TargetTalk

Our sporter air rifle team is moving to a new space, and we're constructing a new backstop to protect the walls. While 99.9% of our shooters keep their pellets within the target frame and are captured, Murphy says that sooner or later a pellet will miss the frame so we need to protect the wall.

We're thinking of hanging some sort of drop cloth or canvas off a 1 1/2" pvc frame, so we looking for a material recommendation that will stop a pellet at 10m. Please be as specific as possible.

Thanks in advance.

A few years ago we had a match at a gym that had foam padded walls. Obviously we did not want to puncture the vinyl cover of the foam.

We went out and bought 4x8 sheets of 3/8 OSB sheathing leaned up against the wall behind the trap.

We now use this at Whittington Center in Raton for our indoor airgun events. Stops the pellets easily.

Fairly easy to move & store

I played with a couple of materials. 1050D ballistic nylon seems to work for errant shots. You can get swatches from various suppliers if you want to do some testing.
The link below will also sew it together to give you really wide cloth.

http://shop.skinboats.com/1050-Ballisti ... 050bal.htm

I know someone that sews boat canvas and he helps us out with our jr team. They have some material that is reinforced nylon that is extremely durable. I'd imagine it can take air rifle shots. The trade names are tuff stuff, weblon, herculite. it is a real thick and has threads running through it. if you cut it and try to tear it you can't do it. Our club has the equipment bags that the shooters use with this stuff and it's been used for years with no holes. the shop is Archie's Boat Tops in South Amboy, NJ. ask for Stan. He'll know what you are talking about. I think it's similiar to that ballistic nylon. I would try also to look at the home depot type heavy duty tarps. I've seen some that are very thick.

My club purchased the portable air gun range setup from Creedmoor. It is a little pricy but well worth the money in quality and ease of setup/takedown.

http://www.creedmoorsports.com/shop/Por ... Gun_Range/

Any thick cloth will do the job (old curtains) but it must be hanging loosely otherwise it will act like a drum skin and the pellets will come back nearly as fast as they went. That applies to wadcutter pellets at target shooting velocities, round nose pellets and higher velocities will of course penetrate. We use this method a lot in Sports centres, Schools etc. for 'taster shoots' where there are quite a few stray shots.