Build your own round ball catcher

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brushhippie

brushhippie

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Shooting a gong is alot of fun as we discovered at a recent BP get together, I hung what is called a pancake to a pipe fitter,(but is simply a round piece of 1/8th inch stainless steel with what looks like a handle), in a tree and blasted away at it. The weight of the pancake absorbs most of the force and rings like a bell..... so we were finding flattened round balls around the target and occurs to me if I hang the gong inside a tire the plate will stop the ball and it should drop right into the tire. I just bored a couple of holes in the tire towards the back, looped a piece of heavy wire between the holes with sharp bends top and bottom to keep it from rotating and hung the gong inside. It actually works great and is a ball to shoot.
leadcatcher.jpg
leadcatcher2.jpg
http://youtu.be/vh-7-_GhcxE
as you can see this remington shoots horribly high left.....next time Im goin with my 51!
 
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They are sized to fit the flanges, it blocks anything from coming through the pipe should they need to repair a valve or pipe, different sizes for different size pipes.
 
That's a SLICK idea.

One more to consider too. Replace that 1/8 metal with something about 3/8 or 1/2 inch thick. As the number of dimples builds up you may find that any hits right on the edge of a dimple results in some of the lead doing a U-turn and coming back at the firing line. The NORMAL mode for a hit is for some of the lead to turn to dust and spread out along the face of the target and the rear half ends up flattened like you are finding. But hitting the edge of a dimple changes this and some of the lead can U turn through the bottom of the dimple. A thicker guage gong solves this issue.
 
Great idea, wish I still had the stainless bucket lids that I bought at a Govt auction many years ago, had them for years with no use and finally salvaged them out for about 3X's what I paid for them. They were about 12" diameter and fairly thick, I'm sure thick enough to stop balls, shot one from 30' with a 357mag and only made small dent.
 
BCRIDER, has it right, but with a much harder piece of steel that idea is really great. As I have picked up spent lead at my own personal range, and re-melted it and cast some more balls. That is using the pure lead balls over again.
 
What I would like to know is what happens if a shot hits the tire?
Does the ball bounce back toward the shooter much, or does it react predictably or what?
Is the route that the projectile takes affected much by its velocity and the type of projectile?

I've shot enough steel plates to not worry about the hazards of being hit by bullet fragments as long as I employ the known safety precautions.
But I don't have any experience shooting at tires at all.
How far of a distance away does a shooter or bystander need to stand to not get bonked on the head by a ricochet?
And I wonder if the type or size of the tire could make a difference too? :rolleyes:
 
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Purely anecdotal, but.......
I once shot at a range that used old truck & tractor tires as backstops.
Took my kids there to shoot their 22s
Never had so much recoil splatter coming back at me as when I shot at that range.
I don't know if the 22s were the reason, but I never have gone back to that range.
--Dawg
 
Not sure about the hitting the tire, I havent hit it yet. I think they would go through the sidewall but the bead might be a different story, as far as distance I was about fifteen yards away and I didnt have any bounce out the front. I would have to agree with BC once its dimpled up it could change the reaction some...but it being loose on the bottom I think absorbs enough of the power to make then drop instead of ricochet.
 
At least it's a low profile tire that has less of a sidewall to cause a ricochet. But then there's the edge of the tread that won't get perforated by the shot even if the sidewall could be.
Please let us know what happens when a ball does hit the tire.
Maybe you can take some intentional shots at it from behind cover to test it out. But even doing it that way could still be hazardous. :)
 
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One of my ranges uses a good number of tires to aid in stabilizing the side banks. They are FULL of bullet holes. I suspect that all but the slowest possible round ball will pass cleanly through the side walls.

If the ball hits the wire in the bead then it would not be any worse than hitting a hunk of re-bar such as we use for our target stands. The ball will deform and split or deform and smear to one side. But "trampoline" back to the firing line? Not a hope. The lead will deform and that deformation will basically make the ball stop right there. Plus the bead is heavy enough that it won't kick back all that much.
 
Without setting up the tire, a large blue tarp could also be spread out all around the area in front of the plate to collect the lead that only drops and bounces a short distance away. They come in many different sizes and are relatively inexpensive in the discount stores around here. :)
 
Just went and shot it again this time trying to hit the tire. I laid out a piece of house wrap 9 feet wide and 20 feet long out in front of the target to see if anything came out the front. Shooting from 25 yards I did hit it several times, really right where I was hoping, a couple right on the bead and one right below the tread. All of them went right through the sidewall and were inside the tire! The only lead that came out,(from shooting the gong) came out the front and they were all flattened and right below the tire. If you were shooting from beyond 25 yards your results would be different Im sure, I dont really shoot BP revolvers from beyond 25.
 
I had the privilege of digging the back half of a 41 mag bullet out of my knee while shooting a dimpled plate.

Not a good idea.
 
brushhippie said:
All of them went right through the sidewall and were inside the tire! The only lead that came out,(from shooting the gong) came out the front and they were all flattened and right below the tire.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear. Thanks for checking it out. :)
 
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