I use a discarded Hoffman elec. enclosure 24" x 30" x 12" deep. I found this thingy with wheels, mounted it. The van at work removed the floor liner that is thick hardish foam stuff and BAM....
carry on...
carry on...
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Pellet traps
- Thread starter jps2486
- Start date
It's been close to 50 years ago. I was living in base housing in the USAF and needed a place. We had a two bedroom duplex and I had a good shot from one bedroom down a hall into the other bedroom. I made a 3 sided wooden box with a groove where I could slide a piece of 1/4 " plywood in. I cut out an area for a target which I would tape on. The cavity was about 4" thick and I would fill it with old Sears Roebuck catalogs, magazines and it always stopped pellets from my FWB124, never had any penetrate to the back side.
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I use postal boxes filled with rubber mulch in the garage.
As the box gets shot up I wrap several layers of duct tape around the box and keep shooting.
I shoot both sides.
When the box gets too heavy with pellets, I dump the whole lot into my clean 5 gallon shop vac and fill with water.
The lead sinks to the bottom and the rubber floats to the top and can be skimmed off.
The lead is accumulated and is then melted and cast into ingots that I save for future use as to cast bullets for the .54 Renegade or .44 Ruger Old Army Revolver.
Get another box from the PO and fill with the reclaimed rubber mulch.
My mulch is about 13 years old and works fine.
As the box gets shot up I wrap several layers of duct tape around the box and keep shooting.
I shoot both sides.
When the box gets too heavy with pellets, I dump the whole lot into my clean 5 gallon shop vac and fill with water.
The lead sinks to the bottom and the rubber floats to the top and can be skimmed off.
The lead is accumulated and is then melted and cast into ingots that I save for future use as to cast bullets for the .54 Renegade or .44 Ruger Old Army Revolver.
Get another box from the PO and fill with the reclaimed rubber mulch.
My mulch is about 13 years old and works fine.
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I just built a "storage container / rubber mulch " target , Quiet . contains lead , no splash i can detect . I tape a cardboard piece to the inside of the cover so i can just lay the box down take the cover off and replace the cardboard , no leaks .
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I have a duct seal pellet trap for (roughly) 10 meter air pistol shooting.
I cut a rectangle out of the front of a rectangular kitty-litter bucket container, added some small cheap clips, lined the back with duct seal.
(The pellet size holes you see in the bucket are purely coincidence, no idea how those got there
)
A speaker tripod with a circular piece of wood, a pipe flange and pipe nipple as an adapter keep the target at a decent height. I also use my garage Wyze cam, moved closer, as a spotter - it does a decent job.
When I inevitably remake the trap, I think I’ll add the duct seal to a removable board that slots into the back of the bucket, so I can slide it out and remove pellets easily with needle nose pliers, it’s kind of a pain right now, tough to see what you’re doing. I might also fool around with backlighting the target.
I cut a rectangle out of the front of a rectangular kitty-litter bucket container, added some small cheap clips, lined the back with duct seal.
(The pellet size holes you see in the bucket are purely coincidence, no idea how those got there
)A speaker tripod with a circular piece of wood, a pipe flange and pipe nipple as an adapter keep the target at a decent height. I also use my garage Wyze cam, moved closer, as a spotter - it does a decent job.
When I inevitably remake the trap, I think I’ll add the duct seal to a removable board that slots into the back of the bucket, so I can slide it out and remove pellets easily with needle nose pliers, it’s kind of a pain right now, tough to see what you’re doing. I might also fool around with backlighting the target.
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I've had one commercial pellet trap the kids got for me, a Crosman, and it got shot up pretty quickly. All the rest I made. I still have one made from an old electrical box I found in my shed. It works but is not ideal. My other two are the same idea but one is made of 3/4 plywood and the other 1/2. I may make one of 1/4 plywood. The one made of 1/2 inch plywood weighs 15 lbs without any pellets in it. I have removed as much as 19 lbs of pellets from it. It gets heavy. The size of the box is sized to hold 8.5 inch by 11 inch targets. Regardless of the thickness of the box, the front has 3/4 softwood strips to hold drywall screws. The width of the box allows the target to sit inside of these strips with about 1/4 inch to spare. The height, on the other hand is sized to put 1/4 inch of the target on the 3/4 softwood. To use the trap is filled with rubber mulch - pack it, you don't want it to slump - then a cardboard piece is placed over the whole front, then 1/8th inch steel pieces go over the softwood. Screws go through the steel and cardboard and into the softwood. To change out a target, the steel strips on the top and bottom are loosened and the target slipped in then the screws are tightened to hold the target in place. The Steel prevents the wood box from being hit and is strong enough even a 50 fpe pellet will not distort it. I also put a piece of sheet steel behind the mulch. It doesn't get hit unless the mulch slumps.
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This is mine, and my long sight-in range (target is distant white square near image center, in front of firewood backstop).
It is a scrap wood frame of 2x2's, now covered in fence boards (not the OSB in the images). It surrounds a 1/4" thick steel plate mounted at 45º into a collection waste bin.
125' shot:
1/4" Steel mashing plate:
Brute waste bin, filled with shag carpet rems as capture,...
Deflected pellets
And my favorite target - popsicle sticks; eat 'em, and shoot 'em.
It is a scrap wood frame of 2x2's, now covered in fence boards (not the OSB in the images). It surrounds a 1/4" thick steel plate mounted at 45º into a collection waste bin.
125' shot:
1/4" Steel mashing plate:
Brute waste bin, filled with shag carpet rems as capture,...
Deflected pellets
And my favorite target - popsicle sticks; eat 'em, and shoot 'em.
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ThomasT can steer you to his welder friend who makes sturdy, durable pellet traps made from aluminum; the angled rear is lined with a thick steel plate. I've been using mine since sometime in 2023 and it is holding up well. I don't leave pellets in it much, usually emptying the trap after each session (easy and quick).
To catch bits of paper, cardboard, and any pellets that bounce down and back OUT through shotholes, I put a cardboard lid from a large box on the floor in front of the trap, which sits at least 1.5' higher on a crate. Because my indoor distance is so short, I use only 2 pumps for multipumpers. The SSP pistol is fine also. This trap was designed to handle .22 as well as .177, maybe larger also.
IIRC, some airgunners had asked the welder to make a trap for HP airguns. He was working on that but I don't know when/if it was produced.
To catch bits of paper, cardboard, and any pellets that bounce down and back OUT through shotholes, I put a cardboard lid from a large box on the floor in front of the trap, which sits at least 1.5' higher on a crate. Because my indoor distance is so short, I use only 2 pumps for multipumpers. The SSP pistol is fine also. This trap was designed to handle .22 as well as .177, maybe larger also.
IIRC, some airgunners had asked the welder to make a trap for HP airguns. He was working on that but I don't know when/if it was produced.
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Mike, I’ve since switched on the type of backing to keep the mulch secured from spilling out. At first it was the bird scene hardware cloth, then I used rolled aluminum flashing, and both just created a mess of sharp shrapnel bits. So now I use 2” thick neoprene padding from the Hvac shop I used to work for. I cut a piece 1/4” wider and taller than the opening and wedge it inside. It holds the mulch in very well, is very silent, can be left outdoors, and doesn’t disintegrate like a cardboard would. Last summer I probably shot 5,000 pellets into it and it held up well
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A few pictures of a couple of my traps. The older one is 6 inches deep, the new one is a fraction of an inch deeper. Older one is mostly 1/2 inch plywood, newer one is mostly 1/4 inch plywood. The front of both has 1/8 th thick steel covering the wood of the box. The older one has taken thousands of shots with no damage. Cardboard is behind the targets to hold the rubber mulch in. The top and bottom steel pieces hold the target on. They both weigh 15 lbs before pellets are added. I like to have a sight in target next to the one I'm trying for a 200 on.
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I've ordered some plastic fencing with 8mm holes. I want to try shaking the mulch with pellets in it over the fencing. What doesn't go through goes back in the trap. What goes through goes into an old pan over a burner of my grill. The small pieces of mulch will come to the top and get scraped off. The molten lead will be in the bottom and get cast into ingots. I tried water and it helped some but is messy. I'm working on a simple fairly fast way to separate mulch from pellets.
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