Tires as backstop unsafe?

[230RN]

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with a rubber tire backstop resulting in a ricochet/reflection back at the shooter? Considering only one unfortunate round is needed to cut a life short, one occurrence is enough... But IS there one guaranteed confirmed occurrence?

Yes, and I end up mentioning it sooner or later when these threads come up. I had brought a tire down to my backstop to shoot at it, frankly, just for the heck of it. No rational reason.

.22 Rifle, uninflated tire, about 30yards, my own private range, tire set up so bullets struck the sidewall. Bullet came back and clipped a little branch about two yards from me. Nobody else around, nobody else shooting in the area, and frankly if it hadn't clipped the branchlet, I would not have known it was happening. Had fired about 10 rounds, and there's no way of knowing how many of those might have come back.

Never fired any CF cartridges at it since the .22 comeback was enough to convince me to discard the tire and not play games like that any more.

Terry

 

[rbernie]

I would imagine that dirt filled ties would have dramatically less "spring" effect, the dirt would back up the tire making the bullet more likely to penetrate the tire and be captured,

Correct.

I treat empty tires as a poor backstop due to their springiness and sand/dirt filled tires as a reasonable foundation for a backstop.

 

[230RN]

I'm trying to figure out how you fill a tire with sand....

Dumb Terry

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Shooting through the sidewall involves only 1/4" rubber and rayon/nylon fabric. That should be easy to do.

Shooting through the tread involves penetrating a lot more rubber, plus several layers of steel web (belts). I can imagine that this would be far more difficult to penetrate, and could easily ricochet.

Also added to the equation is the fact that the tires are inflated, which would change things from a physics standpoint.

I would think the inflated tire would be easier to penetrate with a bullet than a junk tire laying in the back yard. Disclaimer: I have no evidence to back this up, just a suspicion.

 

[larry_minn]

Shot at ranges with tire houses. Tires were stacked, filled with sand.
ear/eye protection worn. Most everyone had been hit by something if you go to ranges often enough.
Do you really think the bullet that goes 30 yards, hits tire, bounces back has 1/10th the volicity it had to start with? The farther back you are the better of course (with any backstop) Even steel plate at 45 degrees with sand under. I would not (care to) shoot at less then 20'

 

[rbernie]

I'm trying to figure out how you fill a tire with sand...

Assuming that it's off the rim - stand them up or flop 'em down, and then dump sand around/into them until the cavity fills with sand. You wind up with what looks like an earthen berm, but it's reinforced/based on tires. It's reportedly more stable than just a pile of dirt dumped onto the ground.

I do know folk that build a sacrificial wooden frame into which they sit the tires, and the dirt/sand is then cascaded into the frame. That tends to keep the dirt cover more contained, but requires periodic maintenance of the wood.

 

[RavenTai]

I'm trying to figure out how you fill a tire with sand....

Dumb Terry

http://earthship.com/blogs/2015/01/earth-rammed-tire-walls/

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[tlatoani]

I was hit in the leg by a 22 that hit a tire maybe 20-30yd away. I barely felt it through my jeans. It wasn't a backstop, just a random tire in the woods where we were shooting.

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[Odd Job]

I took a pistol and shotgun course in a shoot-house that was entirely made from tires. We fired handgun and shotgun rounds at a variety of distances, from close to medium range. There were no ricochets coming back to us. This was several hundred rounds spread between five shooters over two days.
Ears and eyes were mandatory of course...

 

[Odd Job]

On a similar course we had target selection drills using a full auto Galil, where some of the targets were either supported or interspersed by tires, both flat and upright. No ricochets there either.

 

[csa77]

the best backstop i know of is pure dirt.