Back yard berm or backstop?

[Owen Sparks]

I live outside of town in a wooded area. While it is legal to shoot outside, it is not safe because the ground is flat with no safe backstop. I really have no hill so dirt work is impracticle. How can I build a safe bullet stop? I have seen people stack up bails of hay or install large angled pieces of boiler plate to act as bullet traps. I need something that will stop a pistol bullet. Any suggestions?

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

Why not a dump truck full of dirt?

 

[RoadkingLarry]

Used railroad ties fronted by a pile of dirt.

 

[Owen Sparks]

A pile of raw dirt slopes too much and will cause bullets to ramp off and fly a long way. I need a good 90 degree cliff. The railroad tie idea should work much better. Any other ideas?

 

[MutinousDoug]

RR ties above the impact area to catch deflected rounds would last a bit longer than those in direct line of fire.

 

[bogie]

Dead tires filed with gravel, covered with dirt and sand.

 

[O C]

Backstop

Pile up old tires, fill them with dirt, hang a sheet of that heavy rubber matting that goes in the bottom of a horse trailer about a foot in front of the backstop, and the target frame a foot in front of that. The mat will stop, or slow down the pistol bullets a great deal and the dirt filled tires will stop what gets through. The mat comes in 4X8 sheets and will last longer than you think, especally if you move the target frame peridocally.Remember that you will be responsible for lead cleanup when you're through with the range (can you spell DEVELOPMENT)? Just scoop up the tires with the dirt with a front end loader, sift the dirt, sell the lead and do away with the tires.( Don't burn them).Keeps the EPA happy and you don't wind up with a place you can't give away.

 

[Vermont]

I have no experience in this, so don't take my idea as gospel. It is more of a question than a suggestion.

How about stacking tires and filling each layer with dirt as you build up? The tires should give it better shape than just a pile of dirt.

edit: oops...I didn't see the last two posts...I swear.

 

[bannockburn]

Owen Sparks

A buddy of mine made a slight backstop using fill dirt from the construction of his house. Then he took bags of sand, and over time, began stacking them up in front of the original dirt backstop. In a few years, it's become quite a nice mound, over 7' high by 14' wide by 8' deep. Leaving the sand in the platic bags helps maintain the mounds shape, while any sand that comes out of the holes fills in the gaps quite nicely.

 

[Owen Sparks]

Good suggestions folks. Keep them coming. As far as lead. I would like to recover as much of it as I can to melt down and make new bullets from.

 

[.cheese.]

Why not just build a wooden wall, and put a ton of sand behind it. The wood would prevent the bullet from going upward, and the sand would slow it down to a stop.

That's what one local range has, and what a summer camp that I went to as a kid had. I remember so well because riflery was my favorite activity and I wasn't even a gunny back then. I wouldn't even own a gun for over a decade afterward. I used to volunteer to help clean up and fix the backstop.

 

[Leader]

This is easy and cheap to build. It works for every pistol I have shot at it up through my BIL's .44Mag. Also shotguns with slugs and .22 's.
My .222 at 50Yds did dent it so I don't do that anymore.

http://www.reloadammo.com/backstop.htm

 

[Mark K. C.]

Do you have a lot of wild trees such as alders you could knock down, limb and stack-up? We have a log wall we shoot at all the time and it works great. Next time I'll try to get some pictures of it and post it. Good luck

 

[icebones]

a buddy of mine rented a bobcat and pushed up a good sized berm.

even then he only shoots short range stuff like .22 and handguns

 

[bigjohnson]

I dug two holes 4 feet apart, and put a pressure-treated 4X4 in each hole with about 2 1/2 feet of the 4X4 above ground. Then I nailed a 2ftX4ft piece of 1/2 inch plywood to the 4X4s and painted the whole thing. This is my target board. Behind the target board I piled used kitty litter (I have 4 cats, so go through about 20 lbs a week). In no time at all I had a nice target board and back stop. I works great for pistol and musket.
When I get ready to move, I'll dig out all the lead and sell it, and smooth out the pile of kitty litter and plant a flower bed there.

 

[jagugator]

I dug two holes 4 feet apart, and put a pressure-treated 4X4 in each hole with about 2 1/2 feet of the 4X4 above ground. Then I nailed a 2ftX4ft piece of 1/2 inch plywood to the 4X4s and painted the whole thing. This is my target board. Behind the target board I piled used kitty litter (I have 4 cats, so go through about 20 lbs a week).

Wow! Big, what do you feed your "mountain lions"? Now that's what I would call a crap load of kitty litter.

 

[Nate C.]

Careful with just stacking up cross-ties. It won't take long for them to degrade if you shoot into them regularly.


I like the sound of pushing up a berm with a Bobcat and placing lumber on the top and sides.

 

[M2 Carbine]

A pile of raw dirt slopes too much and will cause bullets to ramp off and fly a long way.

Not really, but it does require building up now and then.
For years my 100 yard backstop was a pile of logs and dirt. A while back I got a bulldozer to push the backstop back another 15 yards and push up some more dirt. A bullet never leaves that dirt backstop.


Recently I bought a tractor with a front end loader, so the range is a work in progress and I'm constantly building the backstop higher.


Since the early 70's I've used steel plate in the back yard for pistols. For additional safety the steel is in front of a small dirt mound that actually covers a storm cellar.


My first 100 yard rifle backstop was just basically a wooden box filled with dirt, about 8 foot wide, 4 foot high and 4 foot deep. I had to keep replacing the boards on the front as they were shot up, and adding more dirt. It did the job for several years.

 

[rondog]

I'm a member of this gun club. http://www.blgc.org/ There's 11 really nice pistol ranges, two of them are 100 yards for c/fire rifles. We also have a 600 yard range and several others, but the pistol ranges are all high dirt berms built with f/end loaders. A home range is my dream!

 

[RH822]

I too am on flat land with houses in the distance. I made my back stop with 10 tons of trucked in dirt, I piled it up as high as I could get it with a front loader. Then planted it with grass seed to prevent erosion, it work great.
No pictures, I have dial up.

RH

 

[dmftoy1]

Around here there are guys who'll happily dump fill dirt on your property IF it's closer then where they're being paid to haul it to. (They save on the diesel) About 4 years ago the county was resurfacing a gravel road into a tar and chip road and I walked out and flagged down some of the drivers and told them they could dump it out behind my shed . . . .in about 4 hours I had to tell them to stop as I had enough for a pistol berm and a 100 yard rifle berm. (FWIW) They were tickled pink because they were getting paid by the "load" and only had to go 2 miles instead of 20.

For my pistol berm (before I had alot of free dirt) I took deadfalls from the woodlot that were rotting and used the tractor to drag them out and stack them. You start with 3-4 20 inch diameter logs about 20 feet long and eventually you find that you can't stack them anymore. I added dirt to that pile over time and it's amazing how well it's holding up. The one thing about building a berm is to make it alot wider than you think you need so you can get your tractor up on top of it . .makes maintenance ALOT easier.

My next door neighbor did the railroad tie "trick" and it worked out alot better than you'd expect. (we backfilled behind the ties with a dirt pile). What he does is create a new stack of ties in from of the old one's when they start to get "eroded" by enough bullets and we fill the gap in between with dirt.

good luck!

 

[O C]

Backstops

I would keep the lead remediation thing in the back of my mind. Lead is a big issue with EPA. You have to sign a disclaimer for lead paint when you sell a house, and if some is found, YOU have to correct it, just like asbestos. Worst case scenario is an Environmentalist Activists accusing you of allowing lead to leach into the ground water. Just the defense would bankrupt you. The EPA just requires a "Plan" to be in place. This could be that every 2 or 3 years you sift the dirt from the backstop, and remove the lead. That and some form of documention will cover your a**. The EPA loves "plans & documention". For what it's worth. A little planning will make life much easier if you get caught up in a pi***** match with developers and envirionmentalists.

 

[hso]

Are you limited on what you can spend?

What's the upper limit on the calibers you'll shoot?

Dirt is cheap and easy to pile up and it is effective.

Sandbags are labor intensive, but they have the advantage making a vertical wall quickly without having the base width needed for loose dirt.

Stall mats are great if you can get used. Put them in front of angled steel plate and you don't get ricochet and "splash" problems.

 

[ilbob]

This is easy and cheap to build. It works for every pistol I have shot at it up through my BIL's .44Mag. Also shotguns with slugs and .22 's.
My .222 at 50Yds did dent it so I don't do that anymore.

Its fine if you hit the plate, but what if you shoot and miss the backstop?

You need something big enough and high enough to catch the most likely places bullets will go.

if there are houses in a direct line of sight from where you shoot, you should have something more elaborate than if there are just fields past your backstop.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

If you can find a source and have a way to fill them these are great!

http://www.hesco.com/

We have many ranges built out of them now. Also, for a backyard deal would only take a few and you could easily "harvest" your lead every few years but cutting them open.