Best plinking targets

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Franco2shoot

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Ever since I found a great uncontrolled range my sons and I have had a blast shooting at everything from bowling pins to pumpkins (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvsFo3ycdg0

) but we are running out of fresh ideas.

Phone books were good, and an old brake rotor was amazing - please be careful and use a little common sense.

So what's the best plinking targets. We are thinking of taking a fresh 6 pack roll of toilet paper, poking a small hole in the package and filling it with water in an attempt to capture a .308 bullet so we can see the striations, and another idea was a small package of Gold Medal flour... environmentally friendly targets are always good.

Anybody have some recommendations? Hint - boys like things that have good visuals...

KKKKFL
 
Cans, old shot shells Great for testing your rimfire prowess. Toilet seats.
Set a bottle cap into the neck of an empty bottle and try to hit it. Thats how I made sure my .22 was properly sighted in.

Buy a 30 pack of the cheapest beer you can buy, shake em' up, and fire at will.
Longnecks disappear in a frothy explosion. Just be sure to clean up the glass. :)
 
First of all, kudos to you for taking your sons out plinking !!! Great Dad :) My son and I came across the same dilemma and these are some of the things we did to keep things fun and interesting. Get some plastic Easter eggs and fill them with flour or talcum powder and tape the halves together with electrical tape. I have some old sawhorses on our range that are useful too. One has blocks of styrofoam attached to the top that makes a great base for sticking in golf tees for the Easter eggs. On another saw horse, I have two pieces of scrap lumber attached to the top of the sawhorse to create a groove to stand up clay skeets on end. You can also hang water balloons to the sawhorses with string....always a hit with the kids. For something more challenging, try hot gluing paint balls to some golf tees....I also suggest a white background behind the paintballs so you can see the cool paint splatters when you hit one . A piece of cardboard and a staple gun works great for this. To REALLY liven things up, try some binary explosive targets. These are available online, but they can get a little pricey. GREAT fun though. I hope this helps....I've found that if you keep things fun and introduce new things, the kids (and dad's alike) make it to the range a lot more often, and the memories made are priceless. Have fun !!
 
last time out, we had a few eggs that were "on the border" as it were.
With a .22 at 40 yards, they POP and blow apart in a most impressive manner.
And we did a 30-30 on a milk jug...gotta fill em all the way up, but it's a cheap thrill...so long as it's filled with water. :D
GP
 
While you're in the fridge getting those questionable eggs, don't forget to check the rotter drawer.....a great source for "range ripe" fruits and veggies ;)
 
I saw this posted in another forum and tried it. A cheap bag of suckers from the local dollar store make excellent targets for .22 plinking and if the wind is blowing right with each hit you can smell the scent of the recently disintegrated target.

The remnants of my wifes fall display got taken out last week. M-1 Carbine and SKS' rounds made quick work of her discarded pumpkins.
 
an old brake rotor was amazing - please be careful and use a little common sense.
Click to expand...

It might not be common sense but it should be, NEVER shoot at cast iron, break rotors and flywheels “frag” when hit with high power rifles and can come back and get you.

Ever since I found a great uncontrolled range my sons and I have had a blast shooting at everything
Click to expand...

If the range you “found” is not your land you should get permission first. Second, you need to make sure no one could tell you had ever been there. Believe it or not some land owners don’t even like clay pigeon parts on the ground, so you can forget about any glass.

Do a google search on Tannerite, you'll have a blast (pun intended).
 
Yep, I use generic "Vanilla Wafers".

I've also found the hard rubber chew toys for dogs to be amazingly durable. Hang them with some garden twine from a limb or stand and watch them hop and swing when you hit them (they'll soak up thousands of rounds also).
 
Gallon milk jugs full of water with a few drops of red food coloring added. Good visuals, and with 2 sons, there shouldn't be any shortage of gallon milk jugs at your house.

Another fun thing is to shoot acetylene-filled balloons with tracers.
 
This un-controlled range is dedicated by the site to rifle shooting.. Its really great... around the back side of a mountain that you need 4x4 to get into... as for the rotors... they were about 150yards down range... the 308 when through them as though they had been drilled with a half inch drill.

We also shot one of those Master's locks that they do the commercial on and I can report the commercial is hogwash. When hit with the 308 the lock exploded. The hasp broke into 3 pieces. A .308 is pretty powerful. It goes right through a Metropolitan phone book .3 hole in the front and a hole bigger than a Silver dollar on the back.. We've used a tree stump about 2 feet in length and 3 foot circumference. The bullets go almost 3/4 of the way through the length, but do not retain their shape, usually fragmenting halfway down. The real goal is to find some amateur replacement for ballistic gelatin and I'm hoping that the rolls of water soaked TP will do the job..
KKKKFL
 
I like apples with my 12 ga. slug gun. Blows them into hyperspace. My all time favorite is still a suspended metal plate at 200 yards.
 
For recovering expanded bullets request paper grocery sacks next time and fill them with newspapers, a little duct tape to hold things together, and soak in water. Golf balls are quite fun and the shots get more difficult as you go.
 
if you want to stop a bullet, ten phone books taped together. (mosin goes through all ten.)
just want to blow one up?
soak a phone book overnight in water.
like jello!
Have a gallon jug decorating party and give them antlers and eyes.
then go jugalope hunting. kids love it.

hit a steel can on a string at dusk with high power FMJ or steelcore rounds.
makes a shower of sparks, and you can hit it over and over again.
 
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Whenever my father would replace a disc, they'd make a fun target. Roughly 1/4" mild steel. You'd be surprised what goes right through...
WF_Disc.jpg
 
+1 on beer cans with beer still in them. I have fond memories of shooting some we found with my dad when I was younger. They're especially fun with a twelve gauge at close ranges...

I've always wanted to shoot a mostly empty fuel cylinder for our camp stove. But I still haven't mapped out a particularly safe way to do this so I have abstained.
 
If you are in real need of catching bullets in decent condition, I have had great success with two different techniques:

1) Gallon jugs of water (line them up "X" deep and shoot into them). Usually get a captive bullet in good condition. Worked great on handgun bullets at 10 yards.

2) Take a large box (preferably longer than it is wide) put a garbage bag into it, then fill with water. I've used this to catch rifle bullets at 50 yards. no problem

Wet phone books and even TP rolls do a decent job, but the best "specimens" I've collected were Black Talons in the water jug.....

One fella I know packs clay into a 6 inch piece of PVC pipe(cut in half, then bungied back together). After shooting into it, the two pipe halves can be separated and you can use a wire to cut through the clay and retrieve your prize.

Tons of ideas out there, just play around and find the one you like best!
 
Clay pigeons are cheap.You can get a box of them at Wal Mart for about $5.They are easy to see at distances and are very good reactive targets when hit.Then you can go after the bigger pieces.
 
Oyster shells, cinder blocks, CO2 cartridges (good distance away), lighters near lit rags, frozen water in everything, ROTTEN WATERMELONS W/ A 12 GA!
BTW, lighters are great in the backyard w/ a bb pistol. Giant flameball if you do it right.
 
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