TargetTalk

I would like to start a dialog with anyone with experience (actual or theoretical) in the performance of lead and jacketed bullets striking a sloping steel plate and/or the interior of a large diameter (10") steel pipe. Obviously this pertains to backstop design and performance.

Why not contact the NRA. They have plans, suggestions, and other help in range design or improvements.

My club has Caswell Lead-a-Lator backstop. What do you want to know?

For those of you who are long time NRA members, you will be saddened to learn of the death of Mr. William C. Davis last Thursday (3/4/2010). Mr. Davis was the ballistics editor for "American Rifleman" for many years and probably was unsurpassed in his knowledge of the subject.

My desire for info stems from some unexplained large particle back-spatter from a new member-built backstop at our shooting club. . The backstop is hardened steel sloping 40° terminating in a 10" diam pipe. Bullets strike the plate, slide up into the pipe where they lose velocity, then drop back to the plate and slide down to the bottom. The backstop has been in use for about six months. Reports of significant back-splatter are sporadic but have been more frequent in the past two months.

This may be completely unrelated to your problem, but: our club has the same problem, which arose from the use of jacketed ammo. The jacketed ammo does put small dents in the backstop, so that when a soft lead bullet hits the dented area it may no longer be hitting a smoothly sloped surface but is instead hitting an irregular, splatter-producing surface.

We experience jackets separating and flying all over the place, but rarely all the way back to the firing line.

How sure are you the bullets are not hitting the end of the pipe(s)? I'm not sure what this set up looks like. Can you post a picture?

It is not necessarily the fired projectile that comes back.

Inspection of the projectile/splatter 'returning' from the backstop often reveals that it is not from the fired projectile - different materials and/or calibre; rather that it is from a projectile that was already in the backstop material.

From experience:

Soft bullets tend to mush into a sloping plate and follow the surface.
Hard bullets tend to bounce off.

Hard bullets will tend to peen a plate, even if sloping, so the plate will steadily dish.

We find jacket fragment all over our range (although they aren't permitted...) They are sharp enough and travel fast enough that they can spike themselves into the airlines.

Earlyriser wrote:For those of you who are long time NRA members, you will be saddened to learn of the death of Mr. William C. Davis last Thursday (3/4/2010). Mr. Davis was the ballistics editor for "American Rifleman" for many years and probably was unsurpassed in his knowledge of the subject.

My desire for info stems from some unexplained large particle back-spatter from a new member-built backstop at our shooting club. . The backstop is hardened steel sloping 40° terminating in a 10" diam pipe. Bullets strike the plate, slide up into the pipe where they lose velocity, then drop back to the plate and slide down to the bottom. The backstop has been in use for about six months. Reports of significant back-splatter are sporadic but have been more frequent in the past two months.

I remember being hit a couple of times by jackets the cause of which turned out to be some idiot shooting cheap ammo copper plated steel jacketed bullets at steel 50' away. What would likely help is to request that anyone reporting back-splatter to pick up and give you whatever it was they say came back. Solutions might become obvious from that.