"A target that will pop back up after you shoot it."

That pretty much describes every black bear I've shot. I highly recommmend them.
Jerry/AK

I am looking for plans or information about a homemade target that will pop back up on its own after I shoot it with a .30 caliber rifle bullet of 168-180 grains from 500 yards or so. I know LaRue makes something that does this, but at $1400 I'm thinking someone out there has a better idea. I'm thinking about something along the lines of a plate that swings through an arc and returns to upright position by virtue of a weight on a long arm, such weight so determined to cause the plate to drop down with the impact of the bullet then slowly swing back to vertical again. Any ideas?

What about on a spring? a plate mounted on a heavy coil spring. problem being that if you hit the spring you are in trouble. I saw one at the range here that had a heavy plate hanging from a frame and there was a srping mounted BEHIND the plate to handle the recoil and it protected the spring. you could hear the audible usually if you hit it. of course at 500yds. that might be hard so I would make it so it had some movement after getting hit.

why not look into those setups where you shoot a couple of plates and they tip over and then shooting the next plate resets them. Cabelas I think sells them.

Red

I"ve built a bunch of swinging steel targets, and its quite easy. You just counter weight the target. That is to say take a piece of tubing that is about 1.5" I.d. (1 1/2" pipe will work) weld a bar on each side of the pipe and the target to the bar on one side and a counterweight on the other (a 2nd target works great) then make a stand with a 1.5" shaft. Slide the pipe over the shaft and have at it. A word or two on steel though. Mild steel will work OK (at least 1/2" plate) but the higher the velocity the round is the more damage you will do to the target. To go to steels that damage less will raise the pricetag really fast. The best I found was an alloy called borally but it's really hard to find, usually abrasive resistant (the cheaper one) will work ok. Mostly have used mild steel and just replace the target when its all shot to hell.

Rootbeer:
This is easy. I needed to practice my off hand shooting on the 200 meter chickens for BP silhouette. I went to a local metal shop with the full size layout of the target & had them cut me one out of 3/8" plate. I drilled a couple of holes in the top of it for attatching some chain. I then got some 1/2" black pipe, cut out the pieces I needed & threaded the ends on a pipe threader. Not having access to a pipe bender, I used 90 deg elbows. The target & rack made from pipe were light enough so I could carry both of them out to the 200 meter line. The biggest expense for me was having the silhouette cut out. If you use just a circle, shouldn't cost that much. My set up works great. Bear in Fairbanks

Instead of swiveling from the bottom (work against gravity to return target to position), why not swivel from the top and let gravity pull the target back into position?