What targets do you use?

Just a short intro ... I’m just getting back into muzzleloading after many years. I hope to be entertained by shooting targets as hunting will be somewhat limited. So, while waiting to get my gun in and working (32 cal Crockett), I’ve been working on my shooting range. It steps off at 80 yds max.

I need a metal plate hanging from a chain as getting that sound back of the ball hitting steel is a fun target. But for now I’m going to shoot ‘long necks’. I may regret the broken glass mess but think it will be manageable. As I guessed I visited a local restaurant and found many empty longnecks.

What do you use?

I'd leave the long necks behind the restaurant. As much fun as it is to see a target react, the cleaning up of the broken glass is not a chore I would like to do.

I use the steel targets at my gun club or the paper targets to assess accuracy.

IMO: Pass on the glass.

Green, it’s apparent you don’t live as deep in the country as I do. While I agree cleaning up the broken glass is not a pleasant job, it is however a 10 minute job annually.

And at 80 yards if I break one it’s likely to be the ‘other’ bottle

Yeah, I wouldn't be shooting glass either.
Leave the bottles for recycle and buy a bag of balloons and a staple gun.
You can blow up the balloons big for rookies or leave'm small for pro's.
If there's a breeze,(always) you can put the balloon on a string,, hit that!

Just my thoughts, I would not use your back-stop. To easy to send a ball over the top and lots of open space for the ball to get into trouble. When I was a kid shot lots of glass, ok back them not now. I shoot clay birds to see things break and also shoot and see targets. The clay birds just rake them up and junk them. Keeps my shooting area clean.

I haven’t broken a one as yet and I’m sure you’re all right. There’s nothing good that can come from leaving broken glass on the ground and it could be years after I’m dead and gone that some child steps on a piece of glass that I left.

I’ll abandon that idea and get my local welding shop to help me make a metal target.

Thanks!

Broken is ALWAYS a problem!

But when I was 16/17 yrs old we could shoot at the city dump and had the pick of colorful bottles. Of course I spent more time road hunting than shooting bottles anyway.

With a 32 Crockett, if you want reactive targets, here a a couple of suggestions, eggs, golf balls, the little blue rocks for bb/pellet guns. Set them up somewhere between 25 and 50 yards and have fun or if you want a real challenge and not hit many try 100 yards. All three are not much bigger than a squirrel head so would give a practical hunting size target.

Gowacky said:

I haven’t broken a one as yet and I’m sure you’re all right. There’s nothing good that can come from leaving broken glass on the ground and it could be years after I’m dead and gone that some child steps on a piece of glass that I left.

I’ll abandon that idea and get my local welding shop to help me make a metal target.

Thanks!

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Clay birds are fun and easily to rake up if you want too.

This, if you want to shoot the glass, just lay an old tarp down under your targets, when done fold it up and dump in the trash. I don't shoot glass, but I see no harm in it. To each his own I guess. Could be a stray shard of glass could get in your wood pile and come back to bite you tough. Safest is to not shoot it I guess. Your call.
Ah, shooting at the dump, now there is a fond memory you brought back. Shot the rats too! LOL
As you already know from earlier posts I am getting ready to shoot at AR500 steel targets.

Kansas Jake said:

With a 32 Crockett, if you want reactive targets, here a a couple of suggestions, eggs, golf balls, the little blue rocks for bb/pellet guns. Set them up somewhere between 25 and 50 yards and have fun or if you want a real challenge and not hit many try 100 yards. All three are not much bigger than a squirrel head so would give a practical hunting size target.

Click to expand...

All good suggestions, but my favorite on a range with my small calibers are charcoal briquettes. Nice black cloud when you connect and zero cleanup.

Gowacky said:

I haven’t broken a one as yet and I’m sure you’re all right. There’s nothing good that can come from leaving broken glass on the ground and it could be years after I’m dead

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Good, If your gonna use cord wood for a back stop,, at least make it a full cord and 2 cords deep

Several really good steel vendors around.
I bought several sets of steel from shootingtargets7.
He is a vet and a really ice guy.
I do enjoy the sound of steel.
Pay heed to how you hang them, a wrong way can be painful.

Post it notes stick to alot of stuff, come in tiny to half page size and many neat colors. My site in go to. Or a piece of side walk kids chalk you can draw your sized circle on a tree , box, what have you. The charcoal sounds fun! IMHO yer crocket will struggle at 80 yds for accuracy so yer range is great.

On occasion we’ll have a novelty shoot. It’s a BYO target’s. Always a great time full of fun and laughs!

Some of the targets I’ve seen in the past are.
1. Empty snuff tobacco cans filled with flower dangling from strings.
2. The Charcoal Brickett’s hanging from a string like BB had already mentioned.
3. Plastic Armymen on skewers stuck in the ground.
4. Colored dots, playing cards, and about anything you could imagine taped to a target backboard.
5. Water bloon’s.
6. AR 500 steel target’s of various sizes and various ranges hung on steel shepherds hooks that one would hang plants on.
7.Axe head stuck in a slice of log exposing the blade. On each side of the blade there’s a clay pigeon on each side. Objective is to split the ball on the blade and break both pigeons at once.

Anyway, you get the idea? Let your imagination be the guide ??

Always a great time!

Respectfully, Cowboy

Baby aspirin at 50 yards works well. That way after you get a headache from trying to see and hit them, you can just walk down and swallow a couple to make your headache yo away.

I shoot mostly paper, but have a few novelties thrown in from time to time.
Most important reason I don't shoot glass is I use a 4 layer 2X backstop to reclaim all my lead balls. I don't want a bunch of glass down there where I kneel.