Shooting steel targets dangerous?

[wingspar]

I decided to buy a nice target. Money well spent. It is an Evil Roy by ActionTarget.com. It folds up, and can be easily carried. Can come with 6, 8 10, and 12-inch plates. I also went for the more expensive AR 550 steel in 8-inches. The target itself is designed with no welds or bolts on the face, and is sloped downward so that all splatter is deflected downward. After shooting it for a while, you can actually see the line of marks in the ground directly below the target from the splatter.

They say not to shoot it with anything capable of 3,000 fps at less than 100 yards, and at 100 yards, 223 bullets did no more damage than handgun rounds at 50 feet. Stupidly, I shot it with 5.56 at 75 yards, and now have a couple of small pockets in it. Other than that, this target has hundreds of hits, and except for those 5.56 pockets, not a scratch on the target. A properly built target is safe.

The only photo I have of the target is when it was new in my backyard with a bb gun leaning up against it for scale. The legs now all have a bunch of the paint removed from them by splatter. No serious scratches. The plate is held on by wing nuts, and the target can be replaced by another size plate in seconds.

[markm]

I need one of those. My kid shoots high and is always blowing my target hangers to bits.

[wingspar]

They are well designed and well built targets. I didn’t really realize I didn’t have any photos of the target other than the one posted above, cause I photograph all new toys to death when I get them. Last gun I bought had over 100 photos of it before I ever shot it. I do have a video of shooting the target, but have never processed or uploaded it.

[wingspar]

If anyone is interested, here is a ActionTarget factory tour by nutnfancy. It’s 36 minutes long (anyone who has watched nutnfancy knows he is long winded) but an excellent video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlvBg4qbMqU

[Zhurdan]

I decided to buy a nice target. Money well spent. It is an Evil Roy by ActionTarget.com. It folds up, and can be easily carried. Can come with 6, 8 10, and 12-inch plates. I also went for the more expensive AR 550 steel in 8-inches. The target itself is designed with no welds or bolts on the face, and is sloped downward so that all splatter is deflected downward. After shooting it for a while, you can actually see the line of marks in the ground directly below the target from the splatter.

They say not to shoot it with anything capable of 3,000 fps at less than 100 yards, and at 100 yards, 223 bullets did no more damage than handgun rounds at 50 feet. Stupidly, I shot it with 5.56 at 75 yards, and now have a couple of small pockets in it. Other than that, this target has hundreds of hits, and except for those 5.56 pockets, not a scratch on the target. A properly built target is safe.

Money well spent. I've got three of their 8" Evil Roy targets like yours and 6 of their (1"x2" slat board) target holders. I got lucky on those and bought a set of three and got three free. Good company to deal with and they're based out of Utah, just one little hop, skip and a jump (~100 miles) from me.

I hit mine with my 5.56 at just about 100 yards and there's juuuust a bit of a pock mark, but for pistols, their design is awesome. I've been shooting them for about 5 years and as close as 6 yards and have never been hit with splatter. (yes, I know you aren't supposed to, but I was well protected and was testing to see if there was any splatter that close).

The key to their effectiveness is that they "give" at the hinge and at the head (once the wingnuts get a little loose from shooting it).


ETA.. here's a video from a couple of years ago hitting it with a G32c. (yes, I've cleaned up my draw since then). Anyways, just posting it to show the splatter. It actually forms a little line of splattered bullet guts BEHIND the leading edge of the target.

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r...l357183180.mp4

[bkb0000]

This seems relavent,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ABGIJwiGBc

he was lucky

I know this is a dumb question, but that video of the guys shooting the fifty freaked me out. If a ricochet does occur, would it most likely be the whole bullet ricocheting or just a tiny fragment of the bullet? By the way, you guys are doing a great job of helping me understand this.

this is a very famous video of a very rare, freak incident. seeing a random video of it on youtube sort of makes it seem like "these things happen," but they don't.

[sabresbrs]

Those are some nice targets. I wish I could afford some MGM targets, but my pockets are not that deep. I think I will be ok. I am going to find out tomorrow!

[wingspar]

I hit mine with my 5.56 at just about 100 yards and there's juuuust a bit of a pock mark, but for pistols, their design is awesome. I've been shooting them for about 5 years and as close as 6 yards and have never been hit with splatter. (yes, I know you aren't supposed to, but I was well protected and was testing to see if there was any splatter that close).

At 100 yards with .223, the marks on my target were no different than handgun rounds from 50 feet. It’s when I shot the target with 5.56 at 75 yards that I got the tiny craters. My minimum now for this target 100 yards with .223. Might want to move it out even further with 5.56, or more likely, I just won’t shoot this target with 5.56 anymore.

Your video shows exactly what happens with splatter. Nothing comes back to the shooter if the target is set up properly.

[sabresbrs]

Ok guys, I shot the 75 yrd steel target today with 28 hollow point AK rounds, 2 FMJ AK rounds, and 3 soft point 223 rounds and had a blast. I walked up to the steel and noticed 2 scratches on the plate and assume it came from the fmjs, but the rest of the plate was unharmed. I am no longer worried about a richochet. I also shot the 200 yrd target 3 times with a 30-06 and there were 3 scratches, so eventually that target is going to be ruined. Prob good though for 3 or 4 hundred rounds.

[Hmac]

This is our 40 yard steel gong (paced it off at 50 but measuring showed it to be a little short). It's 1/2 inch thick AR500, 15 inch diameter, has had about 5000 rounds of .223 (been repainted several times). We also use it for handgun (9mm and .40) at 25 yards and its had a LOT more of that. The .223 has left a lot of tiny, superficial divots, but nothing major except the two circled divots around the edge where the cutting process apparently caused it to lose some of its temper. The bolts are where the bungies for hanging attach in the back - the standoff causes it to angle down a little. We went to bungies because they're cheaper to replace than the chains we were using.

These are made by Quality Targets. IMHO, they have very competitive prices on steel targets of various types and are definitely worth a look.

We've had a few guys mention getting hit with some debris, but no injuries. We've had more jacket fragments from the pistol dueling tree. I do confess we don't exactly adhere to mfgr's recommendations about distances.