I'm looking for ideas on a bullet trap for low-velocity stuff like muzzleloaders. Simple DIY options are on the table, as are commercially-made products. My objective is mostly to just reuse some of the lead that I sling around my property with minimal effort in the recovery. I have some very crude welding skills. What have others done?
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Bullet Traps
- Thread starter Nuthatch
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Here is a post I did a while back about a trap I designed and built. This may be a little beyond your skills and also the equipment you have access to. At the time I was shop foreman in a large steel fabrication company and so had access to any equipment I needed.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/steel-bullet-trap.115488/
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/steel-bullet-trap.115488/
5 gallon bucket filled with sand. I like wet sand.
appalichian hunter
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Angled piece of 1/2 inch steel and a sand box under the angle.
ohio ramrod
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A simple frame with a heavy plate of steel at a 45 degree angle down into sand or wet newspaper if above freezing.
Looks doable. I might build it at about half the size -- 1' instead of 2' opening. Probably wouldn't look as good either. But that's never stopped me. Thanks.
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I use slices of large diameter Poplar log and shoot parallel with the grain. Lots of bullets can be recovered when splitting it up and those missed will wind up as lead nuggets in the wood stove's ash pan and are easily separated from the ash.
user 48702
Richard Turner
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I use 55 gallon drums so I don't loose any lead
user 48702
Richard Turner
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A friend bought an old track loader bucket for scrap price at the junk yard. He adjusted the angle of the bucket, tack welded a 3/16" steel plate across the lower half the bucket, then filled with sand. Works just like one of the smaller .22 bullet traps.
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I should build one. But it gives me an excuse to use my metal detector. Do it maybe once a year, now I pretty much know where to look.
Looks good what is the angle of sides and top and bottom
55 gallon drum. fill with rubber mulch that is made from shredded tires. cover & secure top. (I have a tractor with a front end loader to help me lift it up & down), shoot, change out the top as needed. Empty annually to recover lead.
You'd be amazed at what sand can stop. I have access to one that is only 10in thick and it will stop a full house 45/70 and I don't mean factory loads either. That's the really hot stuff that will wreck anything under a Ruger #1. It stops everything I shoot into it with black powder.
rafterob
62 Cal.
If you can find the square shaped 5 gallon plastic buckets. Cut a rectangular opening in one side and use duct tape to mount some old inner tube material on the inside to cover the opening. Fill with sand.
Johnny Tremain
Silversmith in training
A bucks head
THE_LAST_WORD
40 Cal
the rubber mulch can be bought at lowes and homd depot now days. i built a box out of 2x4 and 1/2severe weather plywood. box dimensions 1ft square by 3.5ft long and it takes 6 .8cu ft rubber mulch to fill it. leave one facing without plywood on either end and get a mud flap from a semi-trailer and screw it onto that side. that is the side you shoot. nothing short of a .50bmg can get through that rubber mulch. 300 blackout at point blank is stopped utterly. and when you need to retrieve lead unscrew the mud flap , empty everything and remove the rubber and place it back into the box, you got lead left enjoy.
secondary barricades: take a steel door and cut it in half, take 2x4 wood and put the 3.5inch side between the doors making a space between , 3.5inches, on three sides add rubber mulch into the space after screwing the door halves to it. each door makes one barricade i made one for each side of the box.
the barricades are good to stop anything 300ft lbs or less so it will catch riccochets and flyers. but nothing i know of will get out of the box anyway, and after about 500 shots in the bullseye area you may need a new mud flap. they go for $15 each on ebay.
enjoy. ive shot my box a hundred times and cannot even feel the place all those leads hit. its like an indestructable box.
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2 4X4 posts dug into the ground. A backstop of P.T. lumber, 22" X 40" wide, 4 layers thick. Rear layer is 2X8's horizontal, followed a layer of 2X6's vertical. Then repeated two more layers. Each layer screwed with decking screws. Thats room for three paper targets stapled side by side but spaced apart.
Roundball rarely reach beyond the face of the third layer. When it gets too shot up, say 150-200 shots, I unscrew where needed and replace a board. The lead falls out and is easily collected.
Helps being in construction and I can get all the sizeable P.T. scrap I could ever use for free. The 125 lbs. of lead I play with gets cleaned up and used over and over again. I'll never have to scrounge new lead again.
Roundball rarely reach beyond the face of the third layer. When it gets too shot up, say 150-200 shots, I unscrew where needed and replace a board. The lead falls out and is easily collected.
Helps being in construction and I can get all the sizeable P.T. scrap I could ever use for free. The 125 lbs. of lead I play with gets cleaned up and used over and over again. I'll never have to scrounge new lead again.
Only caution is using steel. Angle it to deflect projectiles into the ground (like 45 degrees). Steel of most types will eventually "dimple". Shot straight-on, stuff can come back right at you - especially jacketed. Show photos, folks, please.
THE_LAST_WORD
40 Cal
that fact is already ubderstood and is part of sop when using steel barricade.
