Quiet pellet traps
- Thread starter lancehenley1
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Something I've recently done-took an old box fan and removed the motor and metal supports. Fill with mulch, put face back on. Works well.
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Just a thought... Has anyone tried several layers of cut old carpet rectangles stacked in the box behind the rubber mulch or folded clothes?? Wonder if that would help any or be noisier or else?
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Frenchredneck
I tried the exact opposite behind a 12' depth of rubber mulch, and behind a 12" depth of tightly rolled old clothes.
I tested using 2 x 6 boards to keep pellets from exiting the trap
Shooting 14.3gr at 700 fps from a distance of 10 yards, there was no difference in noise with & without the boards.
Both were extremely quiet, unless of course, the mulch had settled.
My neighbors are close enough that I also only shoot at soft targets (paper & squirrels)
The preferred solutions (outside to inside) have become
- paper target, 1.5" thick cheap foam, 12" densely rolled clothes, 1 layer 2x6 boards
- Fur, skin, organs & bone.
Anything harder (including cardboard) can be heard by the neighbors
Ed
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I use a piece of cardboard to hold in the rubber mulch & to either draw or stick targets onto. Frankly, if the sound of a pellet striking a cardboard is too loud, you might as well not sneeze, talk, drop a tool, or fart
in your own yard. I’ve shot squirrels with Polymags that sound louder than that 
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I use a piece of cardboard to hold in the rubber mulch & to either draw or stick targets onto. Frankly, if the sound of a pellet striking a cardboard is too loud, you might as well not sneeze, talk, drop a tool, or fart
Sneezing, talking, & dropping tools are not sounds associated with a pellets hitting a target.
My neighbors are obsessed about weapons; and consider the squirrels that devastate my fruit trees precious little creatures
When they can be heard farting I know they are really upset.
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I use a piece of cardboard to hold in the rubber mulch & to either draw or stick targets onto. Frankly, if the sound of a pellet striking a cardboard is too loud, you might as well not sneeze, talk, drop a tool, or fart
Sneezing, talking, dropping tools are not sounds associated with a pellets hitting a target.
My neighbors are obsessed about weapons.
When they can be heard farting I know they are really upset.
I agree, Hitting the target is much louder than some of my rifles. I try to be respectful of my neighbors and once in awhile I hear them vigorously closing a window 2 minutes after I shoot. I try to keep it down as I usually shoot 200-300 shots during the day in my backyard. If they were to call the cops I'm clueless as to what will happen. I think I can show them I am being safe, but they can always say "its illegal to shoot that in this town" and then I loose shooting priveleges. So I'm going to try your foam/clothes technique. The rubber mulch is good but you need the cardboard and that causes the "smack". But then again duct seal with just paper seems to cause a slap too.
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Yup, same here, but the smack of the pellet on a piece of cardboard or a squirrel’s torso or noggin (which can be louder than the cardboard) gets lost at that distance along with other environmental factors like cars going by, birds chirping, grass being mowed, etc. They aren’t out there with their listening devices & sound analyzing software waiting on me to shoot pellets. By the time that sound reaches my neighbors (I live in a normal 1/2 acre or less) it might as well be just about anything.
If they know that was a pellet hitting the cardboard, they will know when Chip & Dale just took one too.
If they know that was a pellet hitting the cardboard, they will know when Chip & Dale just took one too.
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That being said... I do understand your positions and why you choose to do it differently. I would hate to have such ultra sensitive neighbors. You do what you gotta do, & I respect that.
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In my experience the sound of a pellet hitting a squirrel torso is about the same as hitting a tightly rolled T-shirt, whereas hitting it's noggin sounds more like hitting the clasp on a bra sticking out from inside the pair of rolled up boxers.
Both are very different from, and much more quiet than, cardboard
Ed
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I understand, and agree. 
I guess in my experience the difference is negligible, but I understand that yours is different, and I respect that. Happy shooting. Chris.
I guess in my experience the difference is negligible, but I understand that yours is different, and I respect that. Happy shooting. Chris. Upvote 0
I use a piece of cardboard to hold in the rubber mulch & to either draw or stick targets onto. Frankly, if the sound of a pellet striking a cardboard is too loud, you might as well not sneeze, talk, drop a tool, or fartin your own yard. I’ve shot squirrels with Polymags that sound louder than that
You're right using cardboard is very loud. My solution was to use a rubber mat to attach the targets to instead of cardboard very quiet in comparison. Most people use a cardboard box or a plastic container or bucket for their mulch trap. That's very noisy when the pellet hits the plastic or cardboard. You'd be surprised how quiet this is at 40 ft FPE or less. At 65 f p e you can hear it.
https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/quiet-rubber-mulch-pellet-trap/
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Just waste a little gas and run your lawn mower (idle run) all day while you shoot? Or blast The radio (concert levels) or run your home theater speakers facing outside through the windows. The game will be used to that noise when you run it every day. Noise ordinance says you can make noise every day during daylight hours check your city county ordinances for your specific every day make some noise times where you live.
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I started to do that after the neighbors COMPLAINED that they could clearly hear me having very loud screaming passionate sex all the time (they JUST KNEW it wasnt PORNO FLICKs)(AND NO! THAT WASNT ME MAKING ALL THAT DIRTY NASTY TRASH TALKING RACKET!!!) and suggested I BLAST the radio or TV to mask out the obscene and explicit sounds whenever doing the NASTY!.Running the lawn mower PLUS blasting the TV facing out the window was better.
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That’s actually pretty brilliant Yo, the lawnmower or radio anyway. I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about the negligible noise either a springer’s action or a pellet hitting cardboard makes. I guess it’s one of the perks of not living in a place like Калифорния.
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Hell yeah! Time your shots while the artillery fire is incoming!! Great movie, and thanks for the laugh 
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So I did not have enough old jeans and clothes around to try the folded clothes trap, which we know works already.... but I had an old area rug... I cut it in four 15" or so wide strips which I folded around (4 folds each strip) and stacked on top of each other in the box... that is 16 layers of "rug carpet" making up about 10" thick. The box is about 14" deep so I used a bunch of scrap wood boards to make up the remaining 4" (and provide back "safety" element as I was not sure how the carpet will react).
Shot the box a couple times with 16grs 0.22 pellets at barely 10 yards with a 23 ft.lb rifle and nothing made it through and it is quiet on impact. Unable to say if it is better or not than another option, but if all you have is old carpet or old area rug (dumpsters almost always have one in there) to work with, look no further. It works.
I will shoot it some more and report if I start hearing the wood in the back, which for some reason I doubt will happen any time soon.
Cheers
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I too found the rubber mulch to be a very quiet material for trapping pellets; much quieter than duct seal. And like SilentSquirrel, I found a foam layer in front of the mulch is much quieter than a cardboard face.
But I also found that putting a paper target on the foam defeated the impact of using foam. So ideally use the foam without a paper face. I put paint lines on mine:
Using a .177 Daystate Pulsar shooting 10.3 grain Air Arms 30 yards (with speed at target of about 825 fps), I got
But I also found that putting a paper target on the foam defeated the impact of using foam. So ideally use the foam without a paper face. I put paint lines on mine:
Using a .177 Daystate Pulsar shooting 10.3 grain Air Arms 30 yards (with speed at target of about 825 fps), I got
- 95 "max" db with a simple A-weighted decibel meter one meter away from the target when using a splatterburst target on a cardboard face.
- 94-95 "max" db using a splatterburst or uncoated paper target on a face of foam (2 to 7 inches) before the rubber mulch (i.e., no cardboard in the pellet's path)
- 78-80 "max" db shooting into 2 to 7 inches of foam and then into a cloth-bound rubber mulch collector (and no cardboard face between the foam and the mulch). But I also got some outlier results with as much as 92 max db for this configuration. In any case, the sound levels of foam without a paper face were much lower to the shooter's ear than any setup involving paper targets.
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