Hay bales a suitable backstop?

[toivo]

Maybe to pattern a shotgun with birdshot or target loads, but not for a rifle or handgun.

 

[rcmodel]

Another danger is that a cow would come along and eat it.

Jagged copper bullet jackets in a cows stomach would be a certain and long suffering death. (Hardware Disease in vet terms)

Since copper & lead are not magnetic, even Cow Magnets would not catch them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_magnet

rcmodel

 

[GaryL]

What's behind them depends on where they're placed. In two directions there are a line of trees about 20' deep with houses on the other side, the third side has 5 acres of scrub & trees with a highway on the other side of it.

FWIW, never trust a stand of trees to stop anything.

My FIL was visiting a friend one time who told him about having set up a target on a tree behind his house, shooting a 45acp at it, having a couple shots miss, and thinking nothing of it because of the thick woods behind his house. Later that day a cop knocked on the guy's door and asked him if he was shooting a large caliber gun earlier, which of course he admitted to. Turns out he lodged a bullet into a neighbors house, supposedly 1/4 mile away. I thought that 1/4 mile was probably a little much, but my FIL insisted he saw where the target was, the house that was hit, and they walked out into the woods, and that it was thick Wisconsin woods all the way in between.

The point is, somehow a 45 bullet found a clear enough path to traverse a significant distance of thick forest and retain enough energy to do noticable damage to a house 1/4 mile away.

 

[GigaBuist]

The point is, somehow a 45 bullet found a clear enough path to traverse a significant distance of thick forest and retain enough energy to do noticable damage to a house 1/4 mile away.

Why can't my golf balls do that?!

 

[makarovnik]

I don't like it. Use large berms of dirt.

 

[CliffH]

I appreciate all the input.

Sounds as if the instructor didn't do his research, or his research model has a major flaw in it.

Too bad the hay won't work. For various reasons, I can't build a dirt berm for a while and was hoping to get something setup soon. I knew we should have bought a place with a hill on it

 

[Blackbeard]

I'd say yes, but only if you have a LOT of them. Like thousands.

 

[Radagast]

If you can afford it, look at getting some bisalloy plates angled forward at 45 degrees. This will create an adequate backstop for most handgun rounds. The stuff is pricey though, it's used to make submarine hulls.

 

[Myles]

Old tires should be cheap to acquire from a junkyard.

Stack them in alternating rows (2-3 deep minimum), and fill them with sand. Build a frame work from 2x4s or scrap; that framework will need to be repaired/replaced every so often.

Don't use hay.

 

[moooose102]

i do not think i would trust them, especially with rifle bullets! i would want something much more substantial.

 

[Hk91-762mm]

We had a 1/2 in plate steel 4X8 angled into the ground with a sand trap underneath--Worked great and the area Behind was Clear--We shot thousands of rnds Most powerful was 30,06 and they only made a dent 45/70 did nothing-after shooting several mts we dug up the sand sifted it and recast the bullets , So Primers and powder only, made for some cheep shooting.
A friend has tires filled with sand But he dosent reload .

 

[BeltfedMG]

I use hay bales in the backyard and it doesnt do any good, .22's even go threw.

 

[paintballdude902]

i just wouldnt risk it

where i shoot small rifle is a road on our farm that has 50ft of pines at the end then a clean cut 2 miles long then more trees after that its about another mile till houses


the big round ones may but i wouldnt try it heck for a regular square bail that is broken into flakes then tied together no way would i ever expect that to stop it unless i was shooting a pellet gun

 

[MinnMooney]

and the arrows come out the other side with regularity.

This is my experiance with the small square bales, also. I have several large, round bales and they seem to be more densly packed. The arrows are lucky to make it into those bales by 10-12".

Bullets are another matter altogether. Here you have to ask yourself what design bullat am I shooting? If it's a FMJ then I'd really do some serious testing before trusting it. Frangible bullets (soft points, ballistic tipped, HPs) will not go more than a foot before fragmenting and stopping.

 

[CliffH]

And yet another use suggested for those old tires I just paid to get rid of! Should have followed my rule of not throwing anything away.... Maybe I can get them and a few other used tires from the local tire store. If I pitch it to them correctly, I may be able to get the tires for free.

It's too bad I don't still work at the submarine base. Wouldn't have been too hard to get a hold of a few plates of hull material. "Sir, that plate has too many cracks to reinstall, guess we'll have to scrap it"

I've had a lot of close-up and personal experience with the small rectangular bales. I'd never consider them for a backstop. I've never had any experience with the large round bales, after this thread it looks as if they're not going to do the trick.

 

[qajaq59]

That's an easy question.
NO!!!!!!

 

[Kestrel]

Don't hay bales get ignition-temperature hot in the center sometimes?

While highly improbable, it's possible the one or two degree heat increase from a bullet could light it up.

I can attest to the fact that they can ignite. Many years ago, we were using some large round bales as target holders. They were in front of a safe backstop and were only being used to hold the targets.

After firing 9mm, .45 ACP and .308 into them for a few minutes, they began smoking - and increasingly so. It appeared they were going to ignite. We used a feed bucket next to a nearby pond to douse the bales.

 

[Radagast]

Tires don't make a good backstop, rounds can ricochet off them. They are useful to make a core for a backstop if you fill each layer before adding the next. You'll still need to fill the impact face to a depth of a couple of feet with compacted earth or sand.

If you used to work on a base and still have contacts it can't hurt to give them a call and see if there is any scrap laying around. I know one club here in Australia made its steel targets from hull scrap salvaged from the Australian Submarine Corp ship yard.

 

[Don Gwinn]

"The small square bales" are often straw, which is a little different than hay, but no, I wouldn't want to use either as a backstop for firearms.

Now, put up a frame and hang mine belt across it, then stack the straw bales in front of that, and you can't ask for a better stop for arrows. The belt stops the arrow, the straw stops it and holds it gently for you to pull it straight out. Dad used to have a setup like that in the backyard, and the fruit trees were planted every ten yards along the fence from there to serve as range markers. Looking back, it was a sweet deal, but at the time, I figured everybody shot like that.

 

[yenchisks]

soke it down with water, and a 50 bmg would'nt get past,but this is only short term,better to use dirt-sand

 

[4v50 Gary]

Hale bales are a great backstop for bow fired arrows. However, bolts from a crossbow slices right through them. A high velocity rifle bullet would too.

 

[scrat]

not a good idea for sure

 

[ltetmhs]

Not a good Idea. 65 lb bow puts arrow on the far half. Mine belt sounds like a good idea. (the bale was pretty lose though.) No telling how far a bullet would go.

 

[hso]

While I have a vivid imagination, I can't even begin to imagine that using a hay roll as a backstop for pistol, much less rifle, is a good idea.

 

[dcoop]

Not sure I would use it. Just to let these city folks know he's not talking about the standard hay bails you see on TV or at the home center. He means a hay bail like this: