gongs and spinners

Demi-human said:

I get the arbor slugs from a local saw blade mill. They are only mild steel, but this one is an inch thick.
Big saw blades, huh?View attachment 924600

Amazon Shepard’s Hooks come by the dozen.
I have a few portables now, and they’re easy to hike out to the berm or distance. I build them heavy so a Bushmaster or Thirty Aught Six doesn’t rip them straight off.

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Thanks for the tip on the 12 pack of hooks at Amazon. I put some on order:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HQVTLNM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1EMXGARRFAOFU&psc=1

Hickock45 did a video showing how he mounts his gongs. He 1st pounds in a metal fence post then wires the shepherd's hook to the fence post. Pretty smart.

My swinging gong (AR400 steel) finally died. It was on it's own metal frame bought from a local welder.
The plate itself is still usable but the frame is done for.

Plan is to drill 2 holes via high-speed 223 or 308 into the top of the gong and rehang it.

Sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve got some Taylor Targets that are portable. Just leave em in my truck. Lots of fun.

drobs said:

Thanks for the tip on the 12 pack of hooks at Amazon. I put some on order:

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Those should be great for smaller targets.
I finally remembered mine were from Grey Bunny, on Amazon. They’re 1/2” thick and and about five feet tall.
I like mine heavy built, but they were also thirteen dollars each, and I didn’t really need a dozen.

drobs said:

Plan is to drill 2 holes via high-speed 223 or 308 into the top of the gong and rehang it.

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Careful not to knock of a big chunk...

These are self resetting steel plates I use.



Made a couple of these too but they have to be reset manually.



This is my loudest gong at 100.



And at 300 yards.

Demi-human said:

Those should be great for smaller targets.
I finally remembered mine were from Grey Bunny, on Amazon. They’re 1/2” thick and and about five feet tall.
I like mine heavy built, but they were also thirteen dollars each, and I didn’t really need a dozen.

Careful not to knock of a big chunk...

Click to expand...

The gong I have is made from AR400 - rifle calibers cut right through it.

I like to keep my shots low into my hill / berm so these short hooks combined with fence posts should work perfectly.

I recently joined a range that’s covered in gongs. Both the rifle and pistol bays have numerous choices. I’d never shot gongs before and now I can’t get enough time there. I’m in the process of adding some to my 100 yard range at home, but tendinitis has put a temporary stop on progress.

If you have a friend along, a dueling tree is nuts of fun; pun intended They have them for rimfire and centerfire pistols. Not sure if the pistol ones are magnum rated! Careful, you can burn through a lot of ammo with them

My dueling tree is horizontal.


Steel is the best target! With spray paint and a camera it even works like paper for group therapy!

Just above the large Cheater Gong on the right, in the background, is the hundred yard target board.

Man, I’m gonna miss this place. The writing is on the wall, Sally is getting ready to retire.
The sands start to flow in the glass, it’s only a matter of time before some other guy gets to be “lucky” with the sweat of his brow, and gets to enjoy these 80 acres.

Not with my steel, of course!
(I wish I had enough Brow Sweat, I’d buy it!)

I've got about 40 TGTs made out of AR500, from animal silhouettes to bowling pins (got tired of replacing the real ones).

I hang them differently depending on their use. I have 4 rifle berms set up with permanent swingers, frpom 200-760yds, but the majority are on movable bases so I can set up different drills and CoFs. My favorite commercially made portable stands are down by Arntzen and I use them to hold up 2/3rds IDPA silhouettes. This pic is from a Rob Pincus drill, the cardboard above the TGTs is the # of hits required and is placed while the shooter's back is turned, some TGTs are ID'd as no shoots:



8" plates set on homemade portable stands in a "V" Drill. These have long through bolts with springs to take some of the impact:



300&400 yd berm with "classic" chained swingers (320 from bench, 407 from my back deck):



For the chained swingers, I use longer bolts and nuts against the plate that act as spacers between the plate and chain. This way the tgts hang at an angle. The 2/3rds IDPA silhouette is on a "Hang Fast" T-Post stand, pretty ingenious way of mounting, well designed and executed. They have built a built in wrench and can either be used with bolts, or 3 links of chain which allows them to swing and ring. For some shoots, I'll just put in multiple "T" posts at varying distances and hang plates with them:



A friend and his daughter working on bowling pins:

Great setup. Thanks for the lead on Hangfast. I’d not heard of them.

rayatphonix said:

Great setup. Thanks for the lead on Hangfast. I’d not heard of them.

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I really like them, great company to deal with.

Periodically we'll do "walk about shoots" where we'll shoot from field positions in prep for hunting season. I'll just go out that AM with some "T" posts, pounder and some TGTs and set up a CoF. With the 3 chain links, they ring well and "flash" in the sun when hit. They have some pretty decent sales and the 4th is coming up.....

I used to have a really sweet setup. Now this is what I have been working on. I dont advocate stealing from the railroad but I had a pile of them on my old property so I used them. They work quite nice for targets and if you walk the tracks for 50ft you are bound to see a few scattered down the banks.

Other than steel hanging and steel knockdown targets I bought a bunch of lil tarp clamps and garden poles and just clamp my cardboard and silhouettes to each side of two garden poles driven into the ground. I go load up on cardboard every few months from my old workplace since they toss alot of pallet sized cardboard which comes in good for plinking.

For the long 2×6 with tie plates hanging from it I have the ability to add one more tie plate in the middle or sometimes I have 5 or 6 bottle caps screwed into the underside and will bring along a crate or two of water filled 2 liters or sometimes smaller bottles. They just thread right into place under the 2x6 and are a fun reactive target to shoot. I have a bunch of those garden pole setups because it's nice to set up kind of a course and to push your self on time and accuracy. It's coming together. It's nice because it's all quite portable. Takes 10-15 to set up at the range and is much more rewarding then setting up a sad lil pizza box and drilling it 300 times, gets old.

These work beautifully and will withstand alot of handgun and rifle fire....