Home Range Backstop

[hollowoutadime]

Looking for input.

I'm upgrading my home range (mostly handgun). Initially it was a .22 range and I just shot into a wear layer of 3 sheets of plywood (over 10" lumber).
I think I put around 8-10K rounds into that without issue. I'm going to up it to handle 9mm and 45acp.

I picked up some 1/4" AR400 plates ($17ea) and did some testing. They handle impacts well and don't deform the plates when shot on edge (9 & .45).
My plan is to purchase a 5'x10' sheet of 3/8" AR500 (about $1,500) and angle it at 45 degrees to the shooter. That will leave about 3' under the plate.

Impacts on my ar400 testing show a lot of spalling downwards (as expected), so I may put a plate to the ground at about 20 degrees routing fragments will dissipate into a base of sand.

I'm going to set these plate angles to be adjustable, just to tune it to minimize fragments.
Shooting distances are normally 30-50'

Note: drilling AR400 plates with a cobalt drill bit and cutting oil is no fun. I'll have the shop pre-drill the big plate (which will be in 2 or 3 sections

Pic below just shows testing, not in production.
)

 

[waveslayer]

Make a box full of rubber mulch. I do that and it does very well

 

[hollowoutadime]

Good call on the rubber mulch

 

[Dead Eye Dick]

Don’t forget, if you can find a way to save the fragments, you may find folks willing to pay or needing lead to cast bullets.

 

[hollowoutadime]

So this project is rolling along.

I'm making a trap to salvage the lead. More on that in the following posts.

This is one of three 3/8" AR500 plates installed at 45 degrees. It's 40" wide x 60" tall and was a mother to lift.
It tilts at any angle up to about 50 degrees. Not pictured are the 1/4" AR400 plates that sit below it, that take slugs/spray into the ground.
Ground is a sand area atop concrete that absorbs slugs and spatter.

The AR500 black plates will be 10' wide. AR400 is above and below, 8' high in total.

I ran some .45 acp at it last night. Just a smudge on the plates, lead went into a tight line at the bottom of the plates. Bunch of calibers to test on it.

 

[hollowoutadime]

So after pouring another 41 bags of concrete, and about 30 bags of play sand:
(Last panel on left not installed)

The slugs, jackets and bullet bases follow a predictable path down the big plates, onto the lower plates and into the play sand where they are easily recovered.

Big plate can be rotated for maintenance.

All this physical work and I'm still fat.

 

[eddie102870]

i just took a backhoe and built a berm