Just read through the discussion on range safety and thought of the range I belong to. Some members of our club set up large cement blocks, as in highway divider size. Put ~50 gal. plastic barrels filled with sand in front of them. Then set up a heavy rubber mats, might be horse stall mats, in front of the barrels.  Is this a good back stop design, will they hold up?

Our indoor club range uses heavy rubber matting in front of portable steel bullet traps when setting the range for IDPA matches. It shoots out center were lot of bullets hit.  About all it's good for is slow the bullet down so the slanted back steel trap does not take as much impact. We replace it often.

Back stop all the way down that range is slanted steel deflecting into mulched up rubber tire materal. Used to use sand and sift the lead out.  Ground up old tires are removed and discarded not sifted or re-used.  Lot cleaner and easier job than the sand if not as cheap.

Club outdoor range all backstops are dirt, graded when needed. We do have RR ties protecting steel target carriers and silhouette rails.  Firm rule is don't shoot anything on top of the ties. They eat up quick if used for target stands.

I can't speak to drums with sand or concrete except if AR's with small bullets are used, they will eat about anything up but dirt. Slow lead has the least effect on backstops, small fast jacketed the most.

Boats

JS47 wrote on Feb 19^th, 2015 at 11:16pm:


Pea gravel is definitely good.  Not sure about the rest, but a slug should follow the hard concrete surface with no more that 2 degrees deflection according to studies I have seen, FBI and Penn State.  I know a fellow who used a metal detector to pick hundreds of slugs off a playground next to a P R.  He took them  to the board and told them they needed to remove the tires.  Digging deep into their infinite wisdom for a proper solution, they threatened to throw him out of the club. 

I have had 2 presidents wanting to throw me out for insisting on projectile retention.  It is a treadmill!  Get one thing resolved and something worse comes up and there is more resistance.  It should not take an IQ over 130 to figure this out    Ignorance can be fixed, but adding arrogance to stubborn ignorance = stupidity! If I had known 30 years ago what I know now, I would have taken up ping pong or anything else