gong

[daveefish]

looked at the forum list and could not find a "gong" forum, so figured i'd ask y'all. i've never shot a gong. never even seen one. but they sound like fun. anyone have a picture of a gong? i'm a farm boy and have lots of scrap and i weld. maybe a drawing of a gong or just the dimensions? how do you hang a gong? thanks dave

[carpetman]

It depends on what you gonna smoke in it. OOOpppsss thats bong disregard.

[Lee]

Gong...Bong...Dong...Schlong.....whatever......... Lee;-)

[arkypete]

My Grandfather in Okla had lots of worn out discs stacked against the machine shed that made pretty good gongs.
Could go to town late' one night, and steal man hole covers.
Depending on what you are shooting at the gong with will determine what thickness you'll need.
Jim

[waksupi]

Hi Dave. Gongs are rather free form. Whatever you hang up, will work. Some you can just punch some holes through with cutting torch or drill, and hang with scraps of chain. My favorites for long range use, is old oxy-acetylene tanks, as they ring like a bell. For close up, things as small as pieces of 1" X12" rebar welded to chain is a good one.

[fourarmed]

Disk blades work very nicely for .22 LR and light cast boolit loads. A steel post, a crosspiece from an old set of tire chains, and some baling wire are all you need to hang it up. I usually wire a stick crosswise to the post to prevent the disk from turning sideways. Then wire the chain to the post and hook the end over the edge of the hole in the blade from the inside.

With .22 LR Std. vel. in a rifle, you can shoot without ear protection and hear the hits at 200 yds. Very relaxing. (Spare me the lectures about ear damage, please. I couldn't hear them anyway.)

[river-rider]

A note of caution. Do not shoot gongs at a short range. My wife and I were shooting in Cowboy Action shooting and I set up a number of steel plates . Always shot lead bullets and always wore safety glasses. Some of the plates were as close as 20 feet. They were mounted on steel rods that were angled about 15 degrees forward toward the shooter to deflect the splatter down. I also had some plates hanging on nylon light rope that were hanging straight up and down. When you shot a hanging plate several time it would get to bouncing. One day my wife grabbed her ear lobe and there was a little blood. A small piece of lead had bounced back. Couple of years later it worked its way to the surface and I was able to get it out. Wear safety glasses. I was talking to a man at work several yeas ago he had a bandage on his neck and said that he shot a steel TPost with a 30-30 at about 20 feet and part of the copper jacket bounced back.:Fire: :Fire:

[Crash_Corrigan]

Many years ago in a land far away (NYC) I scored about 4 steel plates in a NY Central Railroad repair yard. I put them away and they followed me out west in 1988. In 1996 I had an itch for a better target than paper. I hung up these plates from two of the 4 holes (designed for the railroad spike to secure this plate to the railroad tie and hold the rail in place) and using some handy wire had at it. They are dandy. Any pistol just makes a lead smear on this stuff. A 357 full house wrist damaging round will make a small dimple. The sound that is made is really delightful. I hang three of these interspersed with used bowling pins (hung on a chain) from a 2 x 2 hunk of wood suspended about 5 feet off the ground. Altogether we have 7 targets. A full clip of .45 ACP from my 1911 Taurus gets the party started and the object is to keep everything moving until you run out of clips. For fun when shooting with a bud is to have him keep count of the hits and then count the shots. Loser buys the lunch.
Dan

[Uncle Grinch]

We have had quite an assortment of gongs and steel plates at our range. Most are simply a 12" plate of steel that varies from 1/2" to 1" thick that are hanging from a chain. They don't last a month as they are very popular items and get shot up quickly, assuming the yahoos don't keep shooting the chains down.

One trick we recently started doing is to weld the plate on the end of a steel post and drive it into the backstop horizontally. That way nothing is exposed except for the plate. Now that lasts several months, unless the 50 caliber guys show up!

Our lastest is a 16" piece of boiler plate that must be 2" thick. It took 3 of us to mount it on chains.

Our members sure love to hear that steel ring, especially on the pistol range.

[waksupi]

True, you don't want to be too close. Bullets from my .38 Special come back a good 15 yards or more off of steel targets. FMJ from .45 ACP come back far enough to hit my cabin, so have been banned from use here.
One of the deputies I was shooting with, shot a round of fmj from an HK, and it came back, imbedding itself into his stomach about a quarter inch. He didn't think it all that amusing, but we, who were digging it out with a pocket knife, found no end of entertainment, considering we had just told him not to do it. This was at about 40 yards.

[Gussy]

I have a track plate from a D-6 Cat. I don't know of anything any harder than that. Nothing I shoot has even marked it. It's 200 yds out and has been shot with everything up to 300 Win Mag. It was hung from one of the bolt holes and does hang at a slight angle which deflects bullets down. It has several "excuse" holes.
Gus

[nelsonted1]

Bullets can ricochet of steel plates. I was shooting a steel plate match a few years ago. The counter-safety guy was following me. Behind him was a photographer making a movie.

A bullet came back striking the guy behind me in the hip. HE hollered out an "OW!" bending over to the left and started to hop. I heard something behind me and kept going. The casualty starting hobbling toward me holding his hip trying not to lose the bullet. I kept going. He was alert enough to stop and watch me waiting to stop the clock. After I quit shooting I turned around and there was my buddy bent over to the left hollering. The other was bent over aiming the camera with one hand asking how the poor cripple was doing. The cripple was complaining loudly. I walked back and was told I was a son of bitch for shooting him. He was really mad over losing the bullet trying to keep up. The photographer was fiddling with his camera. Everyone turned out to laugh at the casualty. I thought how easy blinding someone could be.

TED

[nelsonted1]

In the early 90s the crazy Iowa-gians were really sucked into bowling pin matches following a route from town to town. One day a 45 ACP hardball came back hitting the shooter in the forehead killing him. Turns out 45 acp really rebound. THe guy hit in the forehead died of the concussion. THe round didn't enter his forehead. This is a dangerous sport we play.

[slughammer]

Craters and holes are the enemy when shooting steel. A crater or hole will turn stuff around and send it back to you. Keep this in mind and weld up any damage. The only serious injurys I've seen were from damaged steel every time.

On bowling pins, hardball was banned at the league matches in this area years ago. The most dangerous part is the hard plastic bottom, if a pin lays down and faces you with the bottom, don't be tempted to shoot it.

[daveefish]

thanks all. i have several of the plates that hold train rail to the tie. a likely candidate. my first attempt will be 200 yds. can i actually hear it ring if the plugs are in my ears? dave

[Slowpoke]

thanks all. i have several of the plates that hold train rail to the tie. a likely candidate. my first attempt will be 200 yds. can i actually hear it ring if the plugs are in my ears? dave

Not sure what you are going to shoot the rail plates with but I used them for years and it was no problem to here them ring at six hundred yards when hit with a 117 Sierra out of a 25-06 with earplugs in place,

I used two different sizes of rail plates, one was around 10 inches by 14 inches approx. 3/4 thick, and the other was about 8x10 and about 1/2 thick, I just ran some old chain thru a couple of the spike holes and hung them from tree limbs on the side of a MTN.

I also had some set at 125 yrds, 235 yrds and 315 that I shot with a 357 carbine and a Mini 14 in .223 and a .358 win, never any doubt when you connected.

Good luck

[rugerdude]

The finest set of gongs I have seen are on a friends range. He picked up some steel plate from a salvage yard and cut it into gongs and backstops. This stuff is stainless steel, 2 1/2" to 3" thick depending on the piece it was cut from. He said that the guy at the salvage yard told him the plates were scrap pieces that came from the Savannah River Site and that it was what they used to make the cooling tanks for the nuclear reactors. So far nothing we've shot at it has left more than a dimple that you can barely feel.

[georgeld]

RD:

That much stainless is worth a new truck in scrap price's lately.

Check it out, might be worth more reselling it than shooting it up.