Shooting AR500 with .22LR

[whubbard]

Hi All!

I'm thinking of setting up some 6" or 8" AR500 (3/8" thick) gongs for plinking with .22lr. They will be free swinging (although I doubt that matter much with .22lr), and I'm wondering if anybody thinks I should be concerned with ricochet? I'll likely be shooting from 15yds to 30yds.

Many thanks in advance for any answers or tips.

 

[highorder]

If you're shooting them face on, I wouldn't worry one bit.

 

[1KPerDay]

Ricochet, no... but you will occasionally get some splatter back at you. Wear long sleeve shirts and pants, and (of course) good eye protection. .22 spits back more often than centerfire pistol rounds in my experience.

I regularly shoot AR500 plates with .22LR from 15-20 yards, indoors. Outdoors you may get less splatter because you won't have walls funneling the fragments back.

 

[anothernewb]

you can eliminate a whole lot of the splatter if you arrange it to hang canted slightly downward. We have a hanging gong and we changed the hanging point so it hangs about 10* and it totally eliminated any splash back. After an afternoon of blasting there's literally a line of lead slivers driven into the ground right in front of the gong.

 

[whubbard]

How exactly did you go about canting a free hanging plate?

 

[BCRider]

AR500 is serious overkill for a simple .22. You can actually use mild steel with .22's and other non magnum handgun rounds. Although using a slightly higher grade than mild would be not a bad idea.

How you hang the plate matters more than the face angle. What happens when a bullet hits the face is that the lead smears outward in a spray along the face and off the edges. If you use a thru bolt or hanger that slips through a hole in the plate then some of this spray can hit the protrusion and be secondarily re-directed out and away from the face. And that often means back towards the shooting line. On the other hand if the hanger support is welded to the back face so that the front is smooth overall there's simply nothing there to direct any lead back to the shooting line. At that point having it angled slightly down so that it directs more of the lead into the ground isn't a bad idea but SOME will still come off the top. This also applies to the stand. You want the stand to be back behind the face of the target. Otherwise the spatter coming off the edges can flyout, hit the pipes or rods or angle iron of the stand and be re-spattered out in other directions. Some of that may well be back to the shooting line.

Don't underestimate the energy in this spatter either. You just need to look at the line cut in the dirt below a steel target after a session of use to see that the spatter has enough energy to do some damage. And more than enough energy to hit a secondary reflecting surface and be re-directed with considerable energy even after that second bounce. Often we spend too much time worrying about the steel plate and too little about how we hang it and the stand it hangs from.

The big one is to avoid any rifle fire on the softer targets. They can and will crater the faces. And at that point you have a good recipe for U turning lead back towards the shooting line. It's not a ricochet as such, it's an actual U turn where some of the lead hits the edge, smears down and around the rounded bottom of the crater and exits coming back out from the face of the target. So for closer in use a smooth face is hyper important.

 

[anothernewb]

canting it is easy, on our round gong, we have mounting points welded at a bit of an angle, and close to the center of mass, so when suspended, it cant's forward slightly. On the silhouette, we use third chain on the back that pulls the bottom backward

It's probably alot easier to show a picture than describe though.

Here's my best attempt to describe. Grab a yellow legal pad or something like that. Grab some tape. Attach the tape at the top. The pad hangs pretty much vertical. Now attach the tape about 4" down on the back. it will cant forward.

 

[1KPerDay]

You can also use longer bolts with eye loops at the ends, or simply a jam nut and a locking nut on the rope/whatever, if you're hanging them. the longer the bolts, the more the angle of the dangle.

 

[wally]

How exactly did you go about canting a free hanging plate?

I mount mine on chains with carriage bolts, chain on the back end of the bolt with a flat washer and nut. Gives it a nice natural cant. ITs best not to weld the plates as the heat can undo the hardening, not much of an issue with .22lr or most pistol rounds, but for centerfire rifle pates it can make a big difference.

I get hit with splatter more often with .22lr that all others combined, but its nothing as long as everyone is wearing quality eyepro. Bystanders tend to catch more than the shooter -- its my wife's splatter that usually gets me and vice-versa.

If the plates get cratered, you will have problems as the craters tend to focus the splatter back at the shooter and large amounts of mass and energy are retained enormously increasing the danger. So don't "retire" a cratered centerfire plate for use with .22lr! send it to the scrap yard.

 

[27hand]

AR--.22

Canting the plate about 10 to 15 degrees will minimize but not entirely prevent splashback. You can use a carriage bolt or bolts ( less deflective surface than bolts) to attach another piece of angle iron behind the face and secure the strap/chain as far back as you can . This should give you some cant. Chain is not as good as some type of strap material as rounds can deflect and go in almost any direction. Strap, firehose, slings or material like this will let stray bullets pass through and generally not be cut enough to cause the target face to fail.

What no one ever seems to mention is that everyone around the steel shooting should have a billed ball cap on with the bill facing forward. This is to prevent shards of metal from coming down between safety glasses and your eyes.

Most bullets explode off a flat surface at about a 20 degree angle and even canted steel can allow pieces to come back.


This is some of the best steel shooting reference material I have come across.

http://www.actiontarget.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/pt_Steel_Target_Resource_Guide.pdf

 

[s4s4u]

If you fasten a carriage bolt to the plate with a nut, and then use a second nut to attach the chain or strap it will cause the plate to angle slightly. If you add a second nut behind the first to increase the gap, the target will angle even more.

 

[chris in va]

22's are mostly bare lead or plated. All they do is splatter sideways. No worries.

Hell we shoot mild steel poppers at that distance at our matches with very few splatter returns even with jacketed.

 

[1KPerDay]

All they do is splatter sideways. No worries.

Incorrect. USUALLY they splatter sideways. Occasionally you get some splatter back at you. Take precautions.

 

[27hand]

steel targets

If you guys could go to page 6 of the link I posted, you can see what angling a plate can do to minimize splashback. But even at a 25 degree cant, a fair portion can still come back at you from above.

That link has really good info. I think anyone who shoots steel should read this.

Carriage bolts have a lesser amount of protrusion and sharp edges so I would opt for these to attach my support steel to my AR plate or mild steel plate. I can find grade 5 easily but grade 8 bolts can be found at suppliers who deal with attachment hardware.

Rather than repost my standard pics of steel targets I have made and test plates of various calibers penetration of mild steel, search for steel target threads even on this site for more info.

I shoot mild and abrasion resistant steel with a handgun as close as 5 to 7 yds and AR plate with rifle as close as about 50 yds. The target mfgs recommend more distance for liability reasons. Shooting any steel has risk. It's just a matter of how much risk a shooter is willing to take. I do not shoot steel when other people are in the bay I am using unless we are clear of what the risk is and they are OK with it. If not, I stop shooting or find another area to myself.

 

[ShootingTargets7.com]

This post is right in my wheelhouse

This is how I mount mine and it works very well, this is actually a sales pic from my site.

You can easily adjust the downward angle by adjusting the backing nuts.

I actually shoot a LOT of 22lr at my setup just like this
with my Ruger SR22.

I've shot thousands of rounds from distances
as close as 5 meters and have never had a ricochet hit me.

I still wear eye protection just in case as should anyone,
even bystanders.

The downward angle not only helps with the ricochet, but it's better
for the targets too.

Not a factor at all with most handgun rounds but when you
start playing with things like .338 Lapua, these things matter a lot.

 

[481]

If you fasten a carriage bolt to the plate with a nut, and then use a second nut to attach the chain or strap it will cause the plate to angle slightly. If you add a second nut behind the first to increase the gap, the target will angle even more.

That's what I have done with mine. Allows for fine adjustments of the angle and costs next to nothing.