Wood mulch as a backstop.

visited a friend today to shoot at his range. His house sits on a 75’ bluff over looking Lake Michigan to the west.
No backstop needed....80 miles to the next solid ground,,,,,

And, no, don’t get started on boats that might be out there.....parallax.

Yep...SAND is almost fool-proof.

It's important to use enough sand. See page 24, figure 6-1:

http://www.shooting-academy.com/media/Dept of Army - PAM 385-63.pdf

If you're going to use tires in your berm then you need to cut all, or at least most of the side wall away. Place the tread sections horizontal in a hexagonal pattern and fill the whole area with sand or fill dirt. Level the top hust above the height of the tires and then lay in the next layer the same way. You can build it up to seven or eight layers.
This technique is used to build up roadbed for industrial roads, so it should work for a berm base.

troy fairweather said:

don't use it i seen 22lr's go through 10 feet wide piles of mulch.

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The problem is the mulch settles and leaves voids where there is no mulch.

Dirt or sand would be best. Our private club made a backstop on the pistol range of old equipment tires. Think 24 ply tires from mining equipment. We have never had anything penetrate them but we often have bullets bounce back. Not a problem at 25 or 50 yards but kind of exciting at 7 yards!

What do you mean by "wood mulch"? It is a non-standard term that covers a wide variety of materials.

Also, what are you going to be shooting into it? Pistol rounds require a less intricate backstop than rifle rounds.

troy fairweather said:

don't use it i seen 22lr's go through 10 feet wide piles of mulch.

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How did that happen? I use a 3'x4' box that is stacked with hackberry branches about 2-4" in diameter. For the first couple months I restacked the front until it turned into chips. I don't get pass through even with hard cast in rifle calibers. Just keep replacing the front plywood.
I will say my dirt ones are a lot less maintenance.

Bfh_auto said:

How did that happen? I use a 3'x4' box that is stacked with hackberry branches about 2-4" in diameter. For the first couple months I restacked the front until it turned into chips. I don't get pass through even with hard cast in rifle calibers. Just keep replacing the front plywood.
I will say my dirt ones are a lot less maintenance.

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the one spot i shoot at is a friends he is a landscaper and puts his wood chips out in the back of his property. i would put targets on the wood chip, i have seen many bullets go through into the lake behind the piles.

Bfh_auto said:

How did that happen? I use a 3'x4' box that is stacked with hackberry branches about 2-4" in diameter. For the first couple months I restacked the front until it turned into chips. I don't get pass through even with hard cast in rifle calibers. Just keep replacing the front plywood.
I will say my dirt ones are a lot less maintenance.

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I’m struggling to believe you have a safe setup. I have hardwood logs, roughly 18” diameter and made from maple or ash, sawed in half as a target facing and these get replaced pretty regularly as they get chewed up. Behind that I have more logs stacked closely together on end 3 ft deep, for a total of nearly 4 ft of solid wood. Behind that is 6 rows of stacked firewood, with each row being 16”. Behind that is a mile of uninhabited woods that drops down a valley to, coincidentally, a public shooting range. I’ve found handgun bullets as far deep as the 2nd row of firewood. I tried shooting .223 once but after just 5 rounds I could see exit holes from the face logs so I stick to non-magnum handguns and .22’s. Even then I'd like to build some sort of sand pit just to be that much safer.

I figured I would toss this in for giggles.

In the air gun world rubber mulch is liked for pellet stops. Fill box...think a PC tower box with RUBBER mulch and go to town...refill as needed as it settles...replace box as needed....or duct tape it to death....I have shot a box like this with 38 super...it stopped about half way through...but I would not make book on this being a solution for fire arms

bassjam said:

I’m struggling to believe you have a safe setup. I have hardwood logs, roughly 18” diameter and made from maple or ash, sawed in half as a target facing and these get replaced pretty regularly as they get chewed up. Behind that I have more logs stacked closely together on end 3 ft deep, for a total of nearly 4 ft of solid wood. Behind that is 6 rows of stacked firewood, with each row being 16”. Behind that is a mile of uninhabited woods that drops down a valley to, coincidentally, a public shooting range. I’ve found handgun bullets as far deep as the 2nd row of firewood. I tried shooting .223 once but after just 5 rounds I could see exit holes from the face logs so I stick to non-magnum handguns and .22’s. Even then I'd like to build some sort of sand pit just to be that much safer.

View attachment 850545

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It is a large plywood box. There are no exit holes on the back. My blocks are stacked sideways, not lengthways. If you don't believe me, try shooting into the end of your wood pile and see how deep it goes.

Bfh_auto said:

It is a large plywood box. There are no exit holes on the back. My blocks are stacked sideways, not lengthways. If you don't believe me, try shooting into the end of your wood pile and see how deep it goes.

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A handful of handgun and .22 shots into the end of my woodpile isn't going to go very deep. But after tens of thousands of rounds, eventually they'll start coming out the other side 20ft away. It'll go MUCH faster shooting rifles.

I'm just saying be careful. Maybe you aren't getting pass-through's right now, but if your sticks have turned to sawdust like you say it won't be long until they do start going through. Mulch and sawdust just isn't dense enough and tends to leave voids in it. Better to be pro-active than re-active with gun safety.

Bwana John said:

I would not use wood mulch.

Sand is best, and easiest to mine for recycleing the lead.

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I agree with sand, especially if you are going to recycle the bullets for re-casting. All you need is a mesh strainer to get them sorted from the sand

Mine is tires filled with sand and pea gravel from the old driveway
6 ' high 10'wide, 2 rows deep

The NRA has "approved" plans for range construction/backstops/etc used by many affiliated clubs.
I'm not sure how to access such plans but believe a simple search would get you there.
jmo,

George P

The Airport at Williston was a B-25 base and the round tie downs though out the "horse park" are sized accordingly.

Williston Shooters Club range was set up to zero the Cheek Guns mounted in blisters on the sides of B25s after field mounts of such were done in the south Pacific and the factory started adding them in 1942.Some planes after that date were till manufactured as glass nosed Bombers and some as "Gun Ships" (or Gunn Ships after their originator Lt Col Paul I. "Pappy" Gunn who modified glass nosed bombers in Austrailia after the retreat from P.I. to this configuration then traveled to the US to have the factory do the same ) with from eight to twelve machine guns in the nose and chin.

There were two slots in the pavement at about 100 and about 50 yards where the nose wheel of the plane could be lowered so the plane would level (one the ground with wheels lowered the nose pointed slightly up) the slots were wedge shaped. Most guys failed to note there were other slots much further back the taxi way that became the Williston range. For many years the slots were filled with dirt and grass grew on them on occasions about ten or twelve years back they were topped with asphalt I believe by the City who has use of the range for Law enforcement training.

The guns were .50 BMGs.

Every few years there are membership parties that generally include the use of flathead shovels by individual members to toss sand back up on the back stop and garden rakes to smooth out the surface of the berm to get rid of bullet canyons.

Biggest safety issue seems to be the edge of the bunker being a five foot wide flat face of concrete from the ground up to the roof. One club officer complains for the last 20 years about folks shooting those areas. I repeated asked that they be painted so new hits would show up and thus it be possible to compile a short list of "suspects" but last I checked this had still not been done. In my six years of membership I never found concrete chips in front of those areas and the damage looked like it may have been done decades earlier.

The club allowed 4H rimfire training there in the past and there were a number of the Women only Learn to shoot days put on there. The range one hosted (under a rental agreement) two day rifle training session by NRA Secretary, well know nationally ranked shooter and famous Marine Sniper Maj, EJ Land.

The club sponsors annual NRA fund raisers and was a CMP affiliate when I was a member

-kBob

I was a member of that club for a few years and one or two old friends still are I believe.