[Jake Benson]

I just bought two S&W revolvers. The 649 and 686. I have five acres in semi-rural area and want to put up a shooting range for my wife and I. I have done some research and here are my ideas. I would like input from anyone with experience with their own shooting range.

First idea. Stacked tires filled with sand. Five or six tires arcross, stacked about six feet high. Another row behind them, staggered to fill in the gaps. Also maybe having the stacks curved a little to give it a wrap around look. The cons to this as I have read are that tires can cause ricocheting. But what about either bales of straw in front of the tires to catch any ricochets, or attaching carpet to the fronts for the same purpose?

Second idea. Using railroad ties. Two across and stacking them around six feet high. Another tier behind the first, off-center to fill in the crack where the first tiers come together. These could also have a tier on each side, flared out to form something of a semi circle. Again, I have read railroad ties can cause ricochets, but what about the staw bales in front of them, or carpet attached to the front of the ties, top to bottom?

Third idea. This is probably the best but also the most difficult. Just having a couple loads of dirt or sand dumped in the area of shooting. This would be the most difficult because the range would be down in the woods and very difficult to get a dump truck down there without cutting down some trees.

I would also build a shed, closed in on three sides with roof, and sound proofing it to muffle the gunshots. There are other houses in the area, although none are closer than 500 feet from where I would be shooting. The range would be facing a direction where there are no homes, and about 300-400 yards straight down the range is a giant embankment, perhaps 20 feet high, at the top is a plateau which has chicken houses on it. The embankment is not on my property so I could not use it for a backstop.

The other factor here is I don't have a lot of money to be spending on this. I want it to be safe but made as cheaply as possible.

[possom813]

I've just got a pile of dirt for a berm, or a tank dam, whichever is better at the time.

If you were building one from scratch, without wanting to spend a lot of cash.

Get 4 good poles and sink the front two and rear two poles about 10-12' across from each other.

Going front to back, around 8' between the front poles and back poles and have all the poles about 7' high.

Get some treated lumber, 2 by 4,6,8,10,12 or whatever you back have and board up three sides, leaving the front open.

At the bottom of the front, nail enough of the 2 by's to make it about 15-20 inches high.

Fill it up with sand the best you can, it will cave at the front and be thick at the bottom and thin at the top.

Take your tires and stack them however you want behind the back wall all the way to the top to stop anything that penetrates the sand and wood.


Also, you may want to check your local ordinances, seems like you have to have so many acres to have a berm/shooting range.

my .02

[M2 Carbine]

I am not a fan of tires or railroad ties. Both can deflect the bullet back at you.

Check around and see if you can get someone with a front end loader to pile up a dirt backstop for you.

This is mine and I consider it about a minimum size as far as safety. I have a front end loader and I keep working on building the backstop larger.
http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x464/Bell-helicopter-407/Rangecover.jpg

http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x464/Bell-helicopter-407/Natat52yards.jpg


The use of steel plate can also help as a backstop. This is my backyard range. Again the dirt berm should be as big as you can manage.
http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x464/Bell-helicopter-407/Backyardshootingberm.jpg


Remember it is completely your responsibility to assure that no bullet leaves your property. Not only must you never miss the backstop but you are responsible for everyone that shoots on your range. Like the girl in the above picture. I would be foolish allowing her to shoot a pistol at 50 yards if I wasn't sure that she would not miss the backstop.

[Jake Benson]

Thanks for the pictures. I agree with you. I have decided a dirt backstop is the way to go. One thing that occurred to me was renting a bobcat. That would do the trick. Your pictures give me some more ideas as well. Thanks.

[Bravo Sierra]

Third idea. This is probably the best but also the most difficult. Just having a couple loads of dirt or sand dumped in the area of shooting. This would be the most difficult because the range would be down in the woods and very difficult to get a dump truck down there without cutting down some trees.

As you say, you could rent a bobcat. Figure out how wide you can get something back on your land, and how level the terrain is, how many rocks, etc. getting in your way.

A bobcat or skid would work if you don't have much space. You could rent a tractor with a bucket in front and a blade in the back, to scoop and push the dirt for your berm.

Get the widest you think you can get back on your property, with room to maneuver around. More cubic yardage per bucket = less work and operating time.

The old fashioned way would be to horse it in with an oversized wheelbarrow.

[Shadow 7D]

I'd still go with the rail road ties :)

BUT used as a retaining wall so you have a consistent mound, line up or drill the ties (or logs) then use rebar like huge nails and you should be able to build something pretty permanent.

[M2 Carbine]

One thing that occurred to me was renting a bobcat.
Be very careful if you aren't experienced with a front end loader. When the bucket is full the tractor will roll over very easy when the bucket is lifted high.
http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x464/Bell-helicopter-407/nwetractor-1.jpg

[dickttx]

Went through the same thoughts a year or so ago. Finally ended up using my pond dam, at an angle, so there was nothing behind it.
Remember from several years ago, building retaining wall, flower beds, etc., that crossties were pretty expensive even then ($10/$12 each.) Hauling them is also not easy, need at least a 16' low boy. I have a JD 4400 with a loader, but unless you have sand or soft soil that is not powerful enough to do the job.
Renting a Bobcat is probably the best, however, unless you are experienced in operating it, they turn over pretty easily.
Hiring someone with a Bobcat to do the job for you might be the best overall.
Any way you go, it is going to cost some $.
Good luck on your project.
Attached photo is what I ended up with.
I did buy a few bags of playsand to stack behind the target so I could mine my lead easier.

[Owen Sparks]

Dirt backstops work fine as long as they have a good sheer cliff face like the one in the picture M2 Carbine posted. The problem with dirt piles is that after time they tend to erode and settle into a mound. This mound can act as a ramp and cause bullets to angle off like a bank shot in billiards and lob them off your property. This problem is made worse in this time of year when hot dry conditions bake the dirt and make it hard and we all know what happens when you shoot a hatd flat surface at an angle.

Dirt backstops are safe if you maintain them with a bulldozer but shooting at a 45 degree slope is asking for trouble.

[slowr1der]

This is something I've also wondered about. We have some land that's pretty much flat, but it's very wooded. I'd like to be able to shoot on it, but I'm afraid to, so I want to build a backstop. I really have no way to get a tractor, or anything else back in there, so I'm thinking if I ever want to shoot on it, I may have to remove some trees.

[GCBurner]

With a low lying dirt berm, please be aware of what is on the other side, for at least 2 miles down range. No matter how good a shot you think you are, the occasional round is going to go flying over the top, and if it hits something, or someone, on the far side, you will be in a world of trouble.

[gamestalker]

You can construct a burm without having to haul in a bunch of dirt and sand. Use a ditch witch or a tiller that will loosen the soil, and then just pile it up on the front side of the trench. Just plain common dirt is more effective at preventing recochet than tires or carpet and bullets aren't going to get through it.

[Shadow 7D]

Build a slight rise/mound, the for the back stop you dig a mound by scooping the dirt out and piling on the back side, till you end up with a sloped ramp down 6-7 feet backed with an above ground mound. with the rise, you have a lane of fire that downward facing, but the lead can be a bit hard to mine.

[Larry E]

The range I was a member of some years ago tried dirt filled tires, and found that if a bullet hit them just wrong it could go flying to who knows where. On the other hand if you can bury tires in the backstop as filler, and make sure that they can't be or won't be exposed I'd think that would work well. Anything that's hard (railroad ties) or flexible (tires) has the possibility of causing ricochets which can go anywhere.

I'd use the largest pile of dirt that I could build or find. A good wooded hillside on your property with a backstop cut with a front loader or tractor is ideal IMHO.

[labhound]

Backstop is built with railroad ties 7 feet tall braced with 6x6 treated posts and filled with 1 1/2 dump truck loads of dirt. Shelter is a metal carport with 4x8 sheets of styrofoam sheets on the ceiling to help muffle sound but more is to be added.
http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Pistolrange008.jpg http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Pistolrange016.jpg (http://www.thehighroad.org/http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Pistolrange008.jpg%20http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Pistolrange016.jpg%20)http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange009.jpg http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange007.jpg http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange005.jpg (http://www.thehighroad.org/http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange009.jpg%20http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange007.jpg%20http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange005.jpg%20)http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Shootingathomerange014.jpghttp://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd366/labhound1/Pistolrange007.jpg

[heeler]

That's a nice setup labhound.

[sugarmaker]

A man in Essex, Vermont was shot dead at his dinnertable 2 years ago by some guys shooting into a, 8 foot dirt pile backstop over otherwise flat ground. One of them overshot the berm by accident. Would you stand 1/4 or 1/2 mile behind your backstop, on your neighbor's property (if you own 5 acres...) while you or your guests are shooting, every time? If not, it's probably not safe.

have 2 home ranges - 1 100 footer out back here and I shoot into a mountain, down in a gully, nearest house is 500 feet away, not in the direction of the target, and blocked by the hill. I have a berm similar to yours as the primary backstop, the 200 foot hill is for good measure. The other I shoot into a hill but the backstop isn't as good, 200 yards into a 20 foot upslope and we own the next 3/4 mile - no houses (or power poles, nothing...) for 20 miles within +/- 30 degrees in that direction, and I can see for 100 yards beyond the target.

One or two rounds is one thing, but a shooting range needs to account for things not going exactly right - as they say, stuff happens.

[heeler]

Safety can never be over looked but in labhounds range as well as M2 Carbine's the trees alone would make it extremely unlikely for a bullet to get past that point.

[labhound]

I'm actually shooting downhill and past the backstop are woods and a swampy creek bed. The nearest house is across the creek bed then up hill and through 500 yards of woods. The nearest road is about 250 yards behind me and my house is 200 yards off to my right and slightly behind me. City code requires you be a minimum of 100 yards from any road and 200 yards from any house before you can shoot.

[atlantis]

Labhound's setup is pretty much ideal. The lady shooter is kind of cute, too. But lab could lose some weight. ;)

To the OP, if you go with a dirt pile, do some research as to the specific dimensions.

From elsewhere:

Make sure the height of the berm is 4' taller than the person that will be shooting into it.

The things will settle, even when "Contained" with some sort of wooden framing to support them, and need "Updating" from time to time.

If you have sand or light soil, make sure the base width is 4 times the height, and not just 3.

Logs and wood break down fast, and ain't worth the effort and cost.



I remember considering such a thing for myself and when I found out how much dirt was involved, went a different route.

[labhound]

That's my wife. Not only is she slimmer and cuter than me, but most days she out shoots me! :o

[conw]

I like to use a flash mob as a backstop. This conveniently solves your problem as well as one that keeps recurring in the S&T section as a hard-to-answer question. :uhoh:

[M2 Carbine]

Safety can never be over looked but in labhounds range as well as M2 Carbine's the trees alone would make it extremely unlikely for a bullet to get past that point.
Other than the normal safety rules we all follow, I tell shooters at my place I have only two rules that must never be broken.
You are free to do any kind of shooting that you can safely do but......
1. Under no circumstances are you to miss the berm. Shoot within your own limits.
2. Do not shoot me.

Not necessarily in that order.:)


When someone new to my range shoots, first we shoot close up, about 5-7 yards, so I can see that they know what they are doing.
We have all seen those people that talk a good story but actually can't hit a barn from inside it. Generally their other gun handling is poor to.

[heron]

Here's mine -- it's a flat box full of sand, 4 ft square, sides made of 2x8's, front and back covered in 2x10's. Half a ton of sand in it, IIRC. I think I bought half a yard, and it just about fit.

I got the idea from this delightful article:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot7.htm

It works, too: stops .357 Mag, 9mm (from a carbine), .223, and 20 GA slugs.

[Owen Sparks]

That angled pile of dirt that labhound pictured can act as a ramp and lob bullets for hundreds of yards if it gets hard in a drought. The dirt should be behind the railroad ties rather than in front. Every stray bullet carrys a manslaughter charge. Safe backstops should be at a 90 degree angle or less. Anyone who has played pool should be able to figure this out. It is not rocket surgery.

[Owen Sparks]

Double post.

[sugarmaker]

An interesting education: If you own a 30 cal fire a box of tracers into your range at night - can be a real eye opener. I'll tell you this - trees aren't worth a darn, 1 in 10 rounds fired into a grove of trees will deflect up over the canopy +/- 30 degrees from the line of fire. 1 in 3 for rock walls, 1 in 2 for ground sloped 15%. The rounds are still carrying some steam after being deflected, too.

[teumessian_fox]

The dirt should be behind the railroad ties rather than in front....Safe backstops should be at a 90 degree angle or less.

Absolutely disagree. The bullets deflect off wood, particularly slow moving large caliber bullets. And every club I've ever shot at, including the one I'm currently a member of, has a berm backstop that from the side, looks like an equalateral triangle.

[Owen Sparks]

Lead does not bounce straight back because it is soft and disapates energy. Anyone who has shot much steel knows this but it does glance off anything hard if it hits at an angle, just like a bank shot in pool. But don't take my word for it, buy some tracers and prove it to yourself. We used to use a mound of dirt as a back stop until late one evening when we fired some .308 tracers. We moved the range after that.

[Shadow 7D]

Dirt stops bullets,
BUT it takes A LOT of dirt

wood is bouncy, and while it will absorb round, it' will throw splinters and ricochets, so the Idea of using the ties as a retaining wall means you can build higher with less soil, at a more vertical angle and you have a better final stop, esp. at the top while also having soil to stop bounced bullets or splinters. Oh, and it's easier to mine you lead out.

[Owen Sparks]

A fresh loose pile of dirt will stop a bullet that hits at even a shallow angle. It is only after it gets rained on, settles and gets baked by the sun that it becomes a liability.

[labhound]

It also matters what type of dirt you use, sandy, top soil, or dirt with a lot of clay. Clay tends to dry out and harden, not so much with sandy soil or good top soil. Its also pretty easy to take your front loader and "fluff" your dirt pile if you use the right kind of soil.

[Owen Sparks]

Dirt backstops cut into a hillside usually need to be squaired up with a bulldozer periodically. A friend has one and has to keep the Bobcat on it to keep it from deteriorating into a slope. Good thing he has access to a Bobcat.

[rori]

I don't see any backstop so far that could ever be considered safe. If you think that no one will shoot over the top of an eight or ten foot wall or berm look at the ceeling of an indoor range once. I've never seen one without bullet holes in it. You kill or injure someone your in for not only civil but criminal charges. Frank

[Shadow 7D]

Rori, there is a bit of 'adult' in this conversation
if you think that everybody has to shoot in a bullet proof tunnel, well...
that's the WHY you have your own RANGE, you DON'T have to shoot at a place where people are, for what ever reason, unable to perform the basic steps to use a firearm safely.

[alsaqr]

labhound, that is a nice safe range.

[SFsc616171]

The three-sided box with dirt in it, invites ricochets. Railroad ties, front row, spaced six feet, railroad ties second row, filling to use is sandbags. No rocks, or chips. Look up how the military put up CONEX boxes on the bases in SouthEast Asia, i.e., U-Tapao RTNAF, and you will have a clue. Sandbags, no mattered how weathered, stopped bullets, indirect schrapnel, and softened an RPG blow, one time. when you use fill dirt, you don't exactly know if it has been sifted or not, I think.

[DeputyVaughn]

I built my backstop out of railroad ties, two layers deep and covered the front with tire treads (truck throw-offs picked up from the highway). Stops everything I shoot at it.

Scott

[bhk]

I shoot into a rather small dirt berm with a box (two sides and a top) built into it. The box was built to prevent bullet fragments from steel target edges and brackets from flying away. So far no fragments have escaped the box. My berm is very small, but behind it is a significant wooded hillside and more than a mile of uninhabited forest. In 25 years of shooting into my small berm, no bullet has failed to hit it. I am, of course, pretty much the only shooter using it. The others that may occasionally shoot at my place (wife and a few very close friends) must not shoot any further away from the target that their skills allow. I am the judge of that.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/Shooting_range.jpg

[SimplyChad]

Pines dirt and a chainsaw. Great now you got me planning. :)

[Jake Benson]

Thanks for all the info. Just found out today from the sheriff's office there are no restrictions in my county as far as having a home range on your own property other than being responsible for stray bullets, of course. I was kind of concerned about that, some counties have ordinances that you can't have a backstop within 500 feet of someone else's property and some even more restrictive than that.

I have five acres, and the direction I will be shooting in has no houses, only woods,and a giant hill, some 30 feet high past them, with chicken houses up on the plateau. If I make my backstop safe, I will not have any problems. I also intend to build a three sided shed to shoot from, sound proofed very well, to cut down on noise since there are houses in the vicinity. This is more a courtesy than a regulation.

[Ultravox]

Very nice bhk. I think I might try and talk my friend into building something like that on his hobby farm. :)

[rori]

Shadow, no I don't think everyone should shoot in a bullet proof tunnel!!!!!!!!!! I do think that the backstops I'm seeing in this thread up to the time I posted are very unsafe and need considerably more vertical backstop. Also a long enough impact area is necessary. The ones I was seeing allow no room for an accidental discharge more than 8" or so above the top of the backstop and that is nowhere near enough. If there isn't at least a 3 mile impact area directly behind the backstop it should never be shot at. Remember that boxes of 22's carry a warning that they can injure or kill at over a mile. I never shoot at public ranges but do shoot a LOT with a rock backstop approx 50 feet high and an impact area over 5 miles long. Anything that doesn't safeguard the innocent public is dangerous and neglegent and if I was on the jury I would have to find a person guilty of neglegent manslaughter. Problem is that doesn't bring back or heal the innocent. We as shooters bear the responsibility of safeguarding those that are not engaged in our pastime. Shoot safely or not at all. Frank

[Jake Benson]

I think what Shadow was saying is that there are no absolutes in this life. No matter how safe you think something is, the unexpected can, and does, happen. Murphy's law and all that. From what I have seen in all the posts so far is that safety is in the eye of the beholder. I think one poster said he had been shooting into his backstop for 25 years without incident.

I have read stuff where one person says one thing, and a few posts later someone completely contradicts them. I have gotten a lot of good info from the posts and intend to build the safest shooting area I can. Will it be foolproof? Don't believe there is such a thing. But common sense and learning something of the quirkiness of bullets is very important.

[bhk]

Three clear miles behind the berm makes range construction almost impossible for most land owners east of the great plains. I understand the desire for such a buffer, but I haave never been to or seen a range with this margin of safety. Ever. Now, out west things are different.

[Shadow 7D]

My point is that there is no 100%, you shoot in a quarry...
guess what, I was almost killed by a ricochet by someone shooting 'safely'
they were shooting cans on the water, skipped the bullet, we were above and NOT in the direction they were shooting(pretty much behind to the side), it bounced off their "safe" backstop and I heard it as it whirred between mine and my friends head.

So, I put the RESPONSIBILITY on the shooter, if you want more angle on a berm, shoot from a rise, this means all PROPERLY shot rounds go in the dirt giving you rori's higher 'overhead',

BUT it also means you face that a horizontal or upward fired round lacks the extra berm heights, maybe put bounce plates (permanently mounted angled steel plate to defect high shots down.)

Except then you have to worry about hanging a few tons of metal overhead...
all of life is a trade off, just find the safest workable one for you.

[kbbailey]

BHK,
A nice little backstop. Are you able to reclaim your lead from that set-up??

[Jake Benson]

Labhound:

What did you use to stack the railroad ties? How did you get the dirt in there that high as a dump truck isn't going to be able to dump dirt seven feet high.

[labhound]

Jake I have a Branson tractor with a front bucket. I also have a fork lift attachment for it. I planted my poles and then I used the fork lift attachment to lift and place the railroad ties and pinned each level together with 12" long pieces of rebar (I don't remember the exact diameter maybe 3/8"). I bolted every third level to the posts and attached the three sides together on the top with a flat piece of iron. I had the dump truck dump the dirt off to the side and I then used the front bucket to scoop and dump the dirt from all four sides of the backstop. Seven feet was as high as I could go with the timbers and still clear them with the bucket when dumping from the sides and back.

[bhk]

BHK,
A nice little backstop. Are you able to reclaim your lead from that set-up??
I am sure I could, but have not made the attempt.

[Jake Benson]

Labhound:

I just called a rental place and got some prices on a bobcat that would have a fork lift attachment. $232.00 for a day, kind of expensive but doable.

I have a couple more questions for you. I assume that's dirt making up the backstop. I was going to use sand as I have read it would be better than dirt. Any comments about that? Also, as I am sure you have noticed in other posts in this thread, some have warned of the dangers of ricochets caused by railroad ties. Have you ever had any problems with this? One thing I was thinking was covering the inside walls of the railroad ties with carpet, top to bottom. Do you think that would cut down on any potential ricochets? My thinking there is any bullet reflected off the railroad tie would be caught by the inside of the carpet and neutralized.

By the way, how much dirt did you use? I was quoted here for 13 1/2 tons of sand which is a dump truck full. Did you use that much or more?

I really like your backstop. I would like to copy it. Any more tips on getting it built, etc. would be most welcome.
Thanks

[heeler]

How would those giant sized round hay bales work as a back stop??
I have no idea of what they cost.

[sansone]

before I got a tractor w/loader I shot into a big tree stump. I placed logs and stones around it for fliers. I only shot from a slightly elevated position so even a wild shot would dive into the ground.
simple solution is a big pile of sand/fill.. Here $100 gets you a dumptruck full, and renting a tractor for the day about $150.. you will have fun all day and won't miss the $250 for long

[we are not amused]

You are getting some good advice and some just plain silly advice.

First of all, neither a tire or a rail road tie is going to "bounce" a bullet.

People are claiming all sorts of weird ricochets, some sound possible, others.... I would suspect somebody else they didn't know about was shooting.

Frankly, ricochets don't usually go very far, because they transferred too much momentum to what they hit, and are often flattened.

Your original idea of stacked tires, sounded good, although I wonder if you realized how much work it would be to fill them with sand or dirt. I once helped a friend build something similar for a different purpose, it took a lot of buckets of dirt, lifted high to fill the darn things.

I suppose a hard packed, gently sloping mound of dirt might "deflect" a bullet, but my brothers and me, used to shoot 30-06 rounds into a gently sloping field terrace, and then dig the bullets out. We found the bullets by tracing the foot to two foot long grooves in the dirt. For the guy shooting tracers, I wonder if he wasn't just seeing the tracer material go flying, not the bullet.

When shooting anything is possible. I once saw on YouTube, where a bullet ricochet off a metal target directly back at the shooter, and hit an observer in the face. The injured observer ended up with a small cut under his eye, good thing he was also wearing eye protection. These things can happen, but are very rare, and proper respect for shooting will minimize the danger.

An uncontained dirt berm is very good and cheap to build, but will require some maintenance to keep it from eroding away.

Have fun, use some common sense, and remember, free advice is worth what you paid for it.

[owen]

tracers aren't good indicators of the bullet deflection, because the pyro material breaks out of the bullet when the bullet hits something.

I've shot steel plate with APT, and on high speed video the projo punches through, but the the tracer element ends up traveling almost perpindicular.

[owen]

heeler, those giant hayales won't work at all...a rifle will shoot right through.

[we are not amused]

How would those giant sized hay round hay bales work as a back stop??
I have no idea of what they cost.

Pretty good. The big problem is that they are round, and rot eventually. Being round, it is difficult to stack them with out gaps between them. But for a small backstop three or four feet in diameter, they work well. Be advised that the edges of the bale are very unlikely to have much stopping power, shoot to the center of the bale. Cost is variable, depending upon what they are made out of (hay, straw, cornstalks...) and availability.

[we are not amused]

heeler, those giant hayales won't work at all...a rifle will shoot right through.
What kind of round bales are you talking about? The ones I have used either were Four by four or five by five foot bales. Even the wheat straw bales were dense enough to stop a 30-06 unless you just shot the edge of the bale?

I live in the country, and in the past have used old round bales as backstops. I wouldn't recommend using them for feed afterwards, (the lead) but they certainly were quite capable of stopping high power bullets.

[heeler]

The hay bales I am speaking of are not rectangular bales normally seen but huge,heavy round bales that are generally placed in a pasture by a very good tractor with a steel pole protruding through the center of the round bale.
Very common here in Texas.

[labhound]

Jake I used 16 tons of top soil (two small dump truck loads). It wasn't sifted but was really clean. It was $240 total for the dirt and $140 to have it delivered. I thought about using sand but it's much harder to keep sand piled up as high as I needed it. I can keep the dirt stacked at a fairly steep angle. I didn't have a free source for the timbers so I had to buy 36 of them at $8.95 each. I don't know for sure but I don't think carpet would do much for preventing ricochets. I had originally thought about using rubber 4'X6' rubber horse stall floor mats on the sides of the timbers but decided not to. My thinking is anything that would ricochet of the side walls of the timbers would be deflected back into the dirt. I actually stacked and buried about 30 old tires under the dirt but I don't think I gained much by doing it except a lot of extra work. To those that have used the large 4x4 foot round hay bails. I have used them in the past too, two and three deep and two high. They work well as I only shot pistols into them. When they get wet and compact down nothing ever got through as I put a couple sheets of plywood behind them to see if anything was getting through. The only problem with using them is they eventually rot and its a real mess to move them when you replace them.

[Jake Benson]

Labhound:

Right now I think the best way to go is with the way you have done it. The only alteration I might make is to have another set of railroad ties on each side making the walls twice as long as yours. That way the targets would be enclosed as well.

I will not get this done anytime soon though. Right now I have to pay off the two hand guns I just bought, a s&w 649 and 686. But I want to get everything planned so I know what I am doing as the money is freed up to begin.

If you feel comfortable with it, could you give me an email address? I will keep you posted on how things turn out.

To everyone else, I greatly appreciate the input. Thanks,We Are Not Amused, for some common sense advice.

I appreciate all comments and advice.

[owen]

we,

how do you know you were stopping the bullets?

[Konstantin835]

Theres a lot of good stuff here and a lot of people who have done it already so heres my idea for a backstop I hope to build. A 4' tall by 4' deep by 8' wide 3 sided box filled with sand with either 2 or 4 of those smaller bales of hay in front to act as a retaining wall and to stop ricochets. I think this would do a good job especially considering distance is very limited. I don't know how available sand is or how expensive it is some places but here I think I can get it relatively cheap and from what I have read it is much better than dirt at stopping bullets but it obviously has a problem staying mounded up.

[SleazyRider]

My backstop is not very sophisticated. I shoot into the endgrain of split firewood stacked in my woodpile, and replenish the wood every year with freshly cut and split wood. My stack is very dense, and there's a hillside behind it. The dry stuff, embedded with bullets, goes into my wood stove, and when I clean the grates in the firebox at the end of each heating season, I fish out an awful lot of lead. Currently, I don't recycle lead, but I plan to someday.

I usually leave a circular section of wood in the middle of the pile for rifle shooting, and I swear the endgrain sucks up the bullets like a black hole.

[labhound]

Jake just sent you a pm with my e-mail address.

[Jake Benson]

Labhound:

I lost something somewhere. When I brought up the website, there was some kind of message waiting, I thought I hit all the right buttons, but nothing ever came up.

[hso]

4' is far too low.

Please, no one follow the practice of shooting into the end of a wood pile and don't burn the wood with the bullets in it. Rounds can easily travel between logs and deflect out for considerable distance. In addition, if there's nothing immediately behind the pile that would serve as a safe backstop then the angle of deflection could cause the rounds to top even a 20 or 30 ft hill with little difficulty. This is fundamentally a poor backstop.

[owen]

the whole melting lead in your woodstove thing is lead poisoning event in progress...

[labhound]

Jake just sent you a second pm with my e-mail address. Let me know if you get it.

[Owen Sparks]

I once saw a back stop made from a big piece of metal that used to be part of a water tower that was distroyed by a tornado. It was positioned with the top angled toward the shooter so that the lead was deflected downward into the sand. It was only used with lead pistol rounds and worked fine. If you could find a large enough piece of sheet metal, and had a way to move it, this might be an option.

[rori]

Hi Shadow, I'm not trying to bum rap you, I'm just worried about some poor soul being shot and crippled or killed and the good folks on this sight having to live with it for the rest of their lives, maybe in prison.I do live out west, about as far west as a person can get and thankfully we have a lot of room to set up and shoot safely. I wish all of you had the same opportunities we have.I have seen accidental discharges and I bet all of you have also. You don't have to be shooting very long to see one or more. Scares the hell out of me. Shoot safe and have a long life. Frank