targets (not paper)

[kcub]

Yeah cans are fun. And clay pigeons. I've heard used golf balls are fun.

My favorite is a used wooden pallet and a nice lever 45-70.

A rural trash dump that is periodically burned is a plinking goldmine.

What do you like to shoot?

 

[Sevens]

Golf balls are fun targets but a real catch-22 (heh) because any really good, solid hit usually makes a golf ball travel so far away that it's out of the game.

A buddy and I make a lot of use of empty 12ga (and sometimes 20ga) shotgun shells as rimfire targets. A hit through the plastic body topples them but a quality strike on the brass or aluminum case head really sends them skyward.

 

[Bozz10mm]

In my younger days, back on the farm, I made use of the most plentiful targets I had on hand......beer cans. Not so much these days tho.

Cans are still my favorite targets but the gun range doesn't allow them and I don't get back to the farm very often. Water filled jugs can be fun.

 

[kcub]

I have a range that has a standard range and tactical bays where you can shoot cans, pumpkins, what have you.

But their insurance forbids rifle calibers 30 and above at the bays. I've talked them into bending the rules for 30-30 with cowboy loads. I presume 45-70 would be the same. 223 is ok. Pistol caliber levers are ok.

 

[wpsdlrg]

We shoot 1/2" steel (AR500) silhouette targets at the clubs to which I belong. The targets have 2.5" holes, with steel flaps on hinges. Great fun at 200, 300 yards or more.

We like to play games.....one of us will shoot the flaps open as quickly as possible, the next will shoot them closed, etc. Or, working in teams of two, one will shoot a flap open.....his partner will fire just a split second later, to catch the flap just as it swings open....and close it. Requires timing and skill.....but loads of fun.

 

[g.willikers]

You guys are so lucky - to have ranges that allow shooting whatcha' bring.
Paper/cardboard targets only around here and even those are restricted as to type at some of the ranges.
And folks wonder why I bother to have an airgun range here at home.

 

[T. O'Heir]

Cinder blocks and large cans of tomato juice. Called it a demonstration.
Usually illegal to shoot at any dump due to liability issues.

 

[rickyrick]

I used to take expired items of food to shoot. But don't leave trash.
When I was but a wee lad, we could go shoot in the town landfill. The landfill was a former caliche quarry. When I was grown I had a piece of land I could shoot on.

Now I live in WA sometimes I go out to the National Forest to shoot, but is just paper because real targets are the only thing allowed. Unfortunately, no one else follows that rule and they leave the forest trashed.

 

[Pathfinder45]

I never shoot glass bottles as they can't be cleaned up adequately. Conversely, tin cans and empty Coleman propane cylinders are entirely acceptable to me because they are easy to clean up. Expired cans of food make a mess; I disapprove...... Clean, water-filled, milk jugs are excellent reactive targets. My code is to always leave my shooting sites, and bathrooms, for that matter, cleaner than I found them. We don't have to defile everthing as we pass though this life.

 

[4runnerman]

Golfballs here ( I live on a golf-course) Fairway one out the back,tee box 2 out the front( in a cul-de-sac ) and about 10 golfballs a week. I just drive a cheap wood screw into them, tie a string to it and hang them from a frame I made.

 

[kcub]

Expired cans of food make a mess; I disapprove......

Why? It's biodegradable. Something will eat it. And something will eat the something that ate it.

I used to have a range that liked me to bring pumpkins. He was hoping they would seed and there'd be more of'em to shoot.

 

[Model12Win]

Full milk jugs of water or soft drink work well.

 

[Pathfinder45]

Well, I suppose you could you could throw the messy perforated food cans into a plastic garbage bag and toss it all into your trunk or the back of your truck and drive home with it only to have the the sharp edges of the bullet holes poke through the bag and leak the mess out...... Or, having forseen that, be tempted to just leave the mess and let wildlife injure their mouthparts on the sharp cans as they try to eat......
Nope, there's nothing good about shooting cans full of expired food.
Water is environmentally neutral, so no harm there.

 

[TXAZ]

Bowling Pins hit by a .50 BMG are quite impressive.

 

[Sevens]

I can't think of much that, when hit by .50 BMG, isn't quite impressive.

 

[Crankylove]

Potatoes.

Cheap and easy to come by. Make good reactive targets, and you don't have to worry about cleaning up after.

 

[Mike38]

Those round Ritz crackers at 100 yards are a good challenge with a .22. Bonus is, you don't have to clean anything up. Birds eat them, or a good rain and they are gone.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Potatoes.
Eggs.
Cheap canned beverages. (Aluminum shrapnel cleanup required if not at a dump, of course.)

Well, I suppose you could you could throw the messy perforated food cans into a plastic garbage bag and toss it all into your trunk or the back of your truck and drive home with it only to have the the sharp edges of the bullet holes poke through the bag and leak the mess out...... Or, having forseen that, be tempted to just leave the mess and let wildlife injure their mouthparts on the sharp cans as they try to eat......
Nope, there's nothing good about shooting cans full of expired food.

Hit properly, there really isn't anything left in the cans to leak out on the drive home.
And... a good way to avoid punctured bags is to take a cardboard box for cleanup. Bag the trash. Cram the bag into the box. (Or vice-versa, if going into a trunk or passenger compartment.) Toss (or recycle) the whole thing when you get home.

 

[chris in va]

Tannerite.

 

[Pathfinder45]

Tannerite is now illegal to use on the Mount Hood National Forest.