Shooting Steel

[NastyButler]

Am looking for some peoples experience with shooting steel targets. Specifically the distance you shoot from, type of ammunition you use. What do you think the pros and cons of it are.

[Rosco Benson]

First and foremost, eye protection always...for everyone in the area. Also, don't shoot plates that are divoted-up badly. A bullet hitting "just right" in one of the divots can come back with a lot of force. I once saw a .44 magnum bullet come back with enough force to go completely through the shooter's forearm (missed the bones). It was a bloody mess...literally.

As far as ammo goes, I've never used a specific type of ammo on plates. I just use whatever I'm shooting. The main thing is to use plates that are rated for what you're shooting. Shooting pistol-rated plates with a rifle will get you either a hole or a big divot. Both are to be avoided.

With smooth plates, angled to direct the splash downward. I'm comfortable in as close as about 5 yards with a pistol. Cast bullets are probably a bit safer than jacketed, as the pieces of jacket can be pretty sharp. I seldom shoot rifles at plates closer that 30-40 yards. Also, don't shoot shotgun slugs at plates. The foster-type slugs will deform into a nasty Hershey "kiss" shaped thing and come back at you with a lot of force.

Louis Awerbuck uses a lot of steel (swingers mostly) in his classes. This, along with the experience he gained with steel targets while employed as Gunsite's rangemaster, has given him a wealth of knowledge on the use of steel. He has a chapter on steel target use in his book "Tactical Reality".

I am much impressed with the steel from http://www.bigdogsteel.com/. Good design, excellent craftsmanship, and harder than hammered hell.

Steel offers advantages in lessened downtime for pasting targets. Reactive steel targets (Pepper poppers, etc) help the shooter build proper follow-through on the sights, rather than looking at the target falling over (which is very tempting). Steel offers less feedback to the shooter or instructor in terms of recording good hits, bad hits, and outright misses. It is easy to start "forgetting" the misses and to start accepting the peripheral hits as acceptable--after all, the steel still "rang" didn't it?

Used appropriately, steel can be very useful.


Rosco

[John_Wayne777]

Steel targets need to be made out of the proper grades of steel and they need to be in good condition. Targets that are badly pitted can fling rounds back at the shooter, which is obviously not something you want. All steel shooting brings with it the possibility of being hit by bullet fragments. There is no truly "safe" place on the range when steel is being shot (especially in high volume) so it is imperative that you're wearing quality eye protection when shooting steel. A brimmed hat is also a good idea to prevent steel from getting past the eye protection from above. You want to stay a minimum of 5 yards back from the steel.

Understand that if you shoot a lot of steel you will eventually catch a bullet fragment or jacket or something. It's not a matter of if...just when.

You don't want to shoot steel with anything above its rating. In other words, if a target is rated for handgun you don't want to go blasting at it with an AR15. You don't want to shoot at steel with AP ammo.

Steel excels as a binary target...you either hit it or you don't. As such it has utility as a training tool. Plates, for example, are good for evaluating speed and accuracy. The downside of steel is that it's easy to fall into a pattern of shooting at really big steel targets at really close range. Many moons ago I attended a course that had us shooting at 1.5 foot steel targets at 5 yards. I did better than most with a consistently sub 1 second draw and hit on the steel. Awesome, right?

Ray Charles could hit a 1.5 foot steel target at 5 yards with a handgun. The "instructor" teaching that class hadn't a clue what he was doing and basic fundamentals were completely ignored in favor of seeing who could get the smallest number on the timer. It made people feel like a stud, but the students left with zero understanding of how to actually run a handgun. Hence the phrase I coined a while back...

Shooting steel is a lot like dating a midget.

If you use steel with discipline it can be a valuable training aid. If you allow yourself to get goofy with it, it can be a millstone around your neck. Don't do what I see a lot of guys do and have some machine shop cut you some IDPA type silhouettes, set them up at 5-7 yards and then declare that anything that makes the target ring is a "good enough" hit. That is the road to perdition.

A cool steel shooting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFGmX_HC87s

[markm]

I hate when people post this but.... did you try "SEARCH"


http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=76409

[NastyButler]

Thanks for all the good information so far.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Had a lot of fun shooting targets like these that have a smaller inset target with some kind of flag or notification.

http://mgmtargets.com/tstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=52

[NastyButler]

I have been looking at SALUTE steel targets. Specifically the DOD MIL Spec 3/8" Target Stand and 10-8/EAG Steel Target. Anyone have any experience with these?

[Hmac]

3/8 inch AR500 steel would be fine for virtually all pistol rounds at any safe distance. Years of shooting at the stuff tells me clearly that 3/8 inch won't stand up to .233 rounds at distances less than 100 yards, and certainly not M193. OTOH, we shoot .223 at the 1/2 inch stuff at 40 yards all the time.

[TomD]

Add LONG pants to the list of required wear when shooting steel at 15 yards or less. I know from personal experience!!

[Wildcat]

Am looking for some peoples experience with shooting steel targets. Specifically the distance you shoot from, type of ammunition you use. What do you think the pros and cons of it are.

Just to add to what others have said, you do need to know what you are doing when you set up a course that uses steel targets.
If the plates are vertical or nearly so, you probably don't want to be closer than about 25 ft. for handguns. You can shoot them closer if they are aggressively angled to direct the shot into the ground.
No special ammunition required for handgun use provided you are using good plates.

For rifles, the plates should be 100 yds away (or more depending on the velocity of the bullets). Anything with a steel penetrator is a no-go.
Shooting steel inside 100yd with rifles can be done but usually special ammo is needed and the targets need to be designed for it.

Use flat plates. Understand the path that the spatter can take. Fragments of bullets coming off good target plates can still be reflected back toward the line by poor stand design, badly maintained stands or other adjacent props. The spatter can travel quite a distance and frighten people in an adjacent bay. The caution about eye protection for people in the area is not to be taken lightly.

Also, its been mentioned that steel targets used without discipline can breed bad habits, like sloppy accuracy.

True.

Try using steel silhouettes for no shoot targets sometime. If the steel is hung properly, it'll ring like a church bell. Everyone will know when the hostage has been hit and the potential for embarrassment tends to encourage more careful shooting.

[NastyButler]

I have a picture of my range below
http://i430.photobucket.com/albums/qq24/NastyButler86/DSC_0758.jpg
The level surface is a distance of 25 meters. My idea is to have the steel where the current wood stand targets are. Will that be a sufficient distance for rifle and pistol?

[C2_Drew]

3/8 inch AR500 steel would be fine for virtually all pistol rounds at any safe distance. Years of shooting at the stuff tells me clearly that 3/8 inch won't stand up to .233 rounds at distances less than 100 yards, and certainly not M193. OTOH, we shoot .223 at the 1/2 inch stuff at 40 yards all the time.

Is the AR500 1/2 inch plate fine with M193 at the 40 yard range?

[Hmac]

Is the AR500 1/2 inch plate fine with M193 at the 40 yard range?

It makes little tiny divots, clearly distinguishable from .223 marks which are basically just spatters. It hasn't been a problem. At first, we all just said we wouldn't shoot anything but .223 at those shorter distances but now everybody just kind of shoots whatever. We are still kind of down on M855, but it makes for pretty impressive sparks, so is occasionally hard to resist shooting...

[sabresbrs]

I just built a steel range at my house and love it!
Things I have learned:
1) 556 rounds are steel target killers. Do not shoot them under a 100 yards or it will mess up your target.
2) Use eye protection when shooting steel with handguns.
3) Get steel from the junk yard, it is way cheaper that way
4) If it is not Ar-500 steel, make sure it is at least 1/2 thick for rifle and 1/4-3/8 steel on handguns.

Buy lots of ammo because you will have a blast shooting steel!

[VLODPG]

I am much impressed with the steel from http://www.bigdogsteel.com/. Good design, excellent craftsmanship, and harder than hammered hell.


Rosco

I just picked up one of their 3/8" 45% reactive base IPSC targets & with some friends of mine proceeded to lay waste to it approx 75 yards out.

4-500 rounds of 7.62/5.56 & 6.8 in under an hour till the tab that holds the spring to the pivot part of the target mount broke.

A trip to the local welder had it as good as new. I upgraded the bolts that came with it to grade 8 as the originals were rapidly eroding from the splatter.

Overall a reasonable priced($150 delivered) steel target that can take a beating.

No divots in the steel either!

[markm]

I
1) 556 rounds are steel target killers. Do not shoot them under a 100 yards or it will mess up your target.

I agree. But I have AR450 that's 5 plus years old with 10s of thousands of rounds on them from 50 to 200 yards... and they're just now almost ready to rotate out.

They look like the surface of the moon, but have never sent any frags back at me or any one of the dozens of folks who've shot with me.

[Wildcat]

I have a picture of my range below
http://i430.photobucket.com/albums/qq24/NastyButler86/DSC_0758.jpg
The level surface is a distance of 25 meters. My idea is to have the steel where the current wood stand targets are. Will that be a sufficient distance for rifle and pistol?

It will be fine for pistol and pistol caliber carbines. For rifle use I'd recommend you be further away.

Here is what a 5.56 will do to AR500 at about 80 yds:
8082

Once the plate has been marked like this it will be unsuitable to shoot handguns at close distances because divots like that (or worse) will redirect the spatter. On a flat target the spatter comes off nearly parallel to the plate. The pock marks will turn the spatter back up range. The one in the picture isn't that bad because the steel is hard stuff but soft steel will make real craters and those are dangerous.

Do you plan to buy commercial targets or will this be a DIY project?

[Wildcat]

I agree. But I have AR450 that's 5 plus years old with 10s of thousands of rounds on them from 50 to 200 yards... and they're just now almost ready to rotate out.

They look like the surface of the moon, but have never sent any frags back at me or any one of the dozens of folks who've shot with me.

Anything like this?

8083

or this:8084

These are from a thick but cheap steel plate. The deep marks are from 5.56 at 100yd, the shallow one came from a 458. This thing is only good as a rifle gong now. Those craters will turn pieces of handgun bullets straight back uprange.

[Hmac]

Here is what a 5.56 will do to AR500 at about 80 yds:
8082



This gong is 15 inch diameter, 1/2 inch AR500 (Quality Targets (http://www.qualitytargets.com/servlet/Categories?category=Gong+Targets)), we use it for .223/5.56 at about 40 yards. It's held up extremely well for about 5000 AR15 rounds and probably at least that many handgun rounds. It has been repainted several times. Rubber bungies suspend the thing from a swing-set-type frame, hooked to the carriage bolts at the top. That provides some stand-off that angles the face downward. There are a couple of gouges on the edge where the target likely lost some temper from the cutting process and was probably hit by some M193 or M855.


http://SSEquine.net/gong1.jpg

[NastyButler]

It will be fine for pistol and pistol caliber carbines. For rifle use I'd recommend you be further away.

Here is what a 5.56 will do to AR500 at about 80 yds:
8082

Once the plate has been marked like this it will be unsuitable to shoot handguns at close distances because divots like that (or worse) will redirect the spatter. On a flat target the spatter comes off nearly parallel to the plate. The pock marks will turn the spatter back up range. The one in the picture isn't that bad because the steel is hard stuff but soft steel will make real craters and those are dangerous.

Do you plan to buy commercial targets or will this be a DIY project?

I have been looking at SALUTE steel targets. Specifically the DOD MIL Spec 3/8" Target Stand and 10-8/EAG Steel Target.

[markm]

Anything like this?


Nothing that bad.


or this:

Yeah... several thousands of those. :p

[The_Count]

I caught a great deal on some AR 500 ($24 per square foot), and had a 15x18 target made up with at 5x5 head. I have shot it from 50-300 yds. with every thing from 9mm to 35 Whelen. That included .223 and XM193. I have very very little pitting.

[NastyButler]

Well I got my targets from SALUTE. I could not be happier with them. Great steel that can take the hits from the rifle and the pistol :D. I've been as close as 10 yards with the pistol and not a single dent in them. Thanks to everyone for all the input. I'll put some pictures up this weekend.