Shooting into......

[Frontier's]

Where I work, someone has the idea to use either power poles or railroad timbers for a target backboard to prevent constant rebuild cost.

I highly disagreed with it, as it's a big safety issue, especially with low velocity rounds, including muzzleloaders.

Opinions?

What I'm dealing with

 

[TFoley]

Where I work, someone has the idea to use either power poles or railroad timbers for a target backboard to prevent constant rebuild cost.

I highly disagreed with it, as it's a big safety issue, especially with low velocity rounds, including muzzleloaders.

Opinions?

End on, rather than sections standing up like fence posts........

 

[LME]

Where I work, someone has the idea to use either power poles or railroad timbers for a target backboard to prevent constant rebuild cost.

I highly disagreed with it, as it's a big safety issue, especially with low velocity rounds, including muzzleloaders.

Opinions?

I know of several ranges that would have them shot away very fast. One range i use to go to over time had cut down full grown trees behind the 200 yard targets.

 

[chorizo]

At our range, we use railroad timbers to outline the backstop areas and haven't had issues, but again, the closest timber is 50 yards away. Steel is much more of an issue if not set up correctly.

I believe power poles would be the worse of the two as they tend to be denser.

 

[TarponStalker]

I was just looking at buying some RR ties for this purpose. Usually the ones that you can buy are used and partially rotten. I think for this reason they would be OK for shooting muzzleloaders into but that’s just my opinion I haven’t tried it. I would not use power poles as there are normally pressure treated, and they’re usually harder than railroad ties.

 

[Frontier's]

What I'm dealing with now

 

[HSmithTX]

I have a 230 grain ball slug from a 45 acp somewhere at the house that hit me in the ribs. Many years ago, when I was in the service, we were conducting a qualification shoot and one particular individual couldn't hit the backstop let alone the target, as I was getting to him to get him stopped and corrected I saw the dirt puff 15-20 feet in front of the target, the dirt on the backstop puff low and higher and then about halfway up, and then a flicker near the railroad ties as timbers over the range to keep bullets from getting out. It worked, the bullet didn't get out, it hit me immediately back left of the shooter right under my shirt pocket hard enough to make a welt and a decent purple and green bruise the next day. It was laying at my feet when I looked down. He got pulled from the line and didn't shoot again. Bullets, especially when the speed gets low, do very weird things. I saw many tens of thousands of rounds go down range at that particular range and never saw anything to indicate that a bullet had even traveled part way back from the backstop before or after. I never worried about it going back to that range, what are the odds that it would happen once let alone twice?

Back to the OP question, spending lots of time and working matches at ranges over the years, the best bet is angle iron with the angle to the firing line, with tabs on the back to hold half sheets of thin OSB. 3" angle is plenty big and heavy. Anything that hits the angle will either deflect to the side into the berm or go through if a high powered rifle and they can take a LOT of hits before needing replaced. I have seen timbers placed in front of the angle too, theory being they will catch or slow down anything headed for the angle iron and it's easy enough to angle the iron and/or the timbers slightly toward the firing line at the top, in theory deflecting anything that might bounce off down into the ground. The OSB gets replaced periodically and it's as close to dips!$& proof as I have seen.

 

[EC121]

If you used brand new railroad ties, you might get them to last a while. But my limited shooting on my used tie backstop rapidly shot a hole all the way through. They don't last very long.

 

[SDSmlf]

Where I work, someone has the idea to use either power poles or railroad timbers for a target backboard to prevent constant rebuild cost.

I highly disagreed with it, as it's a big safety issue, especially with low velocity rounds, including muzzleloaders.

Opinions?

A range I shot at in the past used wooden railroad ties for framing to hold backer boards where targets were intended to placed. They had signs posted not to place targets on the railroad ties themselves or shoot them. Didn’t help, the railroad ties were shot to pieces in no time.

There are many better options.

 

[mushka]

I've never seen wood of any kind make a good back stop. From 1959 til today.

 

[sussexmuzllodr]

Three sided railroad tie structure filled with sand? would make getting your lead back easier? Yes?

 

[andy52]

What @HSmithTX said is true a decelerating baffle works well but can be pretty costly and heavy. At my range, I just built earthen berms and made target stands, the range isn't used as much as a public range would so it works for me.
However, if I were to build another I would use old tires stacked edge to edge and backfill them with sand or dirt.
The tire is kinda' of self-sealing even with high-velocity rounds
If you were just using ML ammo the berms would last years.

​

 

[NRFord]

Seriously...

Sure they'll get shot up eventually. But a ricochet off them, extremely unlikely. Talking about RR ties, unless the rail plates are left on 'em.

 

[waksupi]

Old tires filled with dirt work well.

 

[deerstalkert]

Old tires filled with dirt work well.

this is what i use. and no it won't put my eye out.
from 22lr to 458 win mag, every round will penetrate first stack and be captured in the rear stack.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

We house vary berms by timbers, but use sand and those orange ‘sand nets’ to keep the sand in place. No shot out timbers …

 

[Frontier's]

Not sure you understand. They want to build a wall with railroad timbers or poles to place targets onto.

The current setup is ricocheting everything from 22 rounds to my muzzleloader.

They'll have 4H kids shooting out there in a month or so shooting 25 yards.

 

[ord sgt]

What I'm dealing with now
View attachment 212235

At my home gun range, we did away with wood backstops. We now use small "yard sign" material to hang targets. Plastic gets too many holes, it is easily replaced. Huge dirt berm behind the target boards with ar500 steel on top to catch any errant rounds.

 

[ord sgt]

My home range once had open land all around. Now, we are surrounded by industrial parks. We have to keep all fired rounds inside our property area, or we run the risk of permanent closure. Already, we have been shut down for police investigations, looking at spent rounds being found. I do question the police findings. The pistol range is in a pit, 10 feet below access road level with overhead baffles in place. Police study team armed with lasers somehow decided that pistol rounds made the journey out of the pit and landed in the parking lot of one of the buildings. Figure that one out.

 

[pacanis]

I have a home built range and use treated posts and RR ties as a structure to pile dirt against only. They work great for that purpose. You can get by with using half the amount of dirt using something to pile it against. I haven't rebuilt my range ever.

You can read just about anywhere that neither wood nor trees make a good backstop by themselves.