Building a portable bullet backstop
I recently got the OK to shoot in the land behind my house from the property owner who owns the field. I'm very excited to have my very own range, except there are two caveats. #1, it is flat here. If you have never been within 30 miles of Aberdeen, you don't understand flat land. #2, I can't build anything permanent. This means I can't pile up a big dirt backstop or something similar. I've got it planned out that the safest way to shoot is diagonal to the tree line. This means that the bullets have to go through about 200 yards of trees for a ricochet. Behind those trees is a slough and swamp land maybe 500 yards across. Behind that is another field, and finally a road with a house. All in all, from where I intend to shoot from, to the nearest house (which the house is a good 30 degrees off from the direction I would be shooting) is about one mile. In MN, I would have no problem shooting freely in such conditions. There would certainly be a hill, and if that didn't work, there would be much more woods for protection. With land as flat as can be here, and with minimal woods, I just don't know for sure. I feel like a handgun bullet shouldn't ricochet that far, but I'm not going to bet on it.
I've been throwing around Ideas for a simple portable backstop. By portable, I mean it must be removable by hand when I move. I can leave them out there all year. At first I was thinking something like 55 gallon drums. My concern is they are a little shorter than I would like. Trying to stack them two high, and then fill all those with something seems like a ton of work and materials. One idea I'm really leaning towards now is a wooden box filled with rubber mulch. There are all kinds of smaller scale versions out there, so I'm thinking why not make one slightly bigger. My thought is to build one with 2x8's for thickness, meaning there would be 7 1/2" of rubber mulch to stop a bullet. From what I've seen, this is adequate for the handgun, shotgun slug, muzzleloader ball, and lower velocity rifle rounds I intend to use. I would then use 3/4" plywood on the back, and on the front I would on the inside sandwich a thick rubber mat of some kind to self heal the holes, and then 3/8" plywood on the outside of the rubber to keep the integrity. I'm guessing I'll have to replace that 3/8" plywood from time to time. I'm thinking 6'x6' will be an adequate sized backstop. I will have one at 50 yards, and 100 yards. The real beauty of this I see, is at the end of the season, I can dump the mulch out, and recover all my bullets. So what do you guys think about my backstop idea?
Building a portable bullet backstop
I’m not an engineer by any means and your idea sounds good but very pricey. Lots of replacement panels and loss of structural integrity if your going to be shooting a lot but I could be wrong on that
If your going to dump it out every year to recover your bullets why not just use regular mulch, lay it out in your flower beds each year once dumped and now you can use it to beautify your house too (making possible significant other happy in the process).
A simpler idea, I would think, would be to just create a angled frame with either a end-jointed row of 2x4s or two layers of 3/4” plywood. This would create about 1-1/2” of pine to travel through. The angles part of it would also cause bullets to deflect down towards the ground. This is a similar concept to how bullet traps use a angled metal back panel to collect your bullets and reduce velocity. Could cover the backside with a tarp, paint, or shingles to protect the wood surfaces from the elements and increase longevity. Could than buy a panel of steel to attach to underside in most likely strike zones to increase longevity further. Doesn’t have the bullet recovery feature but this “lean-to” idea has benefit of simplicity and easy disassembly (upright box frame, angled plywood sheets screwed to it). Given the swamp you mentioned nearby I’m assuming the ground has a lot of moisture, may consider raising the back edge off the ground a inch or so, not enough to allow deflected bullets (or bad shots) to go anywhere but the dirt but enough to keep wood from contacting the moist ground).
For bullet recovery you could throw in some sand in the bottom in the areas where you see your bullets deflecting into the dirt and just sift the sand periodically.
Targets can be hung on a foam board that is hung on the flat opening of the “lean-to”.
Not 100% sure on this idea but it works in my head and I watched a soft body armor ballistics lab get designed and built by my dad and some of these concepts are similar to other labs out there (but they use concrete and steel which isn’t an option here).
