Right now I have a backstop made out of 4X12 timbers , in front of a long gradual hill. I want to build something that is more absolute. I am thinking along the lines of a U shaped box made of 6x6 and then fill the middle with dirt or sand , but I really dont know if this would work. I question how to keep the fill in the box. I am thinking s0me thing maybe 3 feet wide and 3 or 4 feet high. Any ideas , suggestions , or link to a real stop are appreciated. Thanks.

Get a bunch of old tires and arrange them in the shape you like, then fill with dirt. There are not many pistol rounds that will go through both ends of a tire, but none will if filled with dirt or sand. The same goes for rifle. If you want it to look nicer, face it off with wood front and back and you will have a first rate stop.

I belong to a club that has a private range. The stops are bulit of stacked tires & then they bulldoze dirt over them. The tires are arranged in a sloping stack, kind of pyramid like & then covered. Seems to work really well. About avery (2) years they bulldoze more sirt over them.

I am workingon mineand have no hill or slope to work with. I am getting free rail road ties ( used ) and am ,making a box 25 ft long by 8 ft tall and will fill it with sand. hope fully the sand I can get free as well. I do have my own back hoe that is a plus.

I have seen this done and it looks and works great. He shoots his BMG 50 into it and no problems.

Just a caution: I've seen .22 rimfire bullets bounce back, fast, off of a truck tire straight back at the shooter. Hard enough to take an eye out. Use guns big enough to shoot through one side of the tire.

I have heard about the tires throwing small calibers back at you and I do like to shot 22's alot. It helps me develop proper techniques . The biggest problem I can see is how do you keep the sand/dirt in the containment area. I had thought , as I originally posted , about using sand bags in front and just loose fill behind , but I would think the sand bags would not last long at all. I dont want to have to replace them after each session .

I had thought about setting up my own 100 or 300 yard shooting range using a steel plate. Angle the plate so that bullets bounce down into a sand trap. This way, no matter what the caliber, there would be little likelihood of bounce back. Plus I could mine the lead for future cast bullets.
What I'd be more curious about is what I could use for noice abatement. No sense in irritating the neighbors.
Any thoughts on noice abatement?
Jim

[ 10-26-2003, 17:00: Message edited by: arkypete ]

Our range uses different tires. The tires for rifles at 50yds. and out are semi tires, the tires for 50yrds. and in are passanger car tires. Since many like to shoot a few rounds of rifle loads at 25yrds. the car tires are ligned up 3 deep. the tires work real well for many years and targets are easly fastened on with a staple gun.
Al

I built one using telephone poles put into the ground so they were ~8' tall and ~10' wide with 4x12 nailed to it. I then used some 3" concrete slabs (I had laying around) as the sides that are around ~4x8. I filled the "box" that was formed with dirt and horse manure (we had a lot of that from the meadow maggots). When I was ready to shoot I put some 2 2x4s on the front and nailed a sheet of 1/2" plywood to the front to help destabliize the bullet before it entered the wood/dirt and to stop any "bounce back" from 22s.

What about three big hay rolls, two set side-by-side and the third set in the notch between the two others? Hay ought to be cheap and will stop any bullet, you can leave it out there all year long and nobody can damage, destroy or steal it. Long nails pushed into it by hand will hold up your targets.

silage bales are better, excellent bullet stop.
Dirt cheap/free/mobile.