Where can I find steel for a rifle gong?

[Willy]

I want to make various metal rifle targets and have them hold up over time. Mild steel just doesn't cut it. Anyone have experience with what kind of steel will hold up. I would love to find some armor plating but I haven't had any luck.

Any salvage or recycle ideas would be great, as well.

Anyone shot a manhole cover with a FMJ .308 round?

 

[dick w. holliday]

gongs

you may go to a place that cuts steel beams for construction steel. look in the yellow poages under steel fabricators you may be able to get someone that can get you headed in the right direction. we used to have a guy in our club that was the MFIC at a company that made industrial cranes. we've got gongs 3 inches thick and some tombstone looking plates sitting on the ground that are 4 inches thick. they are all mild steel and look like an asteroid after a meteor storm and they have been shot with everything up to 50 cal- no holes through any of them...Dick

 

[Jeff, CA]

I believe manhole covers are cast iron, and cheap cast iron at that. It might just shatter.

 

[biganimal]

my gongs that we shoot at 100 and 200 yards were made by cutting an aceteylene tank in half and hanging them by chain....have the tank cut by someone that can do it and not get killed!!!! mine were emptied by a local gas supplier by removing the valve and then we used a power hacksaw ti halve the tank. it's been hit by all calibers from 22 rimfire up to 416 rigby ..only thing that slightly damaged it was a 22-250 at 25 yards...pierced it!!

 

[Willy]

Thanks guys. The 3" thick mild steel sounds like it is doable. Maybe I will try laminating 1" thick pieces to build up to three or four inches.

Aceteylene tank!! That is an original idea. I know they are strong tanks.

I think the manhole cover will crack, as well.

 

[444]

I made some rifle targets from stuff I got at the junk yard. I bought a piece of "leading edge", the part of a heavy equipment blade that scrapes the ground. I cut it with a torch into pieces about 8"x8" and welded it to a car coil spring. I welded the coil spring onto a tire rim. I fired .223 Armor piercing at it from about 20 yards and it didn't even leave a mark. The metal, springs, and rims cost me about $20 at the junk yard. They sell metal by weight and don't care what kind of steel it is. You can find all kind of stuff suitable for shooting at a junk yard. I liked the idea of the tire rim since it makes the target portable, and there is noting to hang something like that off of here in the desert.

 

[Strayhorn]

Some things I've used as gong material:

1. Used disks from a disk harrow, a farm implement used for turning soil. About $5 from repair shops. Hardened steel, makes a nice ringing sound when hit.

2. A used bulldozer blade cut into sections.

3. Hard steel plate bought from the Norfolk Naval Yard.
You can get this stuff online now:

https://www.gsaauctions.gov/

from the GSA.

Ken Strayhorn
Hillsborough NC

 

[Long Path]

I found some guys installing 6" and 8" interior diameter steel glycol cooling pipe into a huge technology office building. They were running hundreds of yards of the stuff, and the odd 2' hunk of it was just scrap to them. They gladly gave me about 10 pieces ranging from 12" to about 4' in length. This stuff is about 1/4" to 5/16" thick, and is good steel. Also, because it's curved, it attenuates the impacts of the bullets, and never seems to get pierced unless the shot is HP rifle, impacting precisely at a right angle, at the point of tangency. Even then, it won't get through the back side. Best part about this pipe is that it always rings like a bell. With a Buckmark .22 at 15 yards, it's fun to try to hit the various lengths in such a way that you can ring out a tune. At 250 yards, .257 Rbts and .300 Win Mag make them ring nicely so that you can easily determine a good hit.

If someone is retrofitting a local office building with extra cooling, you might check out their junk pile.

 

[444]

Long Path brings up something that I was going to mention and forgot. One way to get away with using softer steel is to make the target so that you are not firing the bullet at a right angle to the material. I have shot with guys that simply took two flat sheets of steel and welded them together at a right angle. They then sit the target down with the open end of the angle facing the ground . The sides that you are shooting at are at a 45 degree angle to the shot, the target is self supporting, it is cheap and simple.

 

[Bud1]

But 444, wouldn't that type of "right angle" target deflect the bullet upwards - ? Unless you shoot in the literal middle of nowhere, that may be a little hazardous.

 

[444]

Bud1: You are right, but I do live in the middle of nowhere. Just over the hill from me is the Nevada Test Range where not all that long ago they conducted above ground nuclear testing.

 

[biganimal]

Hey triple 4 do you glow in the dark?????



theres one in every crowd......just had to ask!!!!

 

[guerilla1138]

Hmm interesting, ya'll got my creative juices going.
Now I am interested in trying to forge one.
Maybe one made from some mild steel laminated around some car spring(5160).
If I do anyhting about these ideas I will let you know.

 

[Kingcreek]

We made up some pistol range targets, 8" round falling plates on an I-beam and several gongs of various sizes from the scrap yard.
Warning! that pock marked steel can be hazardous.
somebody chewed up our pistol steel with an SKS rifle w FMJs. We continued to shoot them with lead pistol bullets until one day a fellow is popping away with a .45 and a flattened slug comes right back at him and hits him in the chest causing a shallow but bloody wound.
I'll not shoot deep-pocked steel again unless long range rifle. Flat surface angled slightly down is no problem.

 

[Long Path]

It is my experience that LRN bullets are no problems on flat pocked steel, if you're more than 7 yards away. Occasional "thumps", but that's it.