For those of you who shoot various steel plate targes with the heavy rifles, what's the minimum thickness and type that will hold up to repeated bullet impacts at 50 yards? I ask because a friend has a plasma cutter and we were thinking about cutting out a head-on Cape buff profile. Would half-inch be enough, hung by chains?

I don't think so.

We shot a free standing 5" diameter plate at 100 yards with a .416 Rigby. I think the plate thickness was around an inch. Using a 350 gr Barnes X load, the bullets would not pass through as much momentum was tranlated into lofting the plate. However, the bullets put huge pocks into the plate. They were larger than the fully expanded X Bullet and deep enough to sometimes hold the spent bullet.

The gongs on the range in Jackson Hole at ranges of 300 yards and beyond were 2" thick the last time I was there. Ones that had been replaced after some service time were pretty badly shot up.

Better to use mine belt for the buff and rig hangers for plastic bottles holding water. That does work and seems to last reasonably well. Makes for a pretty obvious marker when you hit where your supposed to.

I think 1/2" mild steel plate would not hold up long but the weight of heavier stuff might get unmanageable.

Also, you are going to have shrapnel coming back at you at 50 yards. Not good.

I shoot 1/2" steel at 300 yards with big bores and it craters pretty heavily out that far, and my .510 JAB will put holes in it with the black tip AP bullets.

I think you better make the silhouette out of plywood painted black and replace the shot out vital areas now and then, and black tape over the fresh bullet holes as you go for scoring each shooter.

If you use steel at close range: "You'll shoot your eye out."

"Oh, nothing Mom, just pounding primers with a hammer ..."

It's not the thickness; it's the alloy. Try to find a piece of T-1 or another hardened plate material. We watched jeffe punch a hole through 3/8 railroad iron base plates with a lead muzzle loader Perdesoli 58 cal at 50 -60 yds, maybe more. And that is about 1300 fps. Imagine a jacketed 700 gr bullet at 2300?

The only other option is find a scrap yard around pipeline country and look for a 1500 ANSI blind flange. It will be 3 inches thick or so and it will take a lot of rounds to wear it out. Weld it to the center of mass of your buffalo cut out. FWIW, you need to weld T-1 with reverse polarity or it will be too brittle and break from impact.

Harder alloys and thicker plates will be more likely to throw shrapnel back at you at 50 yds, maybe a nice big chunk right into your forehead.

I have heard them whistle by right over the top of my head.

Next time I do that I am going to duck real quick after I shoot.

True enough. We always put an angle on the dangle so they splatter down into the dirt at the base of the target.

Another steel alloy to look for is the AR types. No, this has nothing to do with this site. Abrasive Resistant 350/400 plate is hard enough to stand up to bullet impacts without the heavy cratering you get with mild steel, like A-36. It is easier to weld than T-1. Just use a low hydrigen rod, ie. 7018, or higher up to 11018. I would try to get something at least 1/2" thick, 3/4" would be better for taking the impact from 500grs @ 2200fps. Soft points or cast bullets will be the best to use, I would not use soilds. Hang the plate with a forward lean to it. The splater of the bullet will go to ground and to the sides, but no back to the shooter. This is how the CAS er's have their targets, and they are shooting as close as 10 yds, with cast bullets. Yes different type of bullets and less velocity, but the same princaple. Weld a piece of angle iron to the back of your target, both legs to the plate. Make a target stake with a cross bar to hang the target from. This will need to be a stiff/heavy rod, pipe, etc. Drive the stake into the ground, leaning it towards the shooting line at about 70 deg. Or build a stand that will set on top of the ground and stay upright when the target is hit.

Hog Killer

At my club we use T-1 plate. For 200m and farther 1/2" is used and for 100m and closer 5/8" is used. Rather than setting the targets on stands they are hung from target hangers. This allows the plates to swing a little on impact and reduce the risk of shrapnel, richocet, and target breakage. To hang them two holes are drilled near the top of the target and a piece of tire carcass is looped sandwiching the plate and bolted in place. I'll try to get a photo of this set up, but since it is 5°f right now I may not go to the range fo a few days!

A local metal/welding shop had a good sized contract job a few years back using the AR400 steel. He let me take a bunch of leftover stuff of varying sizes. The biggest piece I have is about 15x20". This stuff is not that thick yet works very well, though not indestructable.

Another option is the old links from bulldozer tracks. They are about a couple feet long and about a foot wide. Someone got a bunch at a nearby 500 yard range and I was told they were free from a place where they rebuild the tracks and they scrap the worn out sections.

Also, I've shot quite a bit of CAS. We always used hard cast bullets that broke into lots of small pieces when they hit the steel. Even then, competitors as well as spectators get hit w/ shrapnel on occasion. I would never shoot a high power centerfire rifle bullet at a fixed steel plate at 50yds w/ out having a bullet trap. You can too easily kill someone. We have a multi-million dollar state of the art 18 lane computer run range. Our last two lanes use military armor plating and is rated for high power rifles and machinguns. This thing traps the bullets and I've shot a bunch of 416cal 400gr bullets @ 2400fps at it as close as 25yds. Even w/ all that technology, chunks of brass jacket material have bounced back and cut me.

Gary

At a Sniper shoot a few years back they had an unknown distance event, fired in the "country" from a little mountain down through the valley and up the other side.
For targets they used mild steel "rod" some of it 6 inches or so in diameter. This is solid looking barstock. From several hundred yards away when a 308 bullet hit this mild steel some of it became molton and started a rather large fire. We have shot in this same area with hardened steel targets for a few years with out any problems.
After the fire was put out and we recovered some of the mild steel targets it was apparent what was happening.

Bill, find a heavy equipment dealer that will let you dig through their scrap pile. Find a broken bulldozer cutting edge. I've been using some for years. Nothing short of armor piercing will put more than a dimple in them. CRS is a waste of money and buying T1 of similar is expensive.

There are bolt holes in the cutting edges that have to be contended with. They are usually attached with plow bolts. They're similar to carriage bolts, a square hole with a counter sink. Find broken bolts in the same scrap pile and weld them in.

Thanks for all the thoughts, guys, and especially the tips about safety issues that I had failed to consider. Maybe for now I will just stick to the Cape buff paper targets.

M Pursell is right...

I've been using a cutting edge from a D10 Caterpillar and it's the hardest stuff on the planet... My 30-06, .375 H&H and .458 Win all leave nothing more than the faintest dimple in the steel. I never knew how hard steel could be until I saw this stuff. It's about 3" thick and 12"x18" so VERY heavy (heaven only knows how much that whole damned bulldozer must weigh if just one piece of the tooth is this heavy!!!) to manhandle and get into place, but once you set up the target it doesn't budge from impacts and is essentially impervious to heavy caliber rifle hits.

I'd say only a 50 BMG with AP ammo will begin to harm this stuff...

PS: In my experience shooting steel (thousands of rounds over the years), I only get splashback if very close to the steel plate. Set up your plate with the slightest angle to it and you'll be just fine. When average rifle bullets impact heavy steel plates they essentially disintegrate into very small fragments that lose the vast majority of their velocity on the impact. Yes, they dig a massive crater in the process or drill through the steel, but by the time they're done with all that they've lost most of their velocity and have been severely pulverized. Those who use very heavy steel jacketed rounds or mono-metal solids may have different experiences, so let's hear from them please if these findings are not the same for steel jacketed solids...

In my years of shooting steel I generally find what's left of the bullet within about 10 feet of the plate and it's usually flat as a pancake and wafer-thin.