I'm considering an indoor range

[Randino]

Since I am stuck in a subdivision, and the neighbors don't take kindly to me shooting my Air gun outside, I have been thinking about making a small range in my garage. We have a 3 car garage, is that enough space to shoot if its empty, and we have a good backdrop? If you happen to be wrong and I shoot up the house, I won't blame you, I've done it before, but with a smaller gun, when I was allot younger. I was doing it the wide way, not the long way, and I thought the insulation would be a good backdrop :emoticon:

Anywho What do you recommend as a backdrop? I was thinking a sheet of plywood, with some kind of padding in front, and a tray to catch the pellets, any geuss as to how long the tray should be?

Not that I want you to design the whole dang thing for me, I just want to make sure it's safe, and as I've never been to a real range, I can only geuss what will work.

Thanks guys, Randino

[Gene_SC]

Well I only have one thing to say about that indoor garage range.. I do my chrony testing in my two car garage and one day the two by four I use behind a thick pad with half inch plywood, a pellet from my Sumatra made its way through both of them and put a quarter size hole in my garage wall which has half inch press board on inside and outside.. I have fiberglass siding on outside so it was easy to fix but if you have stucco on the outside then it may not be so easy to repair.. Butt then again not everyone shoots a Sumatra in there garage either..

Good luck
Gene

[daved]

I was shooting in my 30x40 foot shop last winter.  End to end gave me a perfect 10 yard range.  Guns ranged from a Crosman 1377 to an RWS 350 .22.  My pellet trap is basically a box of 1 1/8" form board plywood.  The top is cut at an angle, (picture a cube cut in half from corner to corner) and I screwed on a piece of 3/8" thick aluminum that I had on hand.  I cut the angle at 45 degrees, if I were to do it again, I'd make it more box and less triangle, with the back at maybe 80 degrees.  Although my current design has held up fine to thousands of pellets, I think a straighter back would flatten and drop the pellets a little better.  Size is approx. 2x2x2, with a with a 2x4 on edge on the bottom as a lip to hold everything inside.  That last piece just got modified, I drilled some holes in the top to hold golf tees, add paintballs and you have a great alternative to paper punching :-).  You can either leave it open, or stuff it with rags, etc, to help soak up pellets.  At that range, I only missed the target once, and that was a lapse of judgment on my part: had my finger on the trigger before I was ready to shoot.  Fortunately, it was a low powered gun, and I just dented a roll up door, instead of putting a hole in it.  I'd still suggest a solid backstop, maybe a sheet of 1 1/8" plywood behind the pellet trap.  If you'd like more info, I'll try to take some pix later.  Later.

Dave

[Randino]

Yes, please some picks would be wonderful.

That paintball idea would be great. I stocked up on cheep paint a while ago, and all the balls are bad. At least I will have a use for them.

[daved]

Hey, Randy, here's those pictures of my pellet trap I promised.  Please disregard the target, I'd just moved my bench back to 45 yards, and it was windy.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it :-)!  The ruler at the bottom of the trap is 24" just to give you an idea of scale.  If you look at the side shot, you can see the short piece of aluminum in front of the back piece.  Remember what I said about the angle in my first post?  Because of that, the pellets were deflecting into that piece, and chewing the heck out of it.  I finally had to add that additional piece of aluminum to keep them from chewing right through.  Hope this helps, and if you have any more questions, you know how to reach me :-)!

Dave

[Rixtrix]

Wally World sells a metal pellet trap for $19.95 or less. I welded up one from scrap 14 guage sheet with the back at 60 degrees, but it was pretty noisy. I turned it upside down and lined it with ductseal(putty) from Home Despot( $2 a pound, Used 7 pounds) now it's pretty quiet. I don't use it indoors but I have a block wall around the yard, in case I would miss a 14" square box.

RiccG

[Skip]

Just another idea that works for me.

penatrate your garage walls get a bullet trap rated at least for 22LR. Then line the back stop with duct seal to quiet it own. This will give you a strong trap able to stop any airgun and quiet enough not to upset the neibors. For alarger backstop a 1/2 sheet of 5/8" plywood covered with a heavy rubber for a backer behind the trap(just in case you miss the large hole the target sits in front of. This setup shpuld handle just about any airgun you can think of. (the rubber is mainly to prevent bouncebacks from the plywood it should be a few inches(6"-8") in front of the wood).
Hope this helps.