My all time favorite target is a 1-gallon milk jug (or equivalent plastic container) filled with water. Shooting those with any type of center fire rifle if just a blast! (Rinse the milk jug out when you finish the milk otherwise it will turn ripe. And, remember to save the cap. This makes easier transport to the range.)
A close second is a pop can filled with water and shot with a hyper-velocity 22LR hollow point. This offers the same effect as the milk jug, but on a smaller scale.
Posts: 90 | Location: Pullman, WA, USA | Registered: 03 April 2002
I like milk jugs,too, but we freeze them so the .375 can explode them. Concrete blocks blow up good also. We use grapefruit which also splatter nicely. And finally, the 1/4" 12x12 steel plates which "ping" nicely when struck. Did I mention asking around for all your friends and neighbors to give up those old spray paint cans they have in the garage? They are fun to shoot also.
Posts: 287 | Location: Florida USA | Registered: 23 February 2002
The smallest pill bottles,filled with water,at 250 yds or more.An M80 attached to the cap of a gallon of gas in a water jug.Pumkins are also fun in season. 1geejay www.shooting-hunting.com
quote:Originally posted by Ben_Wazzu: My all time favorite target is a 1-gallon milk jug (or equivalent plastic container) filled with water. Shooting those with any type of center fire rifle if just a blast! (Rinse the milk jug out when you finish the milk otherwise it will turn ripe. And, remember to save the cap. This makes easier transport to the range.)
Add a little food colouring to the water to increase the visual effect!
~Holmes
A close second is a pop can filled with water and shot with a hyper-velocity 22LR hollow point. This offers the same effect as the milk jug, but on a smaller scale.
Posts: 1171 | Location: Wyoming, USA | Registered: 03 June 2000
To christen my new .338-o6 next month here's a list of long range plinking targets I've accumulated:
*very old fire extinguisher *Misc plastic water containers *Paint cans (at the suggestion of Red Label) *Old metal gas can (half-full of course) *4 mostly-used coleman propane cylendars *Neighborhood cat (just kidding) *Old spray paint cans
Afterwards I'll be hauling a load to the landfill....
Crabapples from Boadarch Trees are the best! Followed by Watermelons and Cantilopes. Also some of the old golf balls turn to a white powdery mist, haven't tried any good ones yet?!
Cats, I.ve found 55 gr.s at 4100 FPS is better than the Sierra Blitz at 3300. You have to go for the guts though. Maybe it's a hydraulic action?
Sure makes a nice spray pattern.
I've begun to judge differ't manufacturers by the spray pattern alone, I think this is a better test of bullet quality and construction than wet newspapers.
I personally believe everyone should do this for their pre-season prep. Why risk a wounded chuck or grd. squirrel???!!!
Comeon!!!! Lets do our part by testing and re-testing before we go afeild.
Posts: 9 | Location: usa | Registered: 13 June 2002
always wanted to try spray cans of ether (starting fluid), and those cans of WD40 that run out of gas before they run out of oil. Oughta make a nice fireball...... JMO, Dutch.
Posts: 4564 | Location: Idaho Falls, ID, USA | Registered: 21 September 2000
I think the best plinking targets are ROCKS. They are everywhere, usually, and require neither set-up nor clean-up after shooting. Just sit down and start picking them off. They come at various ranges, sizes, colors and configurations. PERFECT.
I figure I'm recycling dirt when I blow one up. Gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling and best of all they make such a nice POP when you nail one good!
------------------ A well placed bullet is worth 1,000 ft/lbs of energy.
Posts: 19677 | Location: New Mexico | Registered: 23 May 2002
Since I'm a new guy, I might as well make myself unpopular right away.
I note that of about 15 or so posts, only one guy mentioned that he picks up his plinking targets and hauls 'em off. I live in a small town and we have had an unofficial "shooting area" for years. Many of the targets described in the preceding posts litter the ground ankle deep. A few years ago a couple of other local shooters and I spent days picking up all the SH** that people like to shoot at. But it's all back again and more.
I don't much care what anybody likes to shoot at as long as they don't leave the pieces around for me and nephews to have to walk through. I'm sure that all the other posters on this board a like the ONE gentleman who mentioned that he packs it out after he's killed it.
Soory for the tirade guys, it's a pet peeve of mine. Don't throw bricks!!
I've always got a goodly supply of tomatoes left on the vine after the first good, hard freeze. Since it usually slows down around the farm about then and it's gettin' close to hunting season, I usually burn up a whole lot of .22 ammo shooting little tomatoes off the vine.
Hedge apples make pretty darn good targets and I tear hell outa pop cans with my MkII. I used to shoot skeet with a .22 a lot when I lived next to a wheat field that was at least 10 miles across.
I used to be one of those guys when I was a kid. My favorite was anti-freeze jugs. I did pack some out to show my dad, but I'll have to admit not many. That was about thirty years ago though.
I shot a refrigerator one time; rather enjoyed that.
Usually my favorite live target was jackrabbits. It kept my deer rifle finely tuned.
My all-time favorite jackrabbit I shot while hunting in a strong wind. I was moving into the wind hoping to ambush a coyote that had been hunting a dry-lake bed. I had my .308 Win. loaded with 110 gr. Sierra hollowpoints.
I walked right up on a pair of jackrabbits doing the nasty. I thought ....him?...her?...him...her. Finally decided on him. When the dust cleared what was left of him was hanging all over the mesquite bush behind them. She didn't budge. I thought I'd killed them both. I walked up, saw no damage to her. She was still spread out in her come-get-me-stance. I nudged her with my toe and she came to her senses and hauled ass.
I think she was both thrilled by what she'd done to the buck and somewhat embarrassed that she'd utterly destroyed him. I assume the buck at the instant the hollow point hit him thought it was the best piece of ass he'd ever had. He appeared to be smiling.
Posts: 13919 | Location: Texas | Registered: 10 May 2002
I have picked up a good pile of reload able brass when cleaning up some ones target sessions.. Along with glass, cans, milk jugs, etc. Lets Keep our areas clean..
Mauserkid P.S. You can still leave your brass, just put it back in the box for me (less cleaning) Thanks..
I like charcoal brickettes. You can lay them around, anywhere (and this allows you to CHECK your backstops) blast them into a fine mist, and, when you are tired, leave. They biodegrade, and are REAL interactive. jeffe
oh, yeah, and jack rabbits with a 358 winchester, loaded with xtp 158 jhp at 2900.... PUUFFFFFF
Generally, various types of fruits and vegetables (which are otherwise unfit for consumption), make excellent plinking targets. They "react" spectacularly to the hit, and are totally biodegradable, leaving no mess to clean up.
Sometimes, they can even be found in their natural habitat (an abandoned field of watermelons, for example), and thereby qualify for the "book" under the rules of fair chase (the field, of course, must not be high fenced).
If you have a safe place to do it and don't mind cleaning up your own mess, follow these instructions for a gratifying experience:
Fill an opened and empty 12 ounce aluminum beverage can (soft drink will do, but effect is better if beer can is used and contents emptied into shooter) with 10 ounces of water. Fill the remaining space with 2.1 ounces of gasoline (octane unimportant) so that the overflowing can is full to the top of the external rim. Ignite the gasoline now puddled on the top surface of the can. Shoot with a varmint-type high velocity bullet from plus or minus 100 yards. Enjoy fireball.
Let me caution, however, not to go around bragging in public about this experience. Aluminum-rights activists may decry this as a "canned hunt".
Posts: 13265 | Location: Henly, TX, USA | Registered: 04 April 2001
CATS. I just shoot them and leave them lay. They are usually eaten within a day or two by Coyotes, possums, skunks or sometimes bears. GRAY SQUIRRELS: I eat the head shot ones, Cats, Owls, Coyotes or bears get the rest. They are gone within a day. Ground Squirrels or chipmunks with a 22. VERY TOUGH TARGRTS, but great fun. Hawks, Owls, or crows clean them up within hours.
Posts: 1984 | Location: The Three Lower Counties (Delaware USA) | Registered: 13 September 2001
Golf Balls @100 yd or further out. Shoot with hollow point and blow big holes in them or shoot with fmj they go straght through. Lots of fun and a good challange.
Highly shook up cans of cheap club soda. Makes a big explosion when hit. See it in the scope from a long ways away.
Also use golf balls, compact discs, liberals, charcoal briquets. Shot up my old CD-Burner awhile back. Six shots on target at 500yds. Not bad for an el-cheapo department store special.
Last week it was tying a string around a potato, hang it from a tree, let it swing, then try (TRY is the operative word here!) to hit it a 100 or so yards. I hate shooting at paper. Like to keep plinking interesting and fun.
Jackrabbits at the ranch with my silenced Ruger 10/22. For every 8 I kill my cows get one meal...in other words...eight jacks eat the same as one cow..I am in the cow business. They are biodegradable too!
Chunks of old red bricks make great targets. When hit, they explode in a cloud of red dust that can be seen a long ways off. And you don't have any shot up trash to haul off when you leave.
Posts: 8169 | Location: humboldt | Registered: 10 April 2002
I've never been accused of being PC. So here goes I like to plink at "cans" you fill in the prefix! Cats ar very good targets, so is shooting a frozen glacier on the side of a strip mine in the middle of winter. Also since you have a oversize jacket you can shoot bigger or more often!
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