't realize - you're responsible for every round you fire ... Contrary to what some believe, it's not "OK" to just "try your best" ... When we moved down here, one of the neighbors joked how he hopes he doesn't hit our house when he shoots - uhh, what now?? "Well yeah we go out on the back porch and shoot into the woods, and we generally try and hope that we hit the trees ... hopefully none get through everything and get down your way! But hey, we try ... that's all you gotta do ... all you can do ... you just gotta TRY not to shoot someone or something, and you'll be fine... "
To this day he and his wife don't seem to understand, that's completely false ... My Dad as a (retired) cop and me as a law student tried to explain ... Every round you fire "has your name on it" ... First-day-law-school-students are taught the difference between "Murder 1" (1st Degree Murder - Premeditated Murder) / "Murder 2 (Murder in the 2nd Degree - you didn't go to the dude who's cheating with your wife's house to kill him, but he mouthed off and you then decided to shoot him in the heat of the moment...) / and what would be called Murder 3 but is popularly known as Manslaughter - and one commonly-used scenario to explain Manslaughter is, you're out back shooting a legal gun on your own property, but you don't have a proper backstop or have taken adequate precautions &/or are shooting negligently or in an unsafe manner or you just didn't have the right "range" in your yard ... and one of your bullets accidentally and inadvertently leaves your yard, goes somewhere and hits & kills some innocent. You absolutely didn't mean to kill them, but you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing - in this case, shooting unsafely, - and someone died as a result. Every round that leaves your firearm "has your name on it" ... They honestly just couldn't accept it ... "Nonon ... as long as you try , everything's fine ... it's not my fault if I shoot randomly into the back yard and someone somehow gets hit ... I wasn't aiming at them!"
Yeah, No. Safety Reminder Of The Day: You own and are accountable for every round you fire. Thank You & Have Good Day.
Tires, conveyor belts, chopped up rubber tires make excellent backstops. A tall dirt berm behind it and gtg.
Mix in sodium bicarbonate with granulated rubber. But yes it can catch fire. I guess if you truly want to be safe don't do anything and sit inside and watch tv lol.
Thank You
I've been using dirt (about 22' wide x 6' deep x 8' high, with a natural hill 50 yards behind it) and it has stopped several thousand rounds (22lr, 223, 6mm, 6.5mm, 308, 9mm) no problem. I stacked tires behind it just in case, but nothing has made it through. I compacted it with the tractor bucket as I was making the pile. It erodes a little bit during the winter, but nothing significant. If you have enough dirt that is reasonably compactable, you may not need the rail ties.
RR ties down range are not a great idea though there are ways to mitigate any issues they pose.... They can contribute to ricochets. In general, anything hard -landscape timbers, gravel/rock, RR Ties etc...is to be avoided as part of the impact area.
NRA Spec (From the Range Manual) is a 20' berm, 2/1 slope with the front face 24" with no aggregate larger than 1". You might not like it, you might not agree with it- but that's the recognized standard.
I have attended the NRA Range Development Conference several times. Day one, first morning, the hall is FULL of people who paid $800 plus plane ticket, plus hotel etc... to be there. By 2:00 that afternoon half of them are gone. Why? Because they quickly figured out just having a piece of land and a wheelbarrow full of dirt does not a range make and they could never afford to "do it right".
NRA Spec (From the Range Manual) is a 20' berm, 2/1 slope with the front face 24" with no aggregate larger than 1". You might not like it, you might not agree with it- but that's the recognized standard.
I have attended the NRA Range Development Conference several times. Day one, first morning, the hall is FULL of people who paid $800 plus plane ticket, plus hotel etc... to be there. By 2:00 that afternoon half of them are gone. Why? Because they quickly figured out just having a piece of land and a wheelbarrow full of dirt does not a range make and they could never afford to "do it right".
This is beautiful and exactly what I want to do on my property! How deep, wide, and high is your berm? Love the RR ties on top!!
So it would just be better to leave the RR Ties off the top. Makes sense. So how deep do the Specs say for Rifle rounds up to 30-06?
Attachments
The "spec" is that the berm needs to be 20' high. With a 2/1 slope that means it would be 40' deep.....the front 24" of that berm- the shooting face- should not have anything larger than 1" as part of it- no rocks etc.....The interior of the 40' could be dang near anything- it's really just there to prevent slumping of the primary impact face.
We recently- within the last 2 months, built a new pistol bay at our club. 75 yards long, 25 yard wide. We got the dirt for FREE as there was a major highway construction project occurring within a mile and they needed it gone. It took TWELVE HUNDRED BELLY DUMPS OF DIRT to build the bay. Even with "free dirt" and a generous and friendly contractor moving the dirt--- it cost over $100,000 to build it the "right way". The guy that came up with the saying "Cheaper than dirt"......- Never had to MOVE any- cause it ain't cheap!....Just an example.
WOW!!!! Appreciate the info. 40’ deep. I don’t think I’ve ever saw a berm that deep.
This is a fitting thread to pop up, I've been clearing a 100yd range on my property lately and am getting ready to order 16 RR ties to form the backstop. General plan is to stack the ties 2 deep and 8 high then pile dirt in front.
The complications come by the fact that my property is relatively steep and often wet, the house and entrance roads are all at the top, and the range area is at the bottom. I also don't have a tractor, I can drag the ties down with my UTV, and figure out some way to winch them up and into place, but moving the dirt is probably going to be a manual proposition. I thought about renting a skid steer to make things much easier, but talked to my neighbor with similar terrain and learned that the last time he tried to get a tracked skid steer down there it got stuck coming back up the hill. Maybe there are other dirt moving options that would be a little more capable on the trail in and out?
The complications come by the fact that my property is relatively steep and often wet, the house and entrance roads are all at the top, and the range area is at the bottom. I also don't have a tractor, I can drag the ties down with my UTV, and figure out some way to winch them up and into place, but moving the dirt is probably going to be a manual proposition. I thought about renting a skid steer to make things much easier, but talked to my neighbor with similar terrain and learned that the last time he tried to get a tracked skid steer down there it got stuck coming back up the hill. Maybe there are other dirt moving options that would be a little more capable on the trail in and out?
This looks easy enough to build and does not seem to require 1200 loads of dirt for free and $100,000 worth of grader contractor bills.
$100K might buy enough land to not need a 40’ backstop to keep bullets from hitting the neighboring lot.
I am also in the process of building a house on an undeveloped lot of land. 30 acres total but similar to you, house will sit at the top and range at the bottom. Often wet and all sloped.
My plan is to just have the excavator use his dozer and, at a minimum, create a 100 yard backstop. He will be moving a lot of dirt for the driveway and house pad anyways. However I should have room to put a pile at 100 and then another at 200. Nice to confirm zeros with the 200 yard range.
Water well guy was getting stuck with his drill rig and excavator had to move a considerable amount of dirt to level a spot for the drill rig. It was about $1000 for a days worth of his dozer time assisting the water well guy. Enough dirt for at minimum one large back stop, likely 2. Would be cheaper if all you had them do was the backstop and not spend 6 of the 8 hours watching other guys work.
From my experience, I'd highly recommend ensuring that you can access your berm with equipment all times of the year. I see a couple posts stating how difficult it is to get equipment to where you want to build it, and eventually it will need some repairs and/or new target hangers etc...
Not being able to get down to fix it will get frustrating in a hurry, so if you're putting forth the effort to build one right...might not hurt to improve the path to it at the same time.
Best of luck, and shooting from the house is awesome!
Not being able to get down to fix it will get frustrating in a hurry, so if you're putting forth the effort to build one right...might not hurt to improve the path to it at the same time.
Best of luck, and shooting from the house is awesome!
It needs to be that deep not to stop bullets of course, it needs to be that deep to keep the 20' height in place--which is why it really doesn't matter what's behind the first 3-4' or so of face.... Dirt...wants to fall down when we stack it....When it falls down--- 1. It's no longer 20' high and 2. If combined with "pockets" of lead etc...from shooting in the same spot all the time, the slumped earth can result in ricochets. You essentially get a launching pad for projectiles- this is why regular maintenance and maintaining the clean 24" front face is so important.
Now, arguably, a 20' berm is overkill- but again that is the recognized standard--and there are plenty of qualified engineers that will testify to that. Also, terrain plays a big role- you don't need a 20' berm if you are shooting into the side of a 300' cliff or down into a 40' deep quarry hole etc.....$100k will almost certainly NOT buy enough land anywhere in the continental United States to not have adequate berms. A .22 rimfire round will travel nearly a mile- that's an entire section of land--640 acres, that would work out to about $150/acre. I live in the Texas Panhandle, we have LOTS of land- heck, we just burned a MILLION acres of it- and even here you are looking at $1,000 an acre MINIMUM for flat, treeless, dry, land. There could, in theory be some places you could get land cheap enough but for most folks you'd have to drive DAYS to get there....You could get away with less land if it was weirdly shaped- narrow and really long, but you don't see tracts like that very often.
Best to look for tracts that offer significant changes in elevation if you don't want to do dirt work and want something to purpose build a range on. Too, it's really just about risk mitigation, everyone needs to make their own calculations about what they are personally comfortable with- but, the question was "What's the Standard?"--- there it is.
Appreciate the Info. I plan on getting 15 to 25 acres and building a decent berm and shooting steel. So not overly worried about round erosion of the berm. Will try and do the best I can. To account for earth settling. Then with the JD 1025R Tractor I should be able to maintain it.
Congrats on the new house construction! Yep, it sounds like our lots are about the same size and layout, already had a fairly recent build house on mine, but we're already having to get some work done.
Thanks for the data point on the dozer cost to get a berm pushed up. I talked to my neighbor about it and he's willing to help me get the RR ties for my backer stacked up and to push dirt up into a berm in front of the tie stack with the front end loader on his tractor, so as of right now, that's the plan. I just ordered the 16 RR ties from Lowe's (cheapest price and $80 delivery), $485 total, to be delivered in my front yard, so I'm pretty well committed now!
Last edited:
Take some pics of the start and during and after for the rest of us.
Made some progress recently, in late June I drug all 16 RR ties from the stack they were delivered in down into position with my buggy, but then was out of town or busy until last weekend.
Looking from the berm area back towards where the bench will be, RR ties stacked 4 wide on the right of the trail.
My neighbor graciously came over to help, we stacked the first 4 ties by hand, but that was pretty back breaking, so we moved to lifting them up and moving them over to the tie wall with the tractor and then pushing them into place by hand which was far easier.
Neighbor recommended wiring the t-posts in the back to a nail driven into the ties every so often to stabilize them until dirt was pushed up. I didn't have any wire on hand so wound up using some rope.
I used some 14" lags to try to screw the tie wall together front to back and top to bottom. Got a bunch stuck and I think I overheated a few impacts, but got everything attached.
I'm going to stack up more dirt in front of the wall, but there it is.
View from where the 100yd bench will be, you can see the berm at the end.
Next steps are to stack up more dirt as mentioned, then figure out what to do about the shooting bench.
Looking from the berm area back towards where the bench will be, RR ties stacked 4 wide on the right of the trail.
My neighbor graciously came over to help, we stacked the first 4 ties by hand, but that was pretty back breaking, so we moved to lifting them up and moving them over to the tie wall with the tractor and then pushing them into place by hand which was far easier.
Neighbor recommended wiring the t-posts in the back to a nail driven into the ties every so often to stabilize them until dirt was pushed up. I didn't have any wire on hand so wound up using some rope.
I used some 14" lags to try to screw the tie wall together front to back and top to bottom. Got a bunch stuck and I think I overheated a few impacts, but got everything attached.
I'm going to stack up more dirt in front of the wall, but there it is.
View from where the 100yd bench will be, you can see the berm at the end.
Next steps are to stack up more dirt as mentioned, then figure out what to do about the shooting bench.
This is similar to how I did mine, except I flared the front wider. I drilled holes and used rebar from the scrap yard to tie them together. I am pretty sure I have them stacked 10 high and backfilled the inside with river sand and used top soil around the outside so it would grow grass easily.
Have a similar on going project at our weekend place. Had my truck tires replaced and then picked up a few more from behind their shop. Spent a few weekends clearing trees/brush and stacked and packed the tires in front of a dirt berm. Although is only about 12' by 5', I will say that there's another 1100+ yards of trees and brush on my property behind it.
Then picked up a carport port that someone had taken down and proceeded to make some shade for a portable bench I had. The ties intended for the backstop were repurposed for that project. Set the them against some t-posts and drilled and drove rebar through each layer.
Neither the back stop or the carport are finished at this point, our dirt is about the same consistency as concrete this time of year, but the range is functional.
Then picked up a carport port that someone had taken down and proceeded to make some shade for a portable bench I had. The ties intended for the backstop were repurposed for that project. Set the them against some t-posts and drilled and drove rebar through each layer.
Neither the back stop or the carport are finished at this point, our dirt is about the same consistency as concrete this time of year, but the range is functional.
