I'd like to be able to shoot indoors to mess around with tuning on rainy/cold days. I have this bullet catcher which I use outdoors:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MH44YS5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It works great as in there is no way a .22 pellet is getting through it but the problem is a bunch of lead pieces/dust collects in front and some behind it.
Do you guys have suggestions for a pellet catches that will just "swallow" pellets and leave nothing behind? In other words, something safe and with no mess.
Thank you!
Those metal pellet traps work fine to catch the pellets but are also very noisy. Just hanging a piece of thick cloth over the open face of the metal bullet catcher (behind the target) will slow the pellets enough to quiet it down a bit. And a cardboard box of old clothes as described above, or using many layers of flattened cardboard boxes packed tight inside of a larger box, both work fine for less powerful airguns if enough padding is used.
If you are planning to do more extensive testing of higher power airguns, say in the 40fpe to 80fpe? range, then it would be more effective and compact to use layers of 5lb blocks of Duct Seal. If you haven't ever seen any, Duct Seal is a very dense, very heavy, and slightly malleable, clay-like material. The brick-sized blocks can be pressed easily into place and stick together. Rubber mulch from the garden center can stop anything including firearms if you use enough of it. It weighs much less by volume Duct Seal and is much less expensive than Duct Seal.
Here's a simple and portable backstop suitable for most higher-power airguns. Use a regular 5-gallon plastic bucket with a screw-on lid. Fill the bucket about 1/2 way up with rubber mulch pressed firmly into place. Then press a layer or two of Duct Seal blocks on top of the rubber mulch. That will leave a few inches of open space at the top of the bucket. Use 2 layers of Duct Seal, using 3 to 4 blocks in each layer (that's 30 to 40lbs of Duct Seal!) to fill the space above the rubber mulch. The Duct Seal is so firm that I need to step onto the layer with my full weight and use my foot to press it flat and into any gaps between the pieces. That also compresses the rubber mulch underneath.
Two layers of the blocks (about 3 inches thick), used on their own, should stop most airgun pellets. The blocks are somewhat sticky when the plastic wrapper is removed and once pressed firmly into place over the mulch they will adhere to the inside edge of the bucket and stay there when the bucket is tipped on its side. Duct Seal by itself is very heavy, so using the mulch behind it keeps the weight of the bucket manageable. The screw-on lid keeps loose pellets and residue inside when it's not in use, and the bucket's handle allows it to be moved and stored easily out of sight when not in use.
The only time I've accidentally shot through a Duct Seal target was back in the 1980s when I was testing Helium in an underlever .25 Career carbine. I had clamped the rifle in a mount to check velocities over a chronograph. I was only using a single layer of Duct Seal, the rifle was shooting over 60fpe, and it kept hitting exactly the same spot on the target since the rifle was clamped onto the mount. After a couple hundred shots it finally drilled a hole through the Duct Seal (only one layer at the time) and out the back of the target box. That won't ever happen with normal target practice though. And it should never happen if you use 2 layers of Duct Seal blocks over a foot of rubber mulch behind the Duct Seal. Using those 2 layers provides a much more effective backstop than would be needed for most folks' target practice. And using a plastic bucket keeps the weight manageable and portable. There's a good YouTube out there from a guy who fills a rectangular plastic container with rubber mulch as a target. Anything like that, with a layer or two of Duct Seal blocks over (in front of) the mulch, would last for many thousands of shots. The pellets eventually build up in a massive fist-sized clump in the duct seal, at which point you just cut out that block of Duct Seal and press in a new one.
JP
