Nonpermanent bullet catcher?

[am44mag]

I'm wondering if anyone's got any long-term feedback on these rubberized lead catchers. Does the rubber get chewed up by VMAX, or other high velocity varmint rounds? What about 'modern' high velocity cartridges like 7mm Rem Mag, or maybe something like 700gr at 1400fps running 3000ft/lbs ME?

I dug these formerly 700gr projectiles out of the back side of a 2' x 2' x 2' box of loose damp sand after 120 yards:



Given that the 700gr are 1/10th a pound of lead apiece it makes sense to collect the material. I shoot enough that I might as well collect all the other stuff while I'm at it. I just don't know how well these designs hold up to frequent, heavy use.

Sand catcher:

6 on top starting with a cold clean bore, and 5 more on the bottom. The cardboard just won't hold up to the elements or to a 1/2" hole-punch though.

That is a massive boolit...

I can't speak for high velocity jacketed rounds, but I've shot over 150 rounds of 44 special and 44 mag into mine so far, and the only thing that has been really chewed up is the backer board for the target. If was to want to shoot a lot of high velocity rounds, I'd probably just use sand. It's going to almost be like hitting a solid rock for the bullet, and they're not going to go in very deep. That 700gr monster of a round would probably need quite a bit of mulch to stop if it's going through two feet of wet sand.

[am44mag]

Finally got around to finishing my bullet catcher. I attached it to a garden cart and now it's easy to move around. I also added more mulch and compacted it down so that's it's pretty dense and there's no room for air at the top. I had a few rounds that hit towards the top of the box end up going into the sand at the back because the mulch was just getting pushed out of the way. Nothing has come out of the box yet. That issue should go away not. I'll have to try it out tomorrow.