Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Shooting range gong ?

Appears to require that the steel is drilled and tapped?

My first suggestion would be to not use steel at 100 yards. I carried a bullet fragment in my left leg for 20+ years because I was shooting steel. The bullet made a big dent in the steel and two pieces came straight back to hit me.

If you insist on using steel at such short ranges, make sure you use very hard steel that is angled to deflect bullets toward the ground.

Be aware that anything you shoot at is going to get shot up. The only thing that will withstand bullet hits is hardened steel, and I'm not sure about that if using rifle rounds at 100 yards. Spend money on the gongs and go dirt cheap for everything else as the other parts will likely be replaced or repaired on a frequent basis. In addition to cheap, make sure your stand is light-weight but sturdy and sets up and tears down quickly. Also, use soft materials for the target stand - you don't want the target stand parts to send shrapnel back at you either.

At 100 yards I would weld attachment points to the back of the gongs where the gongs themselves protect the attachment points. If done correctly, suspending the gongs from their back side you will cause them to angle away at the bottom, thus helping to deflect any bullet fragments downward into the dirt.

I've shot up my fair share of steel targets on my own range. 3/8" won't stand up to heavy use. We've broken AR500 IPSC silhouettes at 800 after 1 too many head shots. 1/2" is better,and 5/8" is what you should look into if its for club use or if you putting a lot of attention into a few targets. If you give a target a place for a crack to start, a crack will start. Mickey Mouse ears on a gong will eventually break, and as mentioned before head-shots break IPSC silhouettes. Dangling a small gong in front of a larger plate gives a smaller reactive target that doesn't need constant painting while still letting you know where the misses went, or painting dots works too. 3/8" transport 70 chain seems to last, lesser chain is gone on the first hit. 1/2" Grade 8 bolts shrug off bullets while 5 and down don't survive the first hit. I found that it was cheaper to buy real bolts at a industrial bolt supply place than lesser bolts at a local hardware store, but not before doing it wrong an embarrassing amount of times. Webbing and conveyor belt can take many hits but bullet spray eats them up. S hooks made out of re-bar are ugly and tough.

Frames are something that I have mixed feelings about. I can rig up something with 3 pieces of 2 x 4 in a few minutes, that will last awhile or more work and 4 x 4 posts quite a bit longer and not look so bush-league in the meantime. A better compromise for me is 3/4" steel fences posts made from salvaged oil field suction rod, 2 3/4" black iron T fittings and a couple nipples a couple inches long more or less, it doesn't matter much. 10M re-bar forms the top, mostly because it will go through the 3/8" chain links.Try to shoot up suction rod sometimes, I never could. I get them off the fence post pile but they might cost 5 bucks? Worn out grader blades are ugly and indestructible.

I agree on the Grade 8 1/2" bolts and other hanging accessories- rebar works well for a stand and can take a beating (cheap to replace, too), but strongly disagree about the thickness of AR500. Maybe you need to find better quality AR500, or something, but we're beat the ever-living crap out of our 3/8" targets, and they are going strong. As a result, IME 3/8" is preferable to 1/2" because of it's hit reaction qualities, and I wouldn't even consider 5/8". Of course, I have a source of Hardox 500, which is the best AR500-spec steel money can buy, so that may affect my results.

Are you shooting round / square gongs or IPSC targets? That will affect the results too; as will the distance and caliber used. A 300 grain SMK smacks pretty hard.

I’ve got a bunch of round, square, and IPSC targets, some pig shaped, some ram shaped, etc. They’ve been shot a bunch by everything from .224” bullets all the way to 300gr Scenars at 2950 fps. Distances from 40 (for torture-testing purposes, do not try this at home ) to 1700 meters. Head shots on the IPSC targets are usually the intended POI.

Not sure why, but our results and experiences are very different when it comes to 3/8” AR500. I actually put on a few different Group Buy’s on AO a couple of years back, placing large orders with my friend, and I put a lot of 3/8” targets into the hands of high-volume shooters. I have yet to hear any negative feedback about those targets. In fact, the only comments of regret that I’ve heard, are from guys that bought 1/2” and are dissatisfied with the “ring” that the steel makes when hit, and the lack of movement at longer distances with anything but big boomers.

Are the corners of head /shoulder junction radiused on your targets? Ours aren't and that where the cracks start. That's something I'll look for on the next batch, but with 8 in reserve it might take awhile. In the meantime we just quit shooting heads.

If you have a berm, bury a pole/beam/straight piece of metal sticking straight out of the berm and attach the plate directly to the end of it in whatever manner you choose. This way no mounting structures will be hit by bullets other than the bolt through the eye, just the plate is visible.

The head/shoulder junctions on mine are right angles, as well. Then again, they don’t see a steady diet of 300gr bullets to the head. The majority of the hits they take are from .223-.308” bullets. There is the odd time when they get shot with 300 grainers, and the heads do take some hits, but that’s not as common as the smaller stuff.

When you run out of what you have, and are ready to buy new targets, let me know and I’ll get my friend to cut you an IPSC target from the steel he uses, and you can see how well it holds up. I’d be interested to know if you see a difference.