I am going to get a steel gong for my own range, and may also donate a gong to my local range.

For 100 yds. what do you recommend for high power rifles. 10" round or ? Double tab or single hole ?

I just checked with my local steel supplier, and he has AR500 1/2". I will cut to fit.

10" for open sites or standing/offhand

For bench and scopes 8" is plenty and 4 or 6" is fine too.

Make sure you anchor the schit out of it that close...

There is no down side to going big, especially if you're trying to stop the bullet. If you go 12" you can have multiple aiming points on the same plate.

This is true. I often put multiple spots on a 14" square plate I have at 200yds. At 100, be careful with AP ammo or ultra-vel stuff like the 257wby. Might get some damage.

I had a 6" 1/2" plate at 200 hanging off a saw horse at 200 and hit it with a 162 Amax out of my 7Mag. Funny as schit. Then had it hanging from a target frame with old conveyor belt rubber and the first shot sheared the heads off the bolts. Even funnier.

My range used to make gongs out of mild steel scrap. Even at 300 yards an 87 grain Hornady from a 257 Weatherby would tear them up quick.

A few observations from large and small targets with properly fitting and poorly fitting bolts. This only applies to targets hung from a support of some kind, I’ve never hard mounted them to a post so can’t say how those react.

A larger target will have more inertia so won’t stress the mounting system as much, assuming a hanging mount of some kind. I have an 8” round and 12” square of AR500, each ½” thick, each held with two strips of hard rubber cut from a trailer mud guard. At 200 yards most hits from a .243 on up will bounce the 8” target around, while even a .30-06 at that range only moves the 12” square a little bit. Two holes are better than one, one hanging strap lets the target twist around and it can take a while for the target to settle down again.

AR500 is the way to go. My 8" round at 200 yards has a couple thousand hits by now with everything from a .223, .22-250, 243, .25-06 - all full power going 3200-3800 fps, , 6.5's of various kinds, .270's, .308, .30-06, and 8x57. The moon looks like a cue ball compared to the surface of the target but it's still hanging in there, pun intended. FWIW, the 12" target gets a lot of hits from a .223 with 55 gr. FMJ but mostly it's used for lighter loaded military or .30 caliber rounds and it still looks almost new.

Size the bolts to the holes properly. The JC Vibby targets I use have nice precise holes for ½” bolts but I was using 3/8” bolts. The attaching nuts would loosen to the point of falling off after a couple or three dozen hits. The bolts would also break repeatedly, I assume from bouncing around in their holes. I replaced them with ½” bolts and with a washer, lock washer and nut on the back the nut doesn’t loosen at all after a full range session of 100 to 120 high velocity rounds or more. The bolts last far longer and are only replaced when a few direct hits destroy their heads and start to push them through the steel.

Hardened bolts don’t hold up much better than standard, they just cost more. They may last a little bit longer, I haven't proved it one way or the other. but direct hits will kill both of them, so I quit paying more for the hardened ones.

The hanging straps obviously attach to the back of the gong but try to hang them so they are behind the supporting structure as well. I.e., behind the plane of the target face, otherwise shrapnel tends to tear them up prematurely.

Anything downrange WILL get hit eventually, so whatever you rig up should either be a) literally bulletproof and stand up to thousands of hits or b) easily, cheaply and quickly replaceable.


Here is a thread from a while ago with some pics of my target set up. I've replaced the wing nuts with a washer, lock washer and hex nut but the general setup remains the same. In the pic you can see how the wings of the nuts broke off just from the shock of bullets hitting the target.

Gong hanging advice

Google JC Steel Targets, he has what you need and is good to deal with.

Pre-cut and drilled.

Gong(s) at our club cannot withstand the punishment from even hunting rounds. The gongs are made of tough stuff, but the welds holding the eyes to attach suspending chains get shattered. Towing strap options shredded eventually, hardened steel frames get holes in them, etc. I slid pipe over chains to try more than the coated wire some were using and -- shot through in no time. Also, don't use anything that can ricochet, especially NOT back at ya! Seen the result on YouTube and that was a return from 500 yards! (Set it up to swing a bit / deflect downward.) It sure is fun to hit 'em tho. Ours ar at 350 yards.

Barry

Thanks for all of the advice. The range here is in a small rural area, so not used hard as many are.
It is not an organized affair, it is come as you are, probably alone, post your target and shoot.
They also have a trap and skeet range.
I talked to one of the members, and they have targets at 100, 125, and 200.
Most all is from the bench, and I am thinking a 12" square steel from 200 yds. would be best,
so they don't tear things up as much.

I found one seller, who sells a gong that hangs from a single hook through the top center of a round target.
I like that idea. Simpler is sometimes better. Anyone with opinions on that style ?

All depends on the distance. Try these guys:

Shooting Target 7

We bought a pile of them and they've held up well. Thought the prices were good too.

Another vote for JC Steel targets!! Shooting steel is so much more fun than punching paper and, FWIW, I really like my 12"x24" targets the best. We usually paint multiple small diamonds on the target for shooting groups and that way you can continue to get visual feedback without having to run down and repaint. Also you can hang them the long way and use them as torso-targets for short range pistol shooting. For deer season, I paint a brown deer body and do a red outline for the heart/lung area and let my son bang away. Using his Bushnell 3200 3-9x w/ the ballistic reticle, he's consistent out to 330 & 440 yards before deer season opens which really builds confidence for the shorter ranges we typically see in the field.....

This outfit might save you some work.
I have several of the 8" and 12" (1/2") gongs from them. And the A frame brackets (to work with a 2x4) and aluminum tube legs make for great portability.

https://www.ar500targetsolutions.com/shop/

I gave up on gongs for rifles. It is less fun now.

......but I make up for it by shooting them with the handguns.



water filled containers are a hoot.

Mine are mild steel but I'm far enough away that they hold up ok. The hard part is hanging them in a way that lasts... bullets (and bullet fragments) play hell on however you do it. These days I lag them to stumps with TimberLok brand screws.

My local Walmart had 2 sizes of AR500 gongs today. Both were 3/8 thick. Didnt pay close attention, 4" and 8" diameter maybe?

Here's a great way to hang them from Hang Fast Targets

The plate protects the hanging hardware from bullet damage.
T Posts are less than 5 bucks and tough as hell

This is a 10" AR500 1/2" target on a short chain section. Very reactive.


This is the same plate on a different hanger that limits movement but is still reactive
Impossible to knock off the hanger.


You can hang multiples on the same post

Now THAT'S the bees knees!!!

I made mine out of 3/4 plate, 18"x18". They hold up well. Got them out to 600 yards at the deer lease.

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.