Riomouse911
Member
I’ve had a few chains clipped over the years and they’ll fall, the looping trajectory of a .45/70 will occasionally shoot a tad high, or one of my buddies will send a 5.56 from open sighted AR’s into the chain which will clip it. I even tried a hardened chain once, still didn’t hold up to a rifle bullet impact.Unless you hit the chain where it bolts to the plate the chain will last a good long time. When you see clint eastwood shooting the hangmans noose in half, that really does not work. It will move, we have tried it many times. Now if you hit the bolt, and it depends on what you hit the bolt with all bets are off, including on where the splatter will go, this includes carriage bolts.
Here is another fun fact, lots of targets have a "square hole" this is for the carriage bolt and the square "head" behind the bolt face. Put your chain behind the target and that will help you a bunch.
Hardened bolts, including wheel studs will not stand up to center fire rifle. Hand gun will be just fine with grade 5 bolts I have found. I just use the cheap hardware as you really have to try to hit the bolt, and it is way up there anyway you should not be shooting that part anyway, more likely for a crack.
Your idea would work well for keeping them pointed in the correct direction.
The conveyor belt was an idea I got from the sheriffs range. They use the 5/8” thick stuff from a local gravel pit as target backing. They last thousands of rounds before the center is all shot away and it’s replaced. Amazon sells the lighter duty stuff that I bought, which cuts with a drywall knife into useable pieces pretty easily.
Yeah, plant one on the grade 8 bolt and it’s going to be ruined. The hardened ones do take a ton of jacket splatter and hold up pretty well. Amazon sells those by the dozen, which for me may be a lifetime supply.
All of these solutions are good ones.
Stay safe.