Trying to get bullet holes to cut cleanly in paper

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ShootingNewbie

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Hi - does anyone here have some wisdom they can impart about how to get the cleanest bullet holes possible when shooting at paper?

I'm currently using both printer paper and official benchrest targets, which is on pretty heavy paper stock, and both give a couple of mm's of ragged edges around each bullet hole - which makes it hard to measure group size.

I've done a bit of googling, and the best-sounding approach I've come across so far involves gluing the paper target to a cardboard backer, which I can see making sense, but is a bit more work.

(The worst-sounding approach involved hanging the paper in a tank with hydrochloric acid in the bottom of it, and letting the fumes "eat away" the paper to make it more brittle. What could go wrong there???)

Any other ideas (that preferably don't involve acids)?
 
you need a wadcutter bullet or a bullet with a little ledge. everything else will tear holes.

if you want to work with the paper then it needs to be as hard and brittle as possible. not sure how you can achieve that though
 
ShootingNewbie said:
Hi - does anyone here have some wisdom they can impart about how to get the cleanest bullet holes possible when shooting at paper?

I'm currently using both printer paper and official benchrest targets, which is on pretty heavy paper stock, and both give a couple of mm's of ragged edges around each bullet hole - which makes it hard to measure group size.

I've done a bit of googling, and the best-sounding approach I've come across so far involves gluing the paper target to a cardboard backer, which I can see making sense, but is a bit more work.

(The worst-sounding approach involved hanging the paper in a tank with hydrochloric acid in the bottom of it, and letting the fumes "eat away" the paper to make it more brittle. What could go wrong there???)

Any other ideas (that preferably don't involve acids)?
Click to expand...

Instead of gluing paper to cardboard, go buy yourself a stapler from Canadian Tire or other source

Need cardboard, go around on recycling day and pickup some TV boxes, cut to size

As one of my co-workers said, this ain't NASA
 
Just use thick paper

You can tell how thick the paper is by comparing the number of sheets to copy paper thickness.

I get 200 sheets and it's almost as thick as 500 sheets of photo copy paper.
 
As previously mentioned, use stiff, fairly thick paper, card stock might work well. It must fit as close as possible to the backing plywood or cardboard. That is your target prep, the rest of the story, as already mentioned, lies with the bullet. Bullets with a pointed or rounded nose will not easily cut a clean hole. This is why wadcutter and semi-wadcutter bullets exist, to make clean holes that are easier to score. Even then nifty little tools are in use to exactly center the hole and magnify it for the most precise scoring. One of these scoring gauges in the appropriate calibre will work with any target medium.
 
Biff Chillington said:
Just use a hand held hole punch, it's just like the three hole punch but it does them one at a time.
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That makes really nice looking groups... it's been done that way many times...

I remember working at Uptown Sporting goods back in 68/69. The owner of the store was a very rich German... the manager of the store was supposed to test a .308 Norma Magnum of the owner over the weekend... Monday morning, Carlo phoned and said he would be in to pick up the rifle in the afternoon... and Gunther had forgot to shoot it over the weekend... we hurriedly made up a few targets cutting holes with a sharpened neck of a case... and feathering and roughing the edges with a lead pencil. One looked better than the others and passed the test...
 
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stampede said:
Here it is against the law to take anything from recycling boxes.
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What ??? Is it ???

Those trash pandas really like the green bins !!

Is it legal to take and shoot liberal signs ? Asking for a friend... no face on it of course that would lead to homicidal tendencies :rolleyes:

I would try the thick paper. I like b
ringing steal and am not to worried about ragged holes.

Good luck shooting :)
 
Ok, I guess I'll try the glue approach with either cardboard or coreplast - have some of that around from various projects.

Just one more thing to add to the list of pre-pre-range trip activities... sigh. :mad:

Thanks all for the suggestions!
 
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