What Do You Use For Backstop?

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A Blob archery target. It has been used for bows over 100 FPE with broadheads, pellets at are no concern even a 45 caliber slug at 1000 fps is easily stopped! It has well over 10,000 pellets in it. still going strong!

I have an old Reinhart Rhino block, not as good, but more than ever needed for air rifles, shooting any projectile, including arrows.
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woogie_man said:
I have been using landscaping timber all summer. Dug them out of my yard reused them.
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I also like log rounds as back stops, they will stop anything usually. I also use 66% IPSC targets with about 6" of compressed cardboard in front. The cardboard slows down pellets good and keeps lead fragments from going all over, and cuts down on the sound.

I'll be looking for some of the rubber mats and pavers people mentioned also.
 
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I see that rubber mulch in a bucket is the most popular choice here. Anyone use a pile of sandbags as a backstop here? This is what I was planning to do, but now reading this thread and thinking about it, I don't think it's such a great idea. Sand will sip though the holes, and I'll need a way to keep it from doing it by probably replacing sandbags or piling up use stacks of bags. Also, there is no way to separate pellets from sand (like with rubber mulch that you can simply float in water) so at some moment I'd have to haul away the whole lot of sand and replace it with new bags.
 
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uladz said:
I see that rubber mulch in a bucket is the most popular choice here. Anyone use a pile of sandbags as a backstop here? This is what I was planning to do, but now reading this thread and thinking about it, I don't think it's such a great idea. Sand will sip though the holes, and I'll need a way to keep it from doing it by probably replacing sandbags or piling up use stacks of bags. Also, there is no way to separate pellets from sand (like with rubber mulch that you can simply float in water) so at some moment I'd have to haul away the whole lot of sand and replace it with new bags.
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Sand should suffice, and a wire mesh strainer should let the sand through but catch the spent lead.

-Matt
 
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Not all rubber mulch floats! It is a bit time consuming to get most of the rubber out. A garden hand trowel helps get the pellets to the bottom. And then there is the target debris... I've started using salt water to dump the remains of hand sorting. Surprisingly it works pretty good if you have someplace to scoop out the floating stuff. Still a few bits left and if you want to use the lead you should rinse.
The sand option might be a good idea if you can keep piling more sandbags and build a sand and lead berm. If you put a screen at the bottom of the pile lead recovery might be doable.
 
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Stubbers said:
Sand should suffice, and a wire mesh strainer should let the sand through but catch the spent lead.

-Matt
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That's correct. The problem with sandbags in my scenario is that I'll have to empty all the bags, sip through the sand, get new bags (without holes in them :)) and fill them again. Seems like a lot of work and time. The rubber mulch seems to be much more maintainable at this point.
 
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rc4fun said:
Not all rubber mulch floats! It is a bit time consuming to get most of the rubber out. A garden hand trowel helps get the pellets to the bottom. And then there is the target debris... I've started using salt water to dump the remains of hand sorting. Surprisingly it works pretty good if you have someplace to scoop out the floating stuff. Still a few bits left and if you want to use the lead you should rinse.
The sand option might be a good idea if you can keep piling more sandbags and build a sand and lead berm. If you put a screen at the bottom of the pile lead recovery might be doable.
Click to expand...
How much salt do you add to help with the rubber mulch to float? And any advice on which rubber mulch to is the best to get? I have Home Depot and Lowe's nearby :). I'm starting to think that my idea with sandbags is not the best one and moving towards rubber mulch...
 
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I have a water softener so I always have salt. I put 3 or 4 cups in a 1 gal bucket with 3/4 gal of water and let it sit for a couple or 4 hours. There is salt left over that goes into the softener after straining the water. .75 gal is plenty for me as most of the chunks of rubber have been removed by hand, use gloves.
Poor the lead and debris into the salt water mix it up and then it's pretty easy to scoop the top.
I get mulch from HD because it's easy.
 
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The only reason to get rid of the pellets is weight or if you are going to use them for something else. My target sits 4.5 ft off the ground and I move it inside when wet weather is coming. Don't want to deal with moldy mulch. It gets heavy :ROFLMAO:
I use 2" thick equipment packing foam as my target backer and I can get more than 3K 22 shots before the rubber starts leaking.
 
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