Anybody have any experience making metal swing targets? "Gong"
I'm wanting to build a couple. We will be shooting them with centerfire ammo so it will have to be pretty stout. Any ideas or experience with will be appreciated.

You may get some plates from a local scrap yard and hang it from chains or weld hooks on. Or you can go the expensive route and get some AR500 plate.

My suggestion would be to get an Evil Roy with the AR550 rifle plate. The plate is attached to a tripod and they are ram tough. Much better than a gong and a lot easier to maintain. They are also safer because they won't crater. I use the 10" plate.

http://store.actiontarget.com/at-evil-roy-practice-target.html

If you decide to go commercial, give this one a look...I have several of Ryan's target stands and swinger plates from 4-12". Great package.

Big Dog Steel


There was a previous forum member (Fowler) on here that did a group steel purchase several years ago, and I use his round plates as well...you may want to try to PM him and see if he has anymore.

Rgp332

I have put some together. I had some AR500 cut into standing targets years ago. Mild steel will work for standard handgun rounds, but rifle rounds in a handgun, you will want AR 500. I am making them into swinger now. I started with chains, but one hit with a 6BR or 22-250 Encore, the chain is gone. I am using rubber belts for hay bailer, bolted to the back of the plates, hanging from a target frame. The belts will take many hits, before replacing.

Mark

This guy runs a group buy every so often over on THR. They do it as a fundraiser for their church youth group, with the kids donating their time to package and ship them. I bought a bunch of AR500 targets from them this spring, super cheap. If not in a big hurry it may pay to wait 'til their next group buy.

http://www.jcsteeltargets.com/

Thanks for the ideas

I tie my swingers with rope. Shots will break the rope but it is easy to tie back.

hmmm. a bunch of new ideas. I have been wanting to make or buy one myself for a while. seems like it would be much more "rewarding" to shoot at than paper or something. for practice who cares how cute the groups are as long as you hear the clank!


Gary,
Do you hammer that thing with the big bores up close?

Yes, that plate on the stand is angled so the fragments are directed down into the dirt. I've shot a pretty fair amount of steel over the years and the evil roy is the best one I've found by a large margin. Chains and such just don't hold up. It took about 10 years for my first plate to have the weld break and I've shot it with everything, 416 Taylor, 375 JDJ, 500's, 475's 454's etc. not a dimple in the steel. And you can shoot it with rifles up to 3000 fps MV as long as you stay at 100 yards.

I have made many. Steel from a local steel yard will be A-36 and if you use this will will need to make them 1" thick to get any life out of them before they have hole through them

I now have 1/2" thick AR500 target and they are excellent

The AR550 that gary mentions above also sound excellent.

To anyone considering shooting soft steel plate, they can be extremely dangerous even at distances of 50 yards. Anytime a steel plate or other hard surface craters it can and does send lead and copper back towards the firing line. These are often very small fragments which travel at high velocity but they can also be some pretty large hunks of lead. I've seen it happen many many times and about 30 years ago a shooter on the firing line took a piece of shrapnel in the jaw from a round I fired. The copper fragment zipped along about 3" under the flesh next to his jawbone and he had to have it surgically removed. This injury happened during a silhouette match. My suggestion is to shoot only armor plate appropriate for the projectile and velocity your shooting. Of course if you're 100 yards or more then it's not as big of a concern but we are talking about handguns and they are often shot at ranges < 100 yards.

Very good point. Also angle the steel downward and this helps prevent the partices from coming back to the firing line

Gary, thanks for the concern for our safety. This would fall into one of those categories of "learning from others mistakes."

I prefer to learn that way