favorite non-target targets

Prairie dogs.

No hunting signs!! Only those they lease to the Outfitters.

Just kidding!!! I do have a strong temptation though.

"To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you
hit the target."

Have to agree with General Geoff, hard drives are great for targets. Good size, usually take several hits, quite reactive. Plus, if you do computer tech support as I do it's a great way of making sure any personal data on the drives is safe from prying eyes!

Paul

bb gun co2 canisters are always fun.
Most fun was a half gallon metal can of white gas (old stuff found at the shooting spot up in Kodak) in front of a small fire and a .223 about 70 yds. away. Big ball of fire. Don't worry, no fire hazard since it was the middle of winter and everything was coated in snow and ice.

Any Dollar store. About as much fun buying the stuff as going to shoot it.

jjs

For the record:

When you shoot a keg with a .223 it goes through - both sides.

When you shoot it with a 45 acp - it'll throw it back at you.

jjs

One day I tried a variety of different melons and squash. In my current estimation (with just limited data of 1 squash, mind you), the Rolls Royce of reactive produce for pistol calibers is the butternut squash.

They don't vaporize with 1 shot, like a watermelon. They don't do nothing, as will a pumpkin and most other members of the squash family. They react just enough to see from a distance, are fairly durable, and yet apparently if you hit just the right spot, they will explode.

Of all the produce I shot that day, the butternut squash acted most like a movie zombie.

2qt. waxed cardboard milk containers, filled with water.

The 2004 PC Notebook I'm currently using is very much in danger of becomming my next target.

was shooting my(then) newly scoped SKS with a friend, he began to get upset that i was outshooting him, so he kept suggesting smaller and smaller targets.

"bet you can't hit a bottlecap" at 50 yards this was no trouble, put two holes in it quickly

"bet you can't hit a screw!!" he proceeded to drill a 3" drywall screw vertically into the top of the homemade target stand i had constructed, leaving about 1.5" of the screw exposed

"can't see it from here" i said

he stuck a white note card behind it to give contrast and my first shot blew the screw in half

have also shot at and hit:

golf balls
empty shell casings/shotgun shell hulls
small ceramic figurines from the dollar store
old hard drives
capacitors - makes confetti
circuit boards - multiple tiny targets on each one
ping pong balls
try to shoot the nock off an arrow stuck in the ground vertically
rebar stuck in the ground vertically
coins
phone books
any piece of tech that has bricked
hard boiled eggs
vacuum cleaner - dont ask
steel doors are very fun to shoot with a 12ga
cut down saplings with as few shots as possible(small calibre)
shooting water balloons out of the air is quite entertaining
primers on live shotgun shells or rimfire rounds with a pellet gun

found out years ago that you can drop a finishing nail down the barrel of a cocked/loaded .177 cal pellet rifle and it will surprise you what this will penetrate; ammo cans, brass door knob, steel door, cinder block/brick. once pinned a squirrel to a tree in this fashion, he felt no pain, it was a headshot

Old condimint packets, like katchup, etc... small and they make some mess. Just a tip though, even out the contents firt, otherwise you may hit the top but all the katchup is at the bottom.

This thread seems to have alot of folks with very trashy ranges.

This thread seems to have alot of folks with very trashy ranges.

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I won't presume to answer for the previous posters, but I'll happily state that I routinely carry out a trash bag or two full of stuff every time I go shooting. Including my own mess. On the occasion when the mess is bigger than I can handle myself, I'll usually wait an hour to see if anyone else shows up that can help. And I won't put rounds into those large items. Ever.

Got $86 between myself and two others for appliances we recycled and found brass/hulls I sold last year. Those mess makers paid for 70-odd percent of my reloading components! I don't know who they were, but thanks guys!

So I'm not the only one to shoot hard drives! My friends in the IT biz love to put my by products (bullet riddled cases and HD's) on the shelf in their offices, great conversation pieces.

Armadillos of course! AKA Mobile Ballistic Gelatin. you wanna talk about reactive,they dance!biodegradeable too.(buzzards just love em) whats not to like?

The 2004 PC Notebook I'm currently using is very much in danger of becomming my next target.

Click to expand...

+1, except swap for a netbook that I have been using exclusively for about 7 months of living in hotel rooms, with a short stint in my new house.

Plastic water bottles with a few drops of food dye. Just before I shoot them, I drop 1/4 Alka-Seltzer tab in them. VERY reactive. A hoot at 100 yrds with a .22 rifle.

I winterize a fair amount of cottages in the fall and get hundreds of gallon antifreeze jugs. I save them for targets also. They are easy to store--put a rope through the handles and hang from the rafters in the garage. 25 are then manageable to easily store. I do like to fill them with water, jello, flour that is old, the gasoline trick with an expired 3 minute flare from a local boatyard--makes you fast to run back and shoot at a safe distance. Note: Private pit and I do clean up with a rake to get the plastic bits once a month.

I shoot discarded fruits and vegatables with a 223 REM. There is ussually no clean-up needed. Old bowling pins will take hundreds of hits from just about anything. I still have many empty refrigerant containers, and propane tanks but not not many things are as reactive as the fruits and vegtables.

So I'm not the only one to shoot hard drives! My friends in the IT biz love to put my by products (bullet riddled cases and HD's) on the shelf in their offices, great conversation pieces

Click to expand...

Before you shoot the hard drive you might consider removing the powerful magnet. Such magnets can be useful around the house.
For instance I use them for gun and magazine storage, like in one of my gun safes. (the duct tape over the magnet is only to prevent possibly scratching the gun)


I also use the HD magnets in my shop to hang tools, parts, etc.

aerosol paint cans are fun to shoot, especially the red ones. i've been thinking about doing bullet art, actually. watermelons are fun to shoot, too.

also fun, in a different way, are butcher shop pigs. there's no spectacular display or anything, but i like to retrieve my rounds to see how they behaved. then i take my pig home to eat it. it makes for a fun pig roast.

Party Plates

I use those paper plates decorated with cartoon characters, like the ones you might buy for a child's "theme" birthday party. My favorite is "Barney."

- - - Yoda

Went to a friends today and we shot in his back yard. One of the things we shot was an old can of expandable foam. Used a 223 and was that fun!!! Foam squirted out of the small holes for several minutes and splattered all around. He laughed and said he would clean the mess up tomorrow after it hardens up.