bullet stop or trap for BIG bore?

[Naphtali]

I have my bullet for my .72-caliber muzzleloading rifles. That's good.

I bought a couple of hundred pounds of certified 30:1 alloy. That's good, too.

After several range sessions I realized shooting 775-grain bullets will run me through my casting metal in a very short time. That's bad.

Using different alloy - that is, harder or dropping different weight/diameter or "range" lead - is unacceptable.
***
If I can reclaim most of my bullet metal from the range, I'll save a fortune. Even though the range is ten minutes from my home, any bullet stop or trap need be reasonably portable. The only simple, inexpensive??? device I can think of would be a large (what material at what cost??) plate that would lean on a pair of poles or posts that are anchored shallowly into the ground. Bullet impact would cause spent bullet to drop or burrow into the ground in front of the angled plate.

Not only have I no idea whether such a device would do the job, I have no facilities to build it. And I have no idea what such a device might cost or weigh.

Clearly, I need assistance. Help.

[mckutzy]

An Idea I had thought of a few years ago was a barrel cart with a 55gal drum on it filled with sand, but a lighter alternative was some chipped rubber I had available to me from the plastics factory I worked in.
http://www.americancartequipment.com/media/images/BarrelTruck/67175RockerBarrelCart.jpg
with a cart like this, You can move it and wheel it about easily, mind you sand will be heavy, but maybe a smaller barrel or large bucket might do aswell. Either way a plywood face to hold it all in when tipped over. that will be the sacrificial part.....Just an Idea.

[Naphtali]

How might I get it into my SUV?

[deltaenterprizes]

AR plate is what you need at a 45* angle, 1/2'' may get deformed but that may be reduced by doubling it while shooting. A piece of carpet in front will hold the target and stop back splatter.
3/4'' to 1'' will weigh a lot, even a small piece.
Velocity is what does the most damage.

[JeffinNZ]

HHHMMM. I think the reality of the situation is you can't have a bullet catcher rigged to stop VW Beetles and have it portable. The two factors are mutually exclusive. I do feel your pain however as I am out to catch all my lead also. That said, my bullets are significantly smaller.

Can you build something to stay at the range?

[Von Gruff]

My thoughts were to use a 90degree bend of heavy walled pipe ( even if a section equal to the size of the opening had to be reinforced on the bend with bisaloy or similar) with the flange on the bottom having a plate bolted to it a with two lengths of 2 in square underneath to act as a foot for stability. With a piece of ply bolted to the top or verticle face that targets could be stapled to, it should "turn" the boolits through the bend and capture them in the base. Should be able to lift in and out of a SUV easily enough and taking the base of would recover all the boolits from one session so an alloy 'sameness' could be maintained.

Von Gruff.

[mroliver77]

How might I get it into my SUV?

Lawn mower trailer.

I like the barrel cart with crumb rubber filled barrel. I have a bunch of "plastic" barrels that would work well.
Jay

[mckutzy]

After looking on about rubber bullet traps, a thread from a wile ago, JIMinPHX, sheepdog and a few others, appears that they done some extensive testing with a few types of traps and one seems like it might fit the bill for you, if not more something for thinking on. I have only read up to page 8 of 23

http://gunloads.com/castboolits/showthread.php?t=26627

[JIMinPHX]

http://gunloads.com/castboolits/showthread.php?t=26627

Post 378 on page 20 shows the least expensive & lightest weight trap that worked well for me. A 1/4" thick disk in the bottom of the pail increased the performance of the little bucket trap quite a bit. Filling a second bucket with crumb rubber, but not inserting a metal disk in that one, & placing it in front of the other bucket made a double length bucket trap that was able to stop the meanest mil-surp AP rounds that I had. Duct tape proved strong enough to keep the two buckets together under fire. The crumb rubber traps give me back my boolits pretty much 100% in tact. The steel plate traps gave me back lead powder & maybe 70% of my original material, if I was lucky. Often it was less than that. The lead dust seemed to spatter everywhere.

[Naphtali]

Guys, your posts trigger what I hope is an AHA! moment. Could I use part of a tree stump end-on? Bullets would penetrate less than five inches. And I could cut that section from the stump and burn it in my back yard to reclaim lead from the cinders?

Or is this too easy?

[mckutzy]

JIMinPHX- That is pretty awesome little trap. I think Ill have to try that. You've already proved it against the lee slugs that ill be shooting, Ill have to just test it against some of our(Im in canada and this is our type of surplus we can get) Czech steelcore 7.62x39 ballround with the sks and vz58. :drinks: :drinks:

[JIMinPHX]

Guys, your posts trigger what I hope is an AHA! moment. Could I use part of a tree stump end-on? Bullets would penetrate less than five inches. And I could cut that section from the stump and burn it in my back yard to reclaim lead from the cinders?

Or is this too easy?

Yes, that is too easy.

Actually, that is very close to the way that galena was smelted into lead back in colonial times. A chunk of ore was places in a hollowed out stump & a fore was built. As the wood burned, it acted as flux & the galina reduced into lead. After the fire went out, you then just picked your lead out of the ashes.

Just don't try the stump trick with low speed projectiles, like BBs. They bounce back at you.

[JIMinPHX]

JIMinPHX- That is pretty awesome little trap. I think Ill have to try that. You've already proved it against the lee slugs that ill be shooting, Ill have to just test it against some of our(Im in canada and this is our type of surplus we can get) Czech steelcore 7.62x39 ballround with the sks and vz58. :drinks: :drinks:

My slugs were only doing about 1,000fps & they dented up a piece of 11 gage steel pretty good. You will need at least 1/4" thick steel for slugs.

You will need at least 2 buckets in a row & 1/4" steel in the rear bucket for that SKS round.

Be sure to have a safe backstop in either case. Also be aware that if you shoot a small group, then tunnels will develop in the crumb rubber & the effectiveness will not be as good until you open the container & fluff it up again.

[mckutzy]

oh yes it would be used in conjunction with a sand berm that is allready dug into the hill side at the range.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

so the crumb rubber interests me, Where do you get the rubber, shredded tires? How do you shred them?

[pls1911]

Two 2x12"x8 ft.
saw each in half, make a square tube about 10x12x 4 feet long line the back with 1/4" steel plates doubled at the far end
Make the impact end several spacd layers of available ply wood.
Fill with Sand or shredded tire tread rubber mulch
screw on the top piece
Shoot, recover boolits.
Contains 30/30 and 45-70, as wel as pistol boolits
Will post photos next week,

[mckutzy]

Jim Flinchbaugh- On one of my previous post, in the thread a couple of people had listed walmart as the source of crumb rubber.

[JIMinPHX]

Where do you get the rubber, shredded tires?

I got mine from Lowe's. See posts 78-80 here: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=26627&page=4

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Thanks for the info and the link,
I'll be lost there for weeks :D