Building a Range

It's ALL about the angle.

Yes it is. And every plate presents multiple angles to the shooter. That 20 degree down facing plate has a 70 degree upfacing top edge and every angle between on the top corner. Doesn’t take a very big piece splashing back at 1000 FPS to rip open your carotid artery.

Plus the stand and hanger present odd angles if there is any metal in them, and if the plate isn’t new, it isn’t perfectly flat. And of course most plates have a hole or bolt sticking though with more angles presented.

Think about it. If you shoot steel at 20 yards and their is a bounce/splash back, from the target you are a certain size. At 3 yards you are about 45 times larger (6.66^2), and therefore 45 times more likely to get hit. And at 3 yards even a bounce to the ground and back at you off a small rock can have a dangerous level of energy (more than a very deadly subsonic 22).

3 feet, or 3 yards, just is not safe to shoot steel.

I have shot and RO’d a lot of matches with steel, some of it too close. Not counting the little bits of splashed lead that settle all around, I have been hit incidentally dozens of times, and bled several times. The jackets seem to be the most dangerous but since the lead mostly splashes. One or two hits were bad enough that if they had hit the wrong place it could have been very bad, particularly if I was alone at the range. Steel target shooting should be taken seriously.
 
If you look closely at the photo in post #21, you'll see there is no metal facing the shooter, other than the plates themselves, chain and bolt heads. The bolt heads are round, rather than flat/hex. The intention was to minimize, to the extent possible, stuff coming back at the shooter.
 
We take all shooting here seriously. Our cards say "Serious Shooters". Shooting by nature is a dangerous sport or undertaking. We have 15 years and 100s of thousands of rounds fired and nobody with any injury they thought anything of.
The trick to shooting close in steel is it MUST be FLAT. If you shoot flat steel you get a 360 Degree dispersion. You will get turns on divots, bolts, and bumps. We relegate these "injured plates "to rifle fire. Rifle fire is a whole different animal, a monster actually.
There is no way to remove every possibility of injury from shooting. You just plan to mitigate them. We are either the luckiest bunch or as safe as humanly possible doing dangerous things.
All knowledge certainly does not flow from this fountain. I do have 15 years and hundreds of shooters with "maybe" millions of rounds fired without injury. Many years ago while timing a bowling pin match I had a piece of 230 ball turn on a hard rock maple bowling pin and hit me WAY harder than I've ever been hurt shooting steel.
Shooting is dangerous. Enjoy our wonderful past time, safely. It can be done. I'm sure there are thousands of people that have been hit by frags. We can't have been lucky this long. We are doing something right.
 
We take all shooting here seriously. Our cards say "Serious Shooters". Shooting by nature is a dangerous sport or undertaking. We have 15 years and 100s of thousands of rounds fired and nobody with any injury they thought anything of.
The trick to shooting close in steel is it MUST be FLAT. If you shoot flat steel you get a 360 Degree dispersion. You will get turns on divots, bolts, and bumps. We relegate these "injured plates "to rifle fire. Rifle fire is a whole different animal, a monster actually.
There is no way to remove every possibility of injury from shooting. You just plan to mitigate them. We are either the luckiest bunch or as safe as humanly possible doing dangerous things.
All knowledge certainly does not flow from this fountain. I do have 15 years and hundreds of shooters with "maybe" millions of rounds fired without injury. Many years ago while timing a bowling pin match I had a piece of 230 ball turn on a hard rock maple bowling pin and hit me WAY harder than I've ever been hurt shooting steel.
Shooting is dangerous. Enjoy our wonderful past time, safely. It can be done. I'm sure there are thousands of people that have been hit by frags. We can't have been lucky this long. We are doing something right.
And I thought you were gonna tell em about shooting that AK pistol.
 
I've read that before, and it seems like 20ft tall is excessive... anyone actually build a berm 20ft tall before?

Yes. The rear berm on the range here on my farm is 20' with a 1:1 slope. The side berm's are lower - around 15' with slightly shallower slopes. Most of my range is below grade.
 
I had comms with BatteryOaks Billy... He is very personable, knowledgeable, and polite....

We agreed to discuss range liability in a private manner between us. He has an established range and is proactive in his safety and liability. He and his range are solid.
 
I went 200 yds with a rain or shine hut to shoot from. Enough room for 4 and a spotting scope. I had a friend clear me the land and he built me a good back stop with the dirt at 200 yds , 100 yds and 50 yds. You can walk out and shoot any combination of distance or from the 3 set up from up in the hut. I put camo netting around it to keep the casing inside and not all over the yard. The netting does not hold in the sound and stapled to the inside they roll down to the floor for easy sweeping up. Just my 2 cents

200 R or S. 2 JPG.JPG 200 R or S.JPG IMG_1082.JPG Thanks
 
I went 200 yds with a rain or shine hut to shoot from. Enough room for 4 and a spotting scope. I had a friend clear me the land and he built me a good back stop with the dirt at 200 yds , 100 yds and 50 yds. You can walk out and shoot any combination of distance or from the 3 set up from up in the hut. I put camo netting around it to keep the casing inside and not all over the yard. The netting does not hold in the sound and stapled to the inside they roll down to the floor for easy sweeping up. Just my 2 cents

View attachment 60436 View attachment 60437 View attachment 60435 Thanks
Damn, that looks nice.
Do you have photos of your berms?
 
We take all shooting here seriously. Our cards say "Serious Shooters". Shooting by nature is a dangerous sport or undertaking. We have 15 years and 100s of thousands of rounds fired and nobody with any injury they thought anything of.
The trick to shooting close in steel is it MUST be FLAT. If you shoot flat steel you get a 360 Degree dispersion. You will get turns on divots, bolts, and bumps. We relegate these "injured plates "to rifle fire. Rifle fire is a whole different animal, a monster actually.
There is no way to remove every possibility of injury from shooting. You just plan to mitigate them. We are either the luckiest bunch or as safe as humanly possible doing dangerous things.
All knowledge certainly does not flow from this fountain. I do have 15 years and hundreds of shooters with "maybe" millions of rounds fired without injury. Many years ago while timing a bowling pin match I had a piece of 230 ball turn on a hard rock maple bowling pin and hit me WAY harder than I've ever been hurt shooting steel.
Shooting is dangerous. Enjoy our wonderful past time, safely. It can be done. I'm sure there are thousands of people that have been hit by frags. We can't have been lucky this long. We are doing something right.

So it is a little more than just the angle :)

Even if you know exactly what you are doing, not everyone reading here does.
 
Great info, very helpful. Looks like i need several tons of dirt delivered near the kinston area....let me know if any of you know a guy.
 
Great info, very helpful. Looks like i need several tons of dirt delivered near the kinston area....let me know if any of you know a guy.
I've never looked into it, but would hiring a dozer be quicker and easier, and maybe (but possibly not) cheaper?

Grade the range down and use the dirt removed for the berms.
 
Great info, very helpful. Looks like i need several tons of dirt delivered near the kinston area....let me know if any of you know a guy.
I've never looked into it, but would hiring a dozer be quicker and easier, and maybe (but possibly not) cheaper?

Grade the range down and use the dirt removed for the berms.

If he did that in Ktown he'd have a pond in short order. It doesn't take much to hit the water table there with all the natural springs. David Sutton with Neuse Sand and Gravel on Casey Rd off Neuse should have some topsoil. There's also someone else digging around Bucklesberry area south of 70 in near Falling Creek.
 
If he did that in Ktown he'd have a pond in short order. It doesn't take much to hit the water table there with all the natural springs. David Sutton with Neuse Sand and Gravel on Casey Rd off Neuse should have some topsoil. There's also someone else digging around Bucklesberry area south of 70 in near Falling Creek.
Asking because I know nothing about this...

Even going down 10' would cause an issue? I'd think a slope ending 10' down would provide plenty of dirt to build the berm.
 
Asking because I know nothing about this...

Even going down 10' would cause an issue? I'd think a slope ending 10' down would provide plenty of dirt to build the berm.

Yea in most spots the water table is usually around 2-4' down. Very rare to have a basement unless you build it into the side of a slope to a ravine and those are pretty rare.
 
Asking because I know nothing about this...

Even going down 10' would cause an issue? I'd think a slope ending 10' down would provide plenty of dirt to build the berm.
We built a 12 foot berm at the B&M site many years ago. We used a D8 Cat and pushed only 6 INCHES off a 5 acre plot and had more dirt than we could ever use. They are still up today. That was 30 years ago. You start moving 10 feet of earth like ya'll are talking about, you gonna have enough dirt to fill up Hell.
 
Th
We built a 12 foot berm at the B&M site many years ago. We used a D8 Cat and pushed only 6 INCHES off a 5 acre plot and had more dirt than we could ever use. They are still up today. That was 30 years ago. You start moving 10 feet of earth like ya'll are talking about, you gonna have enough dirt to fill up Hell.
The main issue is surrounding the area where id like to build the berm is all wooded...possible but with trees and trunks it may be a hassle. As we get a better handle on exactly the move in date, ill start with pics, and share the process of the build.
 
Th

The main issue is surrounding the area where id like to build the berm is all wooded...possible but with trees and trunks it may be a hassle. As we get a better handle on exactly the move in date, ill start with pics, and share the process of the build.


It doesn't take much "scrapin" to pile the dirt up quickly...

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