Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Dang Bezos got me.....

Last week, Amazon had 3/8" thick 24" AR500 gongs for $129 shipped. The target manufacturer was listing the same gong at $220 shipped.

Looks like more steel is headed for the range.

Nice score! That's a biggin'....

Clang! 😊

We only go to 400yds on our place, so this one will be hung up at 400. The 16" square I have there now will get moved to 200 or 300, as I often use a stencil to put four smaller aiming points on a plate that size so I can shoot several groups before driving down to paint it again. I'm about to put some 7' lengths of old utility poles in the ground to get all my gongs up a bit and out of the weeds. Summertime can grow a weed quick down here, and it sucks to roll up at the range and not be able to see your target.

We've put up 200yd and 300yd hog targets in recent years and they are a lot of fun with hunting rifles, although we generally don't use them for testing loads for accuracy. They run about $300 plus shipping. About to hoist them up higher as well.

$220? That's a helluva deal!

Nice one!

You can hang one things on a t-post to get them way up off the ground

Link?

How solid are the t post hangers with the bigger guns?

Gonna need 2 men and a boy to get that thing transported and hung up down range . . .that or some mechanical assistance!

Betcha the Amazon driver loves you !

The plan is to put two wooden posts in the ground about 9' apart and put a length of steel pipe across the top. Then hang the various gongs from the pipe with old firehose and/or chain. Each will hold a hog target and a couple square gongs. When it is time to bush-hog the field, we can lift off the pipe and gongs as one unit and mow between/around the posts. Our 400yd hanger is chain from two eye-bolts on a small hardwood tree. A 6MOA target give a lot of latitude for error at that range, should a newbie be shooting at it. Hoping to get it all set up over the next month or so, but it's about too dang hot to fool with it right now.....

Look at using t-posts instead of wooden posts.

They make brackets that sit on top of the t-post and have a place to hold a length of pipe like you are talking about. T-posts are cheap, won’t rot, and are easily replaced if they get bumped with the tractor

Look on eBay for “AR500 T post Conduit Target Stand W/ Integrated Gong Hanger (Single -1-)”

Appreciate that notion. Might be a good one for when I go with a single gong in the future.

I'm likely going with these creosote posts for now since the horizontal pipes will be holding 100lbs+ of steel. I think the hog gongs are around 70lbs each. Just need to hook the post hole digger to the tractor.

One thing to watch out for with wooden posts is bullet splash. Personal use range might be fine. My range that seems thousands of rounds a month...our 4x4 posts on the KYL racks are taking a beating from the splash. We found some metal scraps that will fit right over the posts and cover 3 sides we'll be screwing on to protect them.


Just something we ran into and didn't expect. Our targets see 85% 6mm, 10% 6.5s...and most our targets are small and have a good bit of movement when hit. Didn't forsee the bullet splash eating up the posts.

Good point on the bullet spalling eating into the wood over time. It’ll be something to keep an eye on.

Yep, splash has eaten mine up. If you're putting the posts 9' apart they'll probably be fine. I have mine to close....I wish I'd have thought of it before planting them.

I made my own t-post brackets for another target. Cut some tube metal, drilled a hole, and put an eye bolt through it. Slide the tube metal over post, eye bolt stops it. I hang with chains and use a metal carabiner to attach the chain to the eye bolt. Using a carabiner allows me to level the target by changing which link I attach to if my t-posts aren't even. Really...really simple. I'll try to take a few pics tomorrow.

Any ya'll try AR500 hooks to suspend from? Thinking about it. I'm using a portable conduit/rebar setup... Been shooting my chains a bit much...

I use them and they work well!

Thanks!

Follow-up. Saw these with more hook. Seems like a good idea.

Broke out the brushcutter and the bush hog this morning to work on the range. Hung up the new gong at 400yds. Dad broke it in with a cold-bore plink from my SIG Cross 6.5CM. He pronounced it "good to go". The plate had a good ring to it!

Good shooting !

Do you think we'll ever see the Cross (or anything) in 277 Fury ?

With the recent military adoption, I’d think we’re going to see it hit the civilian market soon.

A bastard cartridge case right now ? Should do great!

So long as they produce plenty of ammo, even a bastard case will make it, much like the .350 Legend.

Finally put the posts in the ground at 200yds and lifted the targets up out of the weeds. Planning to duplicate this setup at 300yds, but it is just too wet right now. We got almost 18" of rain in the last 2 weeks.

Hog gong has a nice ring to it. The 223 needed a few clicks of left windage, but the consensus was that the hit on the steel was louder than the report of the rifle with the Resonator R2 in place. The 400yd 24" gong can be seen above the white 14" plate if you look hard. It just needs to cool off and dry up a bit to enjoy the range time. Was 106F heat index at lunchtime today.