Shooting in the yard, sand backwall?

[Sav .250]

Johny, you said in part," ..........no one dares to walk in those woods........"

Do you remember, 3 Mile Island? They said, "nothing would go wrong" and look how that turned out.

Never say never.

 

[gbw]

You don't need/want sandbags .... you need a bulldozer.

Exactly. My range, built of dirt on my property with a bulldozer. It a little hard to see the berm behind the wall now since it's somewhat overgrown. This is good, it holds the dirt in place. It is approx. 9'-10' tall and 8-9' deep x 24' wide at the top. Maybe 25' deep at bottom. It took a very good man about 1/2 day to build the berm. Behind it is empy forrest for over a mile. Nearest neighbor is around 700' beside/behind. I use the range average 2-3 times / month for 2-3 hours. Distance from the shed to the wall is 75 yds. Gongs are 3/8" plate, impervious to lead pistol rds., standard .30 rifle ball (Garand) will bore right through them. I have to re-build the central part of the walls once / year or so, not a big problem.

There is a risk. It's tiny and I'm willing to risk it. I would have to miss the entire berm and have someone in the line of fire - the odds of both happening at the same instant are miniscule, but not zero. Ricochets off a vertical wall or plates are quite easy to stop. Life is risk, you mitigate what you can. Total cost, including the shed was around $3,000 iirc. Worth every cent.

Someday someone may buy the land behind before I can get it and build, and that will be the end of it, but for the last 10 years I've had it pretty good.

Know your local laws - firearms, discharge, noise, nuisance, etc.
Know the area - Google Earth is invaluable here, if the resolution for your area is good.
Forget the tires, sandbags, other gimmicks. Build it with a bulldozer.
The wall is optional, but it sure is nice and holds the front of the berm in place and makes it easy to hang gongs, targets, and so on.

FWIW - I think it will become nearly impossible to enjoy the shooting sports anywhere in the country over the next generation, and there is nothing we can do about it. I hope I'm wrong.

Don't give up - form clubs, buy land, get involved politically, be responsible, admit the simple fact that firearms are in a danger-to-others v. benefit-to-society class all their own. We have to deal with that reality responsibly or we will lose all rights to them.

 

[danbrew]

That's *AWESOME*. If it weren't so gay, I'd marry you.

I dream of something like that. If you ever wake up in the middle of the night and hear maniacal laughter and somebody shooting on your range, just go back to sleep. It's not me - it's a dream.

 

[Johny]

I like your idea GBW. That looks like the best/safest Idea!

 

[toivo]

I think everybody has said it. Build a berm. Don't shoot into the ground. Don't shoot into the woods.

I have been in the woods and had bullets flying over my head. I was one side of a wooded ravine, and somebody in an apple orchard on the other side was shooting into the treeline. I have no idea what they were shooting at or why they thought it was OK to shoot into the woods. I just know that I never want to have that experience again!

 

[barnetmill]

I believe that the NRA has published plans for backstops. The most important thing relative to safety is not to fire horizontal to the ground or at an elevated angle. An AK I am sure will go far in excess of a mile with sufficient force to kill. Do not count on trees to reliably stop all bullets.

Concrete blocks and concrete will stop a few shots, but will ultimately be destroyed by an AK. They be can be used in areas not intended to receive repeated impacts. Fill dirt with a lot of clay makes a good back stop. You will need to stabilized it with plants or some other structure. Remember not to shoot about waters wells or areas where water runs off sine lead is toxic. For pistol bullets and .22 I use an angled hardened steel plate. Rifles are best stopped by dirt backstops. You can put your blocks at the top of the earthern berm to catch an occassional stay bullet. The blocks must repleced when they are damaged.

 

[TheFallGuy]

Wow, GBW has an awesome range and I am incredibly jealous.

I used my yanmar 25 horsepower tractor with a front end loader at my last place to dig a range that sloped downhill. The end of the range was an 10-12 foot deep hole. It was only a 50 yard range and was maybe 10 feet wide. I never found any evidence of bullets bouncing up but I didn't shoot at the ground.

I will be building another one soon as I have moved to a new place.

With sand bags you will be left with bits of plastic all over after 1000 rounds or so. Kind of trashy. A steel plate angled would be your best bet but may cost too much. Cinder blocks won't last too long. Doing it over, I start with an earth mound (or dig into the ground). You want the range side as flat as possible to prevent deflection.

Of course a bullet trap would be your best bet if you can afford it. A friend of mine built one (he is a mechanical engineer with lots of fab experience but it is pretty simple to do if you can weld). His was made from a bucket from a front end loader. He got the bucket for around $500 I think. He cut the bottom of the bucket off and welded it on the front of the bucket. The bottom half was close in, the top half was open. He filled it with sand. It has stood up to a .300 WSM with out any holes. Probably could do more.

 

[paintballdude902]

my place has about 4 miles until there is a house ive got 75 yards of woods the a clearing of 275 then dense woods for the next 3 or so miles

what i did is we had a big pile of brush about 10ft tall so i got the front end loader and covered it in sand and lines the back with stacked cinder block filled with quickcrete i did that 2 times

so its a dirt berm about 6 ft thich with brush under it then an 8ft cinderblakc wall filled with concrete then 3 ft of dirt then another wall

we had the blocks so it was pretty much all free but i had to buy like 8 80lbs bag of quickcrete

ill take pics next time i go out to the farm


it woulda been easier to just dig into the side of a hill but...... eastern north carolina is sand and doesnt come with many hills we got sand dunes if that counts