Cheap Homemade Target Stands

[545Warman]

When was the last time you went to the range only to find all the target stands broken, in use, or to large or to heavy to move around.

If you are in need of a cheap, easy to use target stand that you can carry in the trunk of your car.
Try building one of these.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu24.htm

The only thing I added was some holes through the ends of the PVC tube to put tent stakes through for shooting on windy days.

[Volucris]

I found that fiberglass electric fencing posts work best in terms of cost vs performance. Still not much beats some collapsed boxes with targets stapled to them so all you have to do is open them up and stick them in the ground with a stake.

[TommyG]

I have made a number of these for myself and friends over the years. We made a much wider set with 4 long drywall screws in the uprights and OSB boards with corresponding holes that will hang on them for target backers. We use those for longer (500 to 700 yards) range shooting at a local farm. They work great.

I bent rebar into "U" shapes in a vice and drive those into the ground over the base of the target to hold it down on breezy days. The large ones still break down for transportation/storage and work great.

[bulbvivid]

I made one based on that design, but I used 1-1/4" PVC and used PVC for the uprights (wanted the smaller dimensions).

To secure it, close up the back of the base and set sandbags or shot bags over it. I think I'm going to either fill the whole base with sand or just the front and back cross members with shot for a solution with less extra stuff.

It's a cheap and effective stand.

[landrvrnut22]

We have something very similar at our range, only they are made out of 1"x3" tube steel. We use 1x3 furring strips to staple the cardboard too. Works like a champ, and they never break.

[Spoon]

Nice, I've been wanting to make some cheap portable target stands. The only part of the Midland range where I can run both rifle & pistol drills is the full auto bay. No target stands provided basically bring what you want to destroy except glass.

[Avenger29]

My target frame is a PVC structure, about 5 ft wide by 3 ft high for the target area, covered in chicken wire to attach targets to. Works very well, lightweight, easy to repair, nothing to cause a ricochet. It does pretty well, even in the wind (although our wind is usually mild compared to some areas)

I also need to build a PVC frame to hold my steel gong...

[FN in MT]

Seemed every time I'd build a new "improved" PVC target stand...one of the Troopers would hit it with either a pistol slug or a buckshot pellet or two.

This generally happened in cold weather, magnifying the damage.

I finally built several stands out of steel tubing and angle iron. Used 2" angle iron 24-30 inches long as the base. With a piece of heavy 2x2 tubing 16" long welded to the base as uprights. Then drill a 1/4" hole at each end of the bases to pound a 40pd nail into the ground to keep the stand upright when it was windy.

Hardly EASILY portable, but far fewer stands blowing over in the wind either.

At home here I DO have three PVC stands that have held up very well. Gotta love PVC.

FN in MT