Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters best material for target backer

Our range (not club owned) has pipe set in the ground and sells frames made of 1x2" to set up in the pipes (pipes at ground level). Lots of folks use cardboard from whatever they have. I use cardboard, but also go around after the elections and grab the political signs, which are made of some sort of plastic, and work well. for our range hi-power range, we use thick, commercial cardboard. We have a paper box company near me, and I can get a load of a 100 or so pieces at once. Have to cut them to the 6x8 size we use, but have a storage area to put them in till needed. We change them out every couple of months, as not used excecpt by some folks sighting in for 200+ yds, and our hi-power competitive shoots. Box company gives us the cardboard free, as scrap otherwise. Pueblo West range uses the chicken wire set up too.

I built a frame out of 3/4" PVC to fit the cardboard used on pallets of feed to protect the bags from pallet nails.
3 pieces of PVC about 4 feet long, 2 elbows, 2 pieces of 1/2" rebar about 18 inches long comprise the frame. I screw the cardboard on with little self-drilling screws.
Lay down the frame, drive rebar into the ground even with the legs, and tape on the targets. I use a small pipe wrench to pull the steel when done.
Takes longer to describe than to do - and is cheap to replace in the event of an errant shot. Stands up in a bit of a breeze, too.

and, you can pick them up for free every 2 or 4 years! Just drive along any highway during an election year.

And, if you ask an ambitious candidate nicely, he might hold the sign for you at 100 yards. This does two jobs simultaneously: 1) it saves the cost of a target frame, and 2) it reduces the number of annoying politicians!!!