at home gun range

[cammogunner]

hey guys i have a question for you i have a need for a at home gun range i have shot at a gravel pile for a little bit just to sight in the deer rifle but i just read that they may bounce off and needless to say i quite post haste after reading that but i also have an old cement wall with some dirt filled in behind it it is a pretty old wall i dont know if that would be safe to shoot at or not any help would be great guys thanks

 

[hso]

Nothing hard is safe to prevent ricochets that can be dangerous. You need a minimum of 3ft of sand or dirt and 4-6 is better.

 

[herrwalther]

The only hard object on a range is targets or target stands. The chances of a ricochet coming back at the shooter at the perfect angle are slim, but best not to take the chance. Dirt is the best bullet stopper known to man, and relatively cheap too.

 

[gbw]

One opinion, it isn't easy.

A very large pile of dirt is best. A good CAT operator can build you a good berm in half a day, say $200 - $300, assuming there is earth available to be pushed into a backstop (berm). That part is easy.

Equally important is knowing what's beyond your backstop to a distance beyond the maximum range of the guns you are shooting and several times it's width (a pie shape with your firing point at the sharp end).

You must assume that bullets will go over it sooner or later, unless there is a physical barrier, and you must be confident that those will not do any damage.

Be far enough away from neighbors that the noise will not bother them.

Be in compliance with zoning restrictions or other federal / state / local laws, if any.

In my view anything less is irresponsible.

 

[ErikO]

Know your target and what lies beyond.

 

[Sav .250]

"Home gun range." Hope you have insurance.

 

[cammogunner]

so am i correct in thinking i am the only one at risk of being hit with a ricochets or could guys a quarter mile down the road be a possible worry to. i ask because i have been shooting at this gravel pile a while and the only thing to ricochet is 22lr so i just wont shoot them but my 30-30 never has so i guess what im thinking is could it be that since the 30-30 is a larger more powerful round it is alot less likely to ricochet?? i am most likely wrong so if i am please correct me..and thanks for all the replies

 

[twofifty]

Ricochet are random in nature, so their trajectory is difficult to predict with any certainty.

It is therefore best to build and locate your backstop so that it smothers the round = no ricochet. If shooting at steel, hang the plates such that they deflect the round downward into soft ground and side-splatter into some sort of baffle.

iirc, the NRA has range construction guidelines that might be helpful in your particular circumstances.

 

[JohnKSa]

twofifty beat me to it. The NRA has an excellent resource on the construction of safe firing ranges.

http://range.nra.org/sourcebook.aspx

 

[Cee Zee]

The thing about a pile of gravel is that it might cause a ricochet to go up and over the pile. When the bullet comes back down it will be traveling at almost the same speed it was when it first bounced off the rocks. Wind resistance will slow it down some but not enough to really matter unless it travels a long way in the air.

I had my home range setup to shoot directly into a creek bank where the ground was at a high angle. I also picked a spot where the creek curved around the target area so I have protection on both sides for ricochets. I also shot from up on the opposite bank so that I was basically shooting down into a hole. The big thing I was shooting almost straight into the hillside.

Ricochets that come straight back from shooting steel targets were the worst thing I dealt with. They weren't that bad because a bullet loses a lot of velocity when it bounces straight back.

Some big things to avoid would be shooting anywhere you might be hitting water. I do shooting at water when it's in a place I know a ricochet won't cause a problem like shooting from way up on a bank down into a small stream with a high bank on the other side of the creek too. Or it could be that there's just nothing on the other side of the water for miles. You also wouldn't want to shoot into trees because trees can turn a bullet right back at you or any direction and the bullet will still keep it's velocity high. This also goes for things like cross ties and large wooden posts. The only thing made of wood I will shoot is an old stump that is so rotten it can't turn a bullet.

Where I live now I'm shooting across a creek again but the banks aren't as high. There is a hill across the creek though which will stop most bullets from leaving the area. I also shoot almost directly into a 90 degree slope spot just beside the creek. It even has dirt hanging over top of where I am shooting.

I don't know if you have access to anything like that but it's about the safest way you can go. Shooting straight into dirt is the least likely way to cause a ricochet that goes somewhere you don't want it to go. If you don't have a natural location like that then it's best to build something similar. Sand bags might be the easiest method. I'm contemplating using an abandoned round hay bale as a backstop right now. I think it will stop a .22 round effectively. I might even test it with larger rounds because I would be able to shoot about 250 yards into it here where I live.

 

[we are not amused]

Use your head and some common sense. Often lacking when people start pontificating on home gun ranges.

Gravel is a much better backstop than a concrete wall. If the dirt filled in behind the cement wall is what you want to use as a backstop, it should be good, the wall itself, with dirt behind it, no.

I have heard outrageous comments about how lead will "congregate" in sand, and the resulting lumps cause dangerous ricochets, utter nonsense, or that the "steel belts" in tires will cause ricochets, proving that the poster was totally clueless about how tires are constructed.

Free advice on the internet is, unfortunately, worth what you paid for it. Use your head.

Dirt or sand work well, because compared to the bullet, they are soft and easily penetrated, absorbing the energy of the bullet, gravel, depending upon its size, might be less so, but would still be better than a concrete wall.

The NRA site on building a gun range is oriented toward commercial gun ranges, not home ones.

 

[Sam1911]

When the bullet comes back down it will be traveling at almost the same speed it was when it first bounced off the rocks.

There is a principle in physics called the "coefficient of restitution" that comes into play.

What this does is describe the amount of energy lost from the "system" when one thing strikes another. This is a number between 1 and 0.0, and it is the ratio between the speed something has after it hits something to the speed it had before it hit.

A pool ball striking another pool ball has a pretty high coefficient of restitution. The impact and bounce off is very "clean" and there is a lot of energy retained, so the ball flying away is still going pretty fast. The coefficient of restitution is pretty close to 1.0.

A bullet striking a pile of gravel, or even glancing off something harder loses a lot of energy in moving the gravel, friction against all the little pieces, and to heat lost as it deforms itself smashing against something hard. The coefficient of restitution is not nearly so high and the bullet leaves going a lot slower than when it got there.

A close-to-home example of this occurred on a range near me a few years ago. Near as investigators could tell, a 9mm bullet struck the hard rock floor of the range, with just a little dirt on it, and bounced up and away, hitting a house about 500 yds. away. That bullet arced through the air with enough velocity to travel a goodly ways, but when it got there it struck a glass door and didn't even crack it. The owner heard a noise, went out, and found the bullet on the step where it had bounced off the glass.

That's not to say ricochets aren't serious business, just that it isn't so simple to calculate realistically what the danger might be from them, especially as the angles change.

 

[Sam1911]

Just for the purposes of illustration about riccochets, though, here's a video of the night shoot last year at Knob Creek:



Watch the tracers, and see how many of them head off in really crazy, random directions. And watch the actual speed at which the leave and come back down.

 

[Cee Zee]

A bullet striking a pile of gravel, or even glancing off something harder loses a lot of energy in moving the gravel, friction against all the little pieces, and to heat lost as it deforms itself smashing against something hard. The coefficient of restitution is not nearly so high and the bullet leaves going a lot slower than when it got there.

What I said was that the bullet will have the same speed coming back down as it did "after" it hit the gravel and started up into the air. Obviously striking anything is going to slow a bullet down a lot. What I was talking about was the speed of the bullet after it had already struck something and ricocheted into the air. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the bullet would still be traveling at the speed that it was before it hit the gravel.

My example would be more like the action of a baseball that gets popped up off a bat. After the ball comes off the bat and goes up in the air it will eventually stop climbing and start coming back down. When it gets back to the ground it will be going about the speed it was when it first came off the bat (not the speed it was going before it hit the bat). My point was that a bullet that glances off a rock can still have a lot of speed when it comes back to earth. But it certainly won't have the same speed it had when it was fired or when it first struck the rock. I will have the same speed it had after it struck the rock even if it goes up in the air and over a backstop.

Sorry for the confusion. Physics is sometimes hard to discuss on the net because we can't draw pictures and we don't have the space to discuss all the details that are part of the picture. A bullet will definitely lose velocity after it hits a rock (even a small rock like a piece of gravel). But once it gets past the rock it doesn't slow down a lot from going up in the air.

 

[Sam1911]

I know -- I should have clarified that I was simply emphasizing the "AFTER" part of the ricochet event. Adding to what you'd said.

There are some pretty scary videos around of what CAN happen with a direct ricochet back at the shooter. Wherein apparently only about half of the bullet's velocity was lost to the impact and it comes back uprange with some steam behind it. Most bullets that manage to strike and leave a berm appear to not have that kind of velocity retained.

We're having this discussion at my home range right now, with experts weighing in and unfortunately, getting things a bit muddled. There's a big BIG difference between the size of the "safety fan" that's needed to contain shots that MISS the berm, vs that needed to safely handle ricochets.

 

[Cee Zee]

There's a big BIG difference between the size of the "safety fan" that's needed to contain shots that MISS the berm, vs that needed to safely handle ricochets.

This is why I like hills behind my shooting range. Even smaller hills will slow down a lot of ricochets because the bullet will just hit the hill further up after it comes out of the original location. Having big hills behind your target is best but even then it isn't a perfect situation. Sooner or later a bullet will find it's way over the biggest hill unless you're shooting at the base of El Capitan or something. The very best locations are on high creek or river banks shooting down into the bottom of a high bank on the other side of the creek. Then angle of your bullet will make it almost impossible for it get out of the hole even with the worst possible ricochet. But no place is completely foolproof. It's a very good idea to shoot where there isn't a lot of people stuff behind where you're shooting. Outside the odd hunter or hiker or maybe an ATV rider you just won't have anything to hit that will cause any real damage. I realize that not many people have these types of perfect conditions but if you do have access to a spot like those I've described it's a good idea to do your shooting there.

At my house I have a hole dug into the side of a creek bank and I shoot down into that hole from up on the opposite bank. I'm not a lot higher than the target but every little bit helps. And shooting back into a hole is about as safe as it gets. Only ricochets coming straight back are ever a problem and I have a creek bank under me that will catch most of the stuff that comes out of that hole. It didn't stop my neighbors from being jerks about me shooting there though. The setup was about as safe as it gets and twice the sheriff checked it just to make sure because the neighbors complained. Both times they gave me a go ahead. Those neighbors weren't even that close to me. They got upset because another neighbor was shooting at night sometimes and they assumed it was me. I've seen gun ranges have problems with people complaining too but some of those complaints were apparently valid because they were seeing where bullets had struck trees behind the berm the range had built. Sometimes irresponsible shooters can ruin things for the rest of us. They got my favorite range shut down because of things they shouldn't have been doing. It was the only spot I had to shoot 500 yards. I guess it doesn't matter to me now because I had to leave the area anyway.