New member with a question for target gurus, wanting to make a couple of gongs for my wife and I to shoot at but not sure what is not enough or to much plate thickness. Right now we are shooting 6.5 creedmore and .270 win and 22lr. Any insight is appreciated thanks.
Shooting Gongs
- Thread starter rgp11
- Start date
For 22lr, you'd be fine with 1/4" thick AR400/500. For 6.5cm and .270 win, you'd want at least 3/8", ideally 1/2" AR500, and you don't want to shoot them at less than 100 yards or so. Don't make gongs out of soft steel, you'll blow holes through them, or they'll crater and end up sending ricochets back in all kinds of weird directions.
It's a type/brand name of steel, the 500 implies 500 Brinell hardness. Hardox 500 is similar. There might be a generic designation, not sure.
But yeah, most places will know what you want if you tell them AR500 or Hardox 500.
You aren't going to be making your own steel gongs. Anything less than AR400/500 will not survive more than a few hits and AR400/500 is not something you can drill through with common hand tools.
Go to Cabelas and just buy yourself a few gongs. If you wait for them to go on sale they can be had for quite reasonable prices.
I made mine out of the crusher plates from an assay a lab rock crusher.
They are chrome moly steel, 30mm thick 9" x 11" and each weighs 35 lbs.
7.62x39 steel core ball out if an SKS at 100 yards does not even scratch it.
Know any mining engineers or geologists?
They are chrome moly steel, 30mm thick 9" x 11" and each weighs 35 lbs.
7.62x39 steel core ball out if an SKS at 100 yards does not even scratch it.
Know any mining engineers or geologists?
Cabelas
They go on sale, gong and stand, for huge % off retail a couple times a year. I bought 3, and they were all under $60 each. Also bought 4-6-8" gongs there for similar sale, but had to make the stands.
With hunting seasson starting up, dont expect any sales till later in year.
As mentioned, AR400/500 is what you want - your rifles wont even make a dent in that steel at 200yds.
They go on sale, gong and stand, for huge % off retail a couple times a year. I bought 3, and they were all under $60 each. Also bought 4-6-8" gongs there for similar sale, but had to make the stands.
With hunting seasson starting up, dont expect any sales till later in year.
As mentioned, AR400/500 is what you want - your rifles wont even make a dent in that steel at 200yds.
I found that Cabelas steel doesn't last long and the hanger loops typically break, so I don't trust they are actually AR400/500 steel. You are better off just ordering from Prairie Precision Steel or a reputable company. We have around $2000 worth of steel from PPS and don't have target or hanger failures.
AR500 is the cats pyjamas. But that being said, we've been running AR400 at our local range at 200 yards for 6 months now and they seem to be holding up well. We went with AR400 (1/2"? Or was it 5/8"?) because it is free for us. It's used in the building/rebuilding of haul truck boxes and one of the local shops (thanks SMS!) was nice enough to cut and supply targets at no cost to us. We built a "Know Your Limits" and hung a 12", 10", 8", 6", 4", and 2" target using old 2.5" canvas firehose
Attachments
Cabelas targets are meant for personal ranges, not commercial. I too have noticed that they are not as good as high end AR500 but then they are a lot cheaper, so one can have a lot more targets for the same price. If one is careful about the ammo shot at the targets, the Cabelas stuff is fine. The $100 sale price of the C-zone target plus its stand is considerably less than it would cost to build your own hanger/stand and buy the plate.
- Location
- ON, North of GTA
And for cheap and easy gong hangers
Donny Fenn1
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- East Kootenays
Prairie precision Steel out of Maple Creek, SK can set you up. Bonus he's a big supporter of the shooting sports and Canadian obviously. I don't think I've had a Cabela's target last a season of personal shooting use (at least centerfire).
