Hilbilly Wind Chime target

[2ndChildhood]

I built a steel hanging target from a piece of Dodge pickup truck spring.
The spring material is 2 1/2" wide and mostly 0.28" thick except where it tapers down on one end.
The bottom leaf in the spring set is thicker - .5" but it tapers sharply at both ends.
This stuff dulled a high quality sawzall blade almost immediately and only showed a small scratch.
I had to cut it with an angle grinder.
I haven't tried drilling it yet.

I built a hanger from a steel fence post, a shelf bracket and some chain.

After one day of shooting mostly with M193, and a few rounds of AK and a few 9mm:
It has been significantly bent back against its original curve to the point where I think breaking in half is likely.
It has quite a few nasty dents and 11 holes or chunks shot out.
The shelf bracket is getting some splatter damage too.

[chrisguy]

Just glad I could help with the, uh, testing. Yeah. [wink]

Cheers 2c!

[2ndChildhood]

Jassenb & I were both pounding away at this thing with AR's at about 70 yards. It didn't make it through it's second day.

When the damn thing got shorter we started hitting the chains more often.

On a positive note, the one we used for the 9mm pistols held up great, it wasn't even dimpling.

Great fun :twisted:

[2ndChildhood]

At Merl's suggestion, I tried using a railroad tie plate for a target.
Here's the results.

I put two pieces of truck spring to keep the fragile chains farther from the target.

I shot off one of the washers keeping the 1/2" grade 8 bolts from slipping through the big spike holes.

Here's what it looked like after two AR's hitting it for several hours.
I think it will hold up for a while.

Here's a piece of truck leaf spring that we used closer in for 9mm and .40 S&W.
It's not even dimpling!

I finally tried drilling the leaf spring material. With some oil and care not to overspeed the drill, I got thru it with a 1/4" bit after a 1/8" pilot hole.
When I tried to go bigger, the material fought back hard and I broke a few bits proving that it's really hard stuff.
I used a hand drill, it would have been easier to control speed & feed with a drillpress - probably would have worked.
I ended up taking it to a local fab shop & they had a chop saw and a hydraulic punch that did the job.
Funny thing - the punch had a sign on it saying mild steel only. :mrgreen:
It really made a hell of a pop when the 9/16 punch went through.

[2ndChildhood]

After today, the August 12 shoot & one previous day, my railroad tie plate steel target is showing some serious wear.

It's got 4 or so holes shot through it now. It's probably only good for one more shooting day.

[Chaffee2]

That looks like a lot of fun. How far away were you shooting on the last target? Was it 70 yards like the first one? What was the bullet FMJ, HP?

[2ndChildhood]

It is alot of fun! It makes a whack sound rather than a ring when you hit.
The majority of hits have been cheap 223 ball ammo at 70 yards give or take.
It has received a sampling of other calibers, 308, 9, 454.

The front view doesn't really show how tortured that metal is.
most of those dents have sharp raised edges - it would hurt to touch it the wrong way.

[Merl]

any idea how many rounds it has taken so far? The plate I've been using is about to shatter, a couple deep cracks through the center and corners missing. Maybe yours was a little softer?

[2ndChildhood]

It would be a wild guess but what the hell - maybe 1000 rounds?

I am thinking it's a bit soft based on how the rims of the craters push out - that metal is getting squished out & that can't happen if the metal is too brittle.
It is developing a crack & Jassenb's piece already cracked off a corner & his has seen less use.
I wonder if these are cast iron? anybody know a good test?
I saw some AR500 steel yesterday and the dents are way shallower and don't have the raised lip. But it does dent & will obviously fail eventually.
The truck spring material didn't raise a lip as much as this stuff does either.

[2ndChildhood]

Well here is the railroad tie plate after its 5th day of shooting.
It's still hanging in there although we shot another chunk out of it.

It now has several dents and cracks visible on the backside.
Gotta figure it's not good for too many more days.

Tough material - showing what it's made of,