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making a bullet trap

I think an over-lap of the angles is good rather than having a/any flat at the center.

I shot a hole through one of the best traps after its owner nagged and bet me that his trap was made for any bullet.
Yes, I was shooting 8mm military armor-piercing ..and I told him that upfront..These bullets are made to shoot through steel.

Sparks did fly...

And we were upstairs in his dad's roller rink where there was one of that priceless mirror balls. we/he would have in big trouble with knocking/shooting out mirrors.

Yes, it looks like that trap has an overlap of angles.
 
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thats pretty much the design of the professional bullet trap we have at work. The striking plates are not that thick though Id say 1/4" at most, they bounce the bullets at an angle into a round drum area like you have designed but its octagonal in shape as Im sure its made of ar500 plate, its just a lot bigger in diameter. FYI ours will stop green tip 556 and 762x39
if all your ever gonna do is pistol rounds it should be fine.
 
I don't think it was mentioned in the link, but I read somewhere that 25º was optimal for deflection. On the other hand, I've seen 45º and bigger. What's your opinion?
 
I believe that the lower the angle, the safer it is.

Of course, it has to be wide and tall enough to catch every possible errand bullet. So for a given width, the lower the angle, the deeper the whole contraption will have to be.

Jacques
 
I don't think it was mentioned in the link, but I read somewhere that 25º was optimal for deflection. On the other hand, I've seen 45º and bigger. What's your opinion?

sin(25°)=0.422
sin(45°)=0.707

It's directly relevant to the amount of forward momentum that gets transferred into normal force. My brothers and I regularly shoot a hanging AR500 (I think it's 3/8" but it might be 1/2") plate with rifles (5.56, .308, 30-06, etc.) outdoors and it's barely pocked after months of service. With even 70% of a pistol strike, 3/8" will be just fine for quite a while, and you get a bigger catcher with less steel.

Edit: you said included angle. The numbers will be more like:

sin(12.5°)=0.216
sin(22.5°)=0.382

So use whatever angle will give you enough coverage to catch 'em all.
 
There are no bullets to trap nowadays...:(

And if you buy bullets your name might go on the watch/remember list.

I saw a youtube that had 1/4" steel as the backstop and it was dimpling out with 9mm and 38sp , so likely I would go 3/8 or 1/2"

I think 45* or less, likely I would go 30* / 30*

Of 1/2" (perhaps 3/8) one sheet at 45* backstop would be Ok...with 1/4" sides and floor. yes, bullets just go to the floor.

Many bullets missing the trap go right through the wall so that needs to be considered.
 
Straying from design and material.....If shop located on slab, and taking what's under the slab into account have known a shop or two to core drill the slab, insert some thickwall pipe and let mother nature be the bullet trap. Some place a thick rubber baffle to insert barrel.
 
It's pretty but they are super messy. Every bullet that hits it splatters a cloud. My preference is a box full of crumb rubber with rubber belting on the front. You can screw new rubber patches over the front as it gets too shot up but that takes a lot of shooting. About 16-24" deep would probably be fine. The nice thing about this type trap is that whole bullets come out. I have one in my shop for 22lr. Very clean. The 22lr only goes about 5" in so mine is only 12" deep.
 
It's pretty but they are super messy. Every bullet that hits it splatters a cloud. My preference is a box full of crumb rubber with rubber belting on the front. You can screw new rubber patches over the front as it gets too shot up but that takes a lot of shooting. About 16-24" deep would probably be fine. The nice thing about this type trap is that whole bullets come out. I have one in my shop for 22lr. Very clean. The 22lr only goes about 5" in so mine is only 12" deep.

That's interesting, but how do you glean the lead? What is the box made of?
 
Mine is just pressure treated 2x12’s for deeper could use plywood. If outdoor put a little metal roof over it. Mine is small so I can just dump it. The rifle team here had one. Theirs got much more use than mine ever will. I’ll try to find out how they emptied it. Mine uses mulch too. WVU’s was more like rubber pea gravel or just a tad larger.

If I remember correctly they vacuumed out the rubber and the lead was left behind. I find out for sure.
 
When I was a kid we used to shoot small bore matches at the local armory range which was just a couple of blocks away.
That range would toss lead back at you and I remember during one match getting a flake of hot lead settle on my cheek as I was on the firing line.
I never got how that happened till I asked a guy with lots of experience at the range where I shoot now.
Apparently someone had shot rifle into the backer which exceeded its limits and dimpled the plate so a shot hitting it just right would sling lead out of the dimple back at the firing positions.

Still seems improbable with a down angle plate and sand trap but..


Edit-
I am not suggesting anything like that is possible with this trap design.
Just a story...
 
When I was a kid we used to shoot small bore matches at the local armory range which was just a couple of blocks away.
That range would toss lead back at you and I remember during one match getting a flake of hot lead settle on my cheek as I was on the firing line.
I never got how that happened till I asked a guy with lots of experience at the range where I shoot now.
Apparently someone had shot rifle into the backer which exceeded its limits and dimpled the plate so a shot hitting it just right would sling lead out of the dimple back at the firing positions.

Still seems improbable with a down angle plate and sand trap but..


Edit-
I am not suggesting anything like that is possible with this trap design.
Just a story...

hahaha I used to shoot those matches too at the NG armories in New Orleans and Baker and a few others. Funny you should say that the ranges were the same design of flat angled plate and a back wall and they threw lead at us too.
the new design traps with plates angled top and bottom. ive never had one throw back at me even at short range but I still wear eye pro.
 
Those ranges were all angled 45*. My maintenance unit used to go in and weld up and grind the divots when they were shot with anything besides .22 or pistol rounds. If there was more of an angle towards the shooters, there would be less chance for back splatter.
 
I talked to a buddy who is the former rifle coach’s husband. This backstop is about 40’ wide and 8’ high. It had some sort of vacuum system built into it. Sounds almost like a wood working dust collector fan. There was a place they could open on the bottom of the trap and the rubber and bullets would go on the floor. He’d just vacuum the rubber up and the vacuum hose would just dump the rubber back into the trap and leave the bullets on the floor. They would then shovel them into buckets.

I’ve been in a lot of indoor ranges this was the cleanest I’ve ever seen.
 
Mine has a 20" X 20" opening and both sides and top/bottom plates are "Seen" by bullets at a 20 degree angle. The plates were all burned out of AR500 3/16" thick, but the trap was designed only for pistol (And I mean pistol cartridges).
It looks similar to what your showing, but I used a 6" schd 40 pipe for the snail, because the bullets only hit it on a bounce.
I may try to insert photos tomorrow, we've used it for many years now.
 
A few days late. Crude in appearance it's none the less effective, though the bullet holes in the steel door may suggest otherwise, hey, everyone has to learn to acquire the sight picture. (I was teaching a lady using a Ruger target pistol with fast fire red dot, she found "Ghost" dots at angles off target somehow)
The first photo is looking at the front with a target hanging on the spring spikes.
20210706_170646(1).jpg
The second is the same view without a target.
20210706_170711.jpg
Looks like somehow they got turned left 90 degrees!
 








 
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