'Silent' Back Stop?

[Willyleigh]

i read some were that you could make a silent bullet catcher if you filled a shoe box full of old magazines, I tried this and it is louder than the wooden backstop i was using before, is there anyway i can make it quieter?

[Nealsey]

I use the free pellet catchers from Argos, they are pretty effective, but unless you use some
sort of putty material, there is always going to be some noise.

Nealsey

[arjimlad]

Wrap it up in an old piece of carpet ?

[jamie1]

"Free" pellet catchers? Do tell....

I'm using a bad of ballast (sand / pebble mix). It's not 100% silent but pretty good.

[Nealsey]

"Free" pellet catchers? Do tell....

They leave a big pile of them just inside the store usually, just walk in and pick one up.
Full of pretty targets to shoot at and all in colour.

I always go into there whenever I am in town and pick a couple up on my way back to the car.

Nealsey

[Willyleigh]

I think maybe the box is amplifying the sound as i shot a magazine and it was almost silent

[bullseye]

Big bag of building sand works for me

[Willyleigh]

Big bag of building sand works for me

Doesn't that leave a mess?

[snock]

They leave a big pile of them just inside the store usually, just walk in and pick one up.
Full of pretty targets to shoot at and all in colour.

I always go into there whenever I am in town and pick a couple up on my way back to the car.

Nealsey

Jamie, Neasley is talking about the Argos catalogues.



( )

[rusham]

Little brothers make good backstops. A bit noisey at first ......



If you can get hold of a plastic beer crate, attach some hardboard on the back and on the inside get hold of some old carpet underlay a couple of layers with then a layer or three of cardboard on top of that. I used this at the old house which had a very long back garden and it was very quiet.

[Willyleigh]

Little brothers make good backstops. A bit noisey at first ......

Hey i got plenty of them, three infact

[Rob M]

If you can get a slab of old lead, it will make a good backstop, for 12 ft/lb rifles, 30-40 mm thickness is enough, rifle pellets stick to the slab. It's weird, but pellets make hardly any noise when they hit. Pellets from pistols stop dead, no ricochets, but tend not to adhere to the slab.

Downsides are the slab wil be HEAVY, making your own can be dangerous, and lead is toxic of course, so is Antimony which is added by some pellet manufacturers. If you have shot enough pellets, you can make a slab, I got an old biscuit tin and put lots of old pellets in while the tin was heated up on the cooker. You have to be very careful though, some tins might leak causing molten lead to dribble out, also melting pellets can give off fumes, so this should be done out of doors on a camping stove, rather than indoors on your kitchen. This is a great backstop though as targets can be stuck to the front of the tin with magnets.

If you're lucky you might be able to just buy a few ingots of lead from your local metal recycler, this would be the safest solution. Lead really is a good backstop material. Recycle your old mags (they make a mess anyway, pellet-sized bits of paper everywhere after a while) while sand backstops just turn into a pile of sand eventually and need high maintenance IMO.

[harrisP]

i use argos catalogues but if you want to make them quieter then soak them in water so there all soggy and your done.

[jamie1]

They leave a big pile of them just inside the store usually, just walk in and pick one up.
Full of pretty targets to shoot at and all in colour.

I always go into there whenever I am in town and pick a couple up on my way back to the car.

Nealsey

D'oh!

Thanks!

a bag of ballast / sand shouldn't be messy, esp if you're grouping well

[aeron]

my mrs used to be a store manager for argos those pellet catchers your talking about (catalogues) cost over £40 each to produce bargain