Safe shooting distance for roundballs and steel targets?

[Bent Sight]

If the metal is hinged at the top and it swings, it should take a lot of energy out of the ball. If the target is angled down in the first place, the round ball should be directed to the ground.

Of course you want the metal thick enough. I hung a piece of 1/8" cold rolled metal at 25 yards and a round ball shot right through it.

 

[S.Kenton]

I made my targets out of pipe cover blanks and re rod.....I made a swinging target with 6",4" and 2" blanks. I can make em swing at 50 yards easy enough. I have shot literally thousands of roundballs at these swinging targets... No ricochets at all. As others have stated, they splatter upon contact and the kinetic energy from the bullet is totally absorbed by the swinging metal plate. My targets are softer than AR-500 steel, I Beleive that futher helps in the absorption of energy. Somwhere I have a few pictures and a slow speed video of a couple of impacts and the effects on the target/ roundball impact. .440 round balls from Rush Creek and 60 grains of goex fff, at 30 yards For the examples I have...ill have to see if I can dig them up. Hopefully I didn't lose them when my laptop crashed....

 

[Mark from Alaska]

One question would be, is the steel target fixed? Or on a chain or swivel. I have found that a swinging target will move and change the angle, so 25 yards is good for me. I also use one of those revolving steel targets, and I don’t have available to me any fixed steel targets.

 

[BrownBear]

Or on a chain or swivel. I have found that a swinging target will move and change the angle, so 25 yards is good for me.

That's a very important distinction. We found with knock-down plates that they had to be 100% perpendicular to the path of the bullet. The slightest angle would send bullets and fragments caroming all over the range.

 

[PluggedNickel]

Interesting thread. I just am getting into BP muzzle loader shooting. I've had the guns for years. Now I'm retired I have more time for such fun.
Here is a portable target I just set up. We have several thousand yards of open land behind our house when the crops are down, as far as the eye can see without binoculars with no barns, roads, or houses. The 4' X 4' plate is hot rolled steel .250" or 1/4" thick, it weighs 163 pounds. I laid two 3/8" thick X 1" wide steel strips in the Yukon so it would slide in and out easy. It fit in the Yukon with 1/4" clearance on each side of the wheel wells. I can load unload it by myself if needed. I have since painted the 4' X 4' with RustOleum paint. Painted the pipes black as well. I have two of the AR500 targets set up with the deck umbrella stands. We had both of the cast steel stands already. One still NIB in the garage. I sanded and repainted the rusty one shown in the pictures. You can see the foot of the dolly (Blue) through he square holes in the cast steel base. The dolly, though it looks brand new we have had for some years now. It was recently on sale at Harbor Freight for $39.00. It makes it easy to move the entire rig to different ranges in the back. Will store in the barn when not using. The plate is spring loaded so it flexes down when hit. You can also tilt the target if desired. We will be shooting off our 4' high deck, so that will already put us above ground and impart a downward angle to the trajectory. I have a Uberti 1847 Colt Walker reproduction that I am getting ready to make some smoke with. I will get some pictures of me shooting that, maybe some video. Will be shooting .457" soft lead round balls with 50 grains of Swiss FFFg powder. I have a holster ordered for this revolver that is supposed to arrive Monday the 5th of November. Below are some pictures of it.
Sorry, the target pictures are on the bottom after the Walker pictures. I forgot to move the cursor down below the target pictures before I posted them. We will be shooting Cowboy loads at this set up, soft or hard cast lead bullets, low velocity, and BP revolvers, maybe I'll shoot my 1861 Springfield Rifled Musket with some Minie' Balls as well. Maybe some subsonic .22LR as well.

 

[Adui]

FWIW I was with a local NMLRA sanctioned club last weekend, (a week ago yesterday) and we shot steel as close as 25 yards. Mind you, these targets fall over when hit. Actually the chicken targets at 25 yards pretty much flew back 4-6 feet wqhen hit with a 50 round ball. I thought it was pretty cool..

Just dont ask how well I did.. I didnt score near the top, i think I was near the bottom for 20 targets... Had fun though!!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I hung a piece of 1/8" cold rolled metal at 25 yards and a round ball shot right through it.

YEAH AND...., a cast iron griddle at 50 yards..., a .530 round ball will bang right through that too.......

LD

 

[Juice Jaws]

The closest our club shoot steel is 25 yards at silhouette chickens, and these fall over.

 

[Bent Sight]

YEAH AND...., a cast iron griddle at 50 yards..., a .530 round ball will bang right through that too.......

LD

Wow! It takes a lot of steam to shoot through cast iron like that.

 

[belld416]

I use 3/8” AR500 targets mounted on chains and I’ve shot hundreds of round balls at. My pistols are generally 15yds or greater. My rifles are usually further out but I’ve never had any trouble.

 

[S.Kenton]

Here's my home made targets that are about 10 years old now. When they get all beat up then I simply repai

nt and straighten out. I'm not sure what kind of metal was used for the targets themselves, but a 40 cal. Roundball will dent them even more so than a 54. I simply remove them, pound out the dents and put em back on

 

[Felix the Cat]

Pure lead impacts with total plastic deformation. To get reflection (bounce back) you need elasticity.. basic mechanics.

You might be interested that the standard bullet stop in UK for 25yd ranges is a plain steel plate mounted rigidly to the back wall at 90 degrees to the line of fire. This is all that is needed for plain lead bullets provided the surface of the plate is not damaged. All the splatter flies sideways. The problem comes with using jacketed bullets which invariably strip off and come back along the flight path. This is coped with by using a thick rubber curtain in front of the bullet stop which capture the jackets. Metal plates were in common use in fairground shooting galleries using .22 shorts until they died out in the 60s..

If you ever get the chance to visit Bisley in the UK, go around the back of the NRA office to the small courtyard. The walls are lined with the old cast iron target plates which were used up until the adoption of jacketed bullets. They were painted with whitewash with the bull painted with blacking (soot and glue). The bullets splashed on the target leaving a clear mark. Patching up was done with a paintbrush...

 

[Mad Irish Jack]

I refuse to shoot any gun at steel targets that aren't free swingers HANGING from the top. Anything firm steel or extra heavy will bounce any round back at any low speed, and possibly any round. Wooden logs crosscut like a throwing log will also send round balls back at lower speed. Over the years, I've SEEN this with more than a dozens of shooters using these discs get hit or near missed (1 broken and 1 bruised collar bone and a couple bruised ribs and 1 cracked). Each shooters safety is ultimately their own responsibility. Legality may make it someone else's BUT>>>>

 

[hangfast]

Hang your targets the easy way! The target plate hangs from the top, has a built in back angle, very reactive when hit and rings like a bell !! This system incorporates all the best features discussed in the posts above.
Hang Fast Targets

 

[smoothshooter]

For those of you who shoot their black powder rifles at steel targets, what kind of yardage are you shooting from? How close is too close with steel targets and roundballs? I was shooting at 25 yards with a .50 cal roundball out of a flintlock rifle. I assuming the 100 yard minimum range doesn't apply because these are not really "high-powered" rifles? 25 yards feels pretty safe to me, but what do you guys think? (AR-500 steel plate 3/8" thick)

Depends on whether the target is cratered from not being hardened enough for what it has been shot with previously.
If nothing more than very minor cratering ( preferrably NONE ) i have shot some fairly stout loads at 10 yards or less with no problems since the bullet splatters into powder and small slivers with anything but the weakest loads.
Depending on the depth of target damage, I may stay back as far as 30 to 40 yards.
Have seen some targets that I would not want to be within 75 yards of.
Something that does seem to help when shooting damaged targets is instead of standing or sitting squarely in front of the target, offset 30 to 45 degrees to one side.
Just make sure anyone else on the range is standing no closer than you are, and that they are on the same side of the offset that you are .

 

[Griz44Mag]

See this video.

Always angle your target top in so splatter is deflected downward.
I have been shooting steel for decades.
A properly mounted target can be shot at 10 yards IF it is in good condition and mounted properly.

 

[Tanglefoot]

There's a lot of experience represented here. Here's mine.
I was standing on the Ready Line at a ML match held on a formal range with sheds and tables. One of the events was a Split-The-Ball match at 25 yards. Sadly, the host club had created a special target ... a single-bit axe blade with the back welded to a flat steel plate which was about 9 inches long -- roughly 4 inches on either side of the axe. This rig was then mounted on the face of a cut log section - Oak.
A couple of us didn't like it and but the range officer said they had decided it was okay, so we chose to sit that one out and were standing a few feet to the left of the match area and back behind the ready line. When one of the shooters took his turn he missed the axe head and the resulting flattened round ball ricocheted almost straight back, passed between the shooter and where we were standing, and hit a spectator in the face, knocking her down. It missed her eye by a fraction of an inch and did not penetrate her skull, largely because it hit flat. She suffered no lasting damage, reported a serious headache, and probably still flinches at loud noises.
I've shot ML steel silhouettes from 50 yards out to 130 yards. They tip over when hit and ricochets go downrange. Closer than that, or not mounted so that they yield when hit, you can take your own chances. I'll pass.

 

[russellshaffer]

I shot my home made steel target this morning. It is piece of 3/8 mild hot rolled steel free hanging by a couple of wires. I used a 44 revolver loaded with 20 grains of 777 and a 45 percusion pistol loaded with 10 grains of 777. The revolver balls disintegrated and left spatter under the target. The slower moving pistol balls were laying under the target, completely flattened and about 1 1/4 diameter. I haven't weighed them but they look to be all there. The target wasn't damaged at all except for the paint. This was at about 10 yards. If handgun loads act this way I would be nervous about a rifle unless the range was a lot longer. Just my observations for what it's worth.

 

[Griz44Mag]

I shot my home made steel target this morning. It is piece of 3/8 mild hot rolled steel free hanging by a couple of wires. I used a 44 revolver loaded with 20 grains of 777 and a 45 percusion pistol loaded with 10 grains of 777. The revolver balls disintegrated and left spatter under the target. The slower moving pistol balls were laying under the target, completely flattened and about 1 1/4 diameter. I haven't weighed them but they look to be all there. The target wasn't damaged at all except for the paint. This was at about 10 yards. If handgun loads act this way I would be nervous about a rifle unless the range was a lot longer. Just my observations for what it's worth.

Why would you use a rifle at 10 yards in the first place?????
Don't cheap out on steel targets, but some AR500 steel from a reputable dealer...

 

[russellshaffer]

I wouldn't use a rifle at that range - just thought it was interesting what was happening to the lead balls.