Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Garage based bullet trap for high powered rifles....

Has anyone built a bullet trap in their garage for load development in high powered rifles? Need to set up something so I can do load development in the garage with a chrony before range testing. Anyone done this?

TIA,


Jordan

I think Donald Trump made one

I bet Bristoe has

I heard Fiorina made a better one though!

not sure the neighbors will like the racket.

What happened to the generator ?

GTC

Waiting on parts....

Long ago and far away I've setup for .22 rimfire with an additional clearing barrel setup for testfire and casehead expansion measurements.

I've lived places that barred discharging a firearm inside city limits, from or across a roadway, in or near houses and all the rest but people ignored the rules for serious Camp Perry level competitors with thousands of dollars in their rifles and setup.

Today I would bet a lot of money that anyplace too crowded to shoot in the backyard is going to ban discharging a firearm within city limits and close to a dwelling. All the more so in California. I'd also bet that dealing with the lead hazard in a built in installation is too expensive and complicated to be even worth researching. All the more so in California - lead hazard to include primers. In particular I'd worry enough about the lead hazard and legal repercussions that I wouldn't do it.

That said I'd expect something like a TSS clearing barrel at a thousand dollars +/-would work with a Magnetoscope I'd want a bigger setup at maybe $3000 trailer mounted bearing in mind the parallax issues and the chances of a shot going astray given that the muzzle couldn't be inside the muzzle wipe setup. I sort of like to use a laser aligned with the bore to aim through screens and avoid parallax errors as much as possible.

I still wouldn't do it in California unless I could do it in the backyard.

RobJordan;
Good evening to you sir, hopefully this finds you and yours doing acceptably well.

So with the understanding that I'm going to be intentionally vague with much of this tale of woe - I had the misfortune of being present when a .300 Magnum was discharged - an AD - inside a garage with the roll up door open.

Memorable is about the best word I can describe the entire experience as sir, and not in a good way in any sense.

It did knock dust off the shelves that had been there for decades so there was that I suppose.

Anyway based upon that one, lone example, I can't begin to envision the baffle system one would need to contain "that sort" of concussive mayhem efficiently enough.

Good luck with your project whichever way you decide and all the best to you folks in the upcoming Christmas season.

Dwayne

When I was growing up my parents has a basement under their garage, the ceiling was poured concrete with cinder block walls. There was a regular sized doorway into the area and the ceiling was maybe 7 ft. Regular full sized two car garage size.

I wanted to do some case forming for a 35 Whelen AI and figured I didn't need to waste any time going to range when it was freezing ass cold as I had no intent on testing the accuracy of the fire forming loads.

I made a bullet catch box out of wood that was jammed full of dry newspaper, about three feet long as I recall. It stopped the bullet perfectly. I cannot say how well it would have stopped any bullets after that.

It was quite impressive even with plugs and ear muffs. I though I might bleed from the eyes for some time, but that passed.

Dwayne and Clark thank you for your perspective. Yes, discharge is prohibited in my area. However, we're on 5 acres and I figured the odds of anyone finding out are slim to none. On the other hand, if a bullet did get away from the trap, it would be a highly undesirable outcome!

A heavy walled 10" pipe with several feet of sand in the end would prolly work just fine, but I need something I can shoot horizontal for enough distance to chrony a load. That makes it difficult because how to you keep the bullet trap medium (sand for example) in a vertical plane so it remains thick enough to trap a bullet. I suppose a guy could stack sand bags.

Thanks,


Jordan

Thanks for the tip sir!

A magneto speed chrony does not have to be horizontal to work properly .
Just sayin

pard has a bullet trap in his garage, but don't think he uses it for very big centerfire rifles.

I'll ask him.

just called him, I was wrong, he shoots whatever he wants at it.


It's 30 inch steel pipe that's 1/2 inch thick. he then bought a piece of armored steel and had the steel place bend it to fit the curvature of the pipe. he used a hydraulic jack to press it into place.

he says it's the hyper velocity rounds that will mark the steel. .223 and .22-250 being some of the worst culprits, says it does more damage than a .375 or .45/70 rds. he's shot into it.

so when he's shooting the hyper velocity rounds he puts a 6 " piece of glue lam beam in front of the armored steel to slow those bullets down and save his armored steel plate for future use. He says they make better armored steel than what he could get here locally, so being in Cali, I like your odds of getting a better grade of armored steel for your trap Rob.

the pipe is cut with a slant on both end like this / / and the top is at a steep angle of course for the armored steel and target.

and sand in the bottom so he can reclaim his bullets, particularly the lead ones as he casts bullets himself


when I was workin on my GMC in his garage recently he broke out his fully auto bb gun and hung a target in the trap and fired off a few hundred rounds. He's got a paintball adapter on the bullpup stock so he can run a big canister of CO2.

he's the biggest overgrown kid I've ever met and he's a hoot.

hope this helps Rob, good luck

Be aware that the discharge of even something as light as a 22 LR inside a closed building can create enough positive pressure to snuff things like pilot lights......I discovered. I can't imagine what happens to the ambient pressure when you touch off even bigger stuff (and, yes, the neighbors might easily become aware.) But further, I would do a bit of research on how a chronograph might react under the extra "duress" which a confined area will involve. I suspect many chronographs might give irregular readings.

But I do know it is possible to shoot things like the 375 in the basement (but the bullets tend to be hard on the concrete block walls if your bullet stops are inadequate). .....that's all I'm going to say about that!

Did something similar once quite a number of years ago when the only accessible range was shut down. Used a 55 gallon drum with baffles/fiberglass insulation as a (not effective enough) muzzle blast reduction device. The garage was double normal length (about 55 feet long), had decently high concrete stem walls and a sump hole at one end. Filled the sump with sand and set up a 45 degree lid over it - lid was supported by sides made from the same heavy steel used for the baffle (quite a bit of work with a cutting torch). Had to use a floor jack to set it up in place. It worked OK for the temporary purpose but, even though I was very careful with the setup, firing into it always made me a bit nervous.

A: it's going to be really loud, no ifs ands or buts. I shoot indoors about 3 times a week for test fire and double ear protection is a really good idea.
B: make sure before you invest a bunch of time and money in this that your chrono will read without natural light. Mine won't, I tried when it was about -20f outside.

I'm embarrassed to say that I had an AD with my garand in the basement years ago. It was an empty 65 foot long unfinished concrete block room.My buddy and I looked for years to find the 180SMK with no luck at all. If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'.

My dad had a conventional heavy steel bullet trap in our basement that he regularly shot heavy centerfire loads into wearing plugs with muffs without any problems.

Need plenty of good ventilation though as it gets pretty bad after just a few shots.

A bullet trap called "The Snail" (IIRC) came to mind.
I don't even know if it's still made. Seems you could do a water shower across the front to further minimize lead dust beyond the design.