Homemade Steel Target Help

[wiuprof]

Then there's nobody to complain if a bullet ricochets and hits the back of the house. Those plates seem awfully close to me. Every 3-gun competition I've been to involved me getting splashed with shot, even when standing 50yds away.

That said, I'd take your backyard over mine any day. "Thou shalt not covet thine neighbor's wife, nor his car, nor his backyard steel target range."

I've never had problems with ricochets. Shooting a flat steel plate (no pock marks) without a right angle base has nothing coming back. I've put a board beneath the 7 yard square plate and shot it with 45 acp and 40 s&W splatter radiates out 360 degrees with a large flat chunk of lead falling on the board. I shoot no magnum rounds or centerfire rifle loads at any of the targets out to 50 yards. Steel is hanging at 150, 200, 300 and 400 yards. It gets hit with centerfire rifle rounds. I have shot cowboy action rifle loads at the 50 yard poppers and the 8" square, but that's with cast bullets in 38, 44 and 45.

The only matches I've been to where splatter was an issue was with poorly designed steel targets. A base welded on at a right angle will cause some splatter to come back at the shooter. It's physics. Pock marked targets are problematic at close range as well. The bullet goes into the cavity and some spits back at you. Like shooting a high pressure hose into an open bucket..... you're gonna get wet. My flat steel plates are on shepherd's hooks and the bullet splatters tiny bits 360* and a chunk of lead drops to the ground.