Bullet Trap

[Hippie]

I was thinking of making a bullet trap out of car tires stack on top of each other filled with sand. It will be used for handguns (44mag) at 50-75 yards.I what to be able to recover my lead bullets. I have a hill behind my shooting range but, the ground is so stony it makes recoverly difficult. Will I be wasting my time or should I go with making one out of steel?
                              Thanks   Hippie

[New Hampshire]

You could try this:  Collect a bunch of empty milk jugs.  Fill em up with water and stand them in line (you could make a frame if you need to to hold them.)  It will probably be easier to recover your bullets as with the sand you will obviously have to dig for them.   Im not sure, but maybe something square to hold the sand would be better.  I dont if hitting the rubber on the sides would cause the bulet to riccochet off and make it not recoverable.
Hope I gave ya some ideas,
Brian M.
P.S. I also remembered another good one, stacks of wet newspaper (again in a frame of some sort.)

[crawfish]

We use tire/sand barriers in all our shooting houses. They are very effective in stopping military small arms bullets. There are better ways to recover bullets, a 55gal durm full of water will work but a 300gal tank is much better. Wet newsprint and phonebooks are good also but a real pain to set up and don't last very long.

[dukkillr]

when you shoot a barrel or milk jug filled with water what do you do after a few shots when the water is running out the holes?  is there some trick to adding longevity to these stops?

[PaulS]

For a permanent bullet trap for your handguns have a 24 h x 24 w inch square box that is 36 inches front to rear on the bottom with a 45 degree slope on the back. It should be made of 1/2 inch T-1 steel and with full welded seams. You sould weld it to another box that is 6" h x 24" w x 12" deep with the back welded to the bottom of the 45 degree slope and a floor welded from the front bottom of the top box to the front top of the bottom box. the bottom box will have a floor welded in place of the same 1/2 metal plate.

Your fired rounds will follow the slope into the bottom box where you can pick (dump) them out later. You can't use a trap like this to do anything but recover the bullets for re-use after smelting - you wont be able to test for expansion or penetration. If you want to do that you will need a Fackler box or something similar.

PaulS

[crawfish]

The milk jugs are one shot deals mostly, you may get a few with long range .22lr stuff but not anything else.  The 55 gal drum is set on it's side and filled from the side almost full the pistol is fired through an opening in the top of the removable top Just like a water filled catch box only smaller. This is also for low end stuff. Be advised I have been told that hunting power 250g .41RemMag stuff WILL hit the bottom of a swimming pool with enough force to cause cracks in SIX FEET OF WATER!!!! Haven't seen this myself but have no reason to disbelieve the person who told me. If you really, really want to recover your bullets you need this stuff  http://www.corbins.com/sim-test.htm .Kind of pricey but will within the reach of a few shooters who pool their money.

[volshooter]

Call me cheap but I use a pile of sand to recover my bullets. Handgun rounds won't travel far in sand and sifting it with 1/2 hardware wire will get all the bullets back. I use a couple of cross ties (3 sides) to hold the sand. If you want to recast with the spent ones the sand embedded in the lead will float to the top. When I was a army brat I spent many hours sifting through uncle sam's sand pile on base. I still have several buckets of spent bullets.
Rick