Pellet trap back plate

S

Silcom45

Guest
I'm looking for some help from the collective wisdom of the group. I want to build a .177 pellet trap to use in my basement. My question is what would be the best angle for the steel back plate, 45 .. 55 .. 65 degrees or some other degree of tilt. I know pellet traps are available from gun stores but I would like to build my own. Any help will be appreciated.
 
A sheet of light steel (1/8"-1/4") free hanging - not fixed hard - will stop any pellet, turn it into a .30 calibre disk & drop it straight down without any bounceback. Maybe a sheet of styrofoam glued to the back side would reduce the ding when the pellet hits.

BSA uswed to enclose one with their Airsporter range back in the seventies that had a channel formed on three sides to take a standard UIT target.
 
I think I would miss the ding. I have made several 22 LR traps and I have used 1/8" and 3/16" and 1/4" steel plate slanted on a 45º. The bullets splatter and are mostly just powder as they hit bullet trap. The 1/8" steel will eventually bend like the effect of so many hammer hits. The 5/16" seems to be just about right and the 1/4" steel is a bit of an overkill. I like overkill. My experience with silhouettes indicate that a flat hanging piece of metal would work also. There would be splatter to the sides top and bottom.

Surely it would not take much to stop a speeding lead pellet.

Concho Bill
 
We have been using 10 gauge flat plate for many years ( note that this is with velocities of 600fps on down 177 cal.). They are screwed tight to 1/4" osb, vertical no angle. With the higher power units You might want to kick that up to 3/16 plate to avoid dents. They are set 4" back from a target face which is attached to a piece of heavy cardboard. That in turn is held in position by a large spring type paper clip fastened to the wood frame. most if any splash back is contained by the cardboard, everything pretty much just drops down in to a trough on the bottom. This is at 33 ft ( 10meters). I have one of the sets here I will have to try it with my falcon ( around 835 with 10gr 177) to see what happens. Normally I use my trap I built many years ago which will contain a 44mag 300gr jacketed full house from 50 ft.
 
I've been using a Yellow Pages. They are big and thick. Other wise just layer magazines in a box and tape it up.
 
Another is old clothing stuffed into a bag or old towels (5 ?? ) hung one behind the other in a trap.
 
My trap is set at 23 Yards as that's the maximum distance I can achieve in my barn. I used an old metal copier stand which had side by side storage access doors underneith it. I removed the doors and the mid-post that they to close against, then welded in a piece of 1/4" at 45°, plus welder a 1" x 1/4" steel strip across the bottom of the opening, put a couple of inches of sand in it for everything to drop into, then let 'em fly. By doing this I can feel quite comfortable shooting either Air Rifles or Rimfires, and could probably go much bigger, as nothing happens once impact occurs other than for making a few marks on the back plate and only leaving a bunch of lead splatters with not a dent to be had.

By the way, I'm shooting both .177 and .22 cal. pellets from a PCP at ±900 f/s along with a Suhl Rimfire Bench Gun.

Dave
 
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I made mine from a square/round duct (Home Depot). Put a 8" end cap on,then put a piece of plywood cut square inside set back to rear corners and use duct seal (Home Depot) on plywood....pellets stick in duct seal...(you can fill void between plywood and end cap with foam).This is good indoors for 500-600 FPS or outdoors at 25 yards + for my 30 FPE .22 Dominator....Duct seal comes in brick pugs approx. 7"x2" x 1" thick. (You need two layers for 30 FPE.)

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Foam in void...put plywood over foam....then duct seal over plywood..

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Thanks guys

Thanks to all that replied to my question. You've given me some excellent ideas. I was over engineering my trap and you've shown me that a simple solution would be the better way to go.
 
Years ago, when i lived in the city, I used a small hotelroom sized refrigerator. I piled red brick inside its floor up to the "ceiling" aginst the back wall, and clipped targets to the freezer tray floor. The red brick stops pellets with little noise and no bounceback. When I closed the door it gave no hints abot shooting.
 
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