Empty toilet paper rolls make great targets.

[fiasconva]

I may be setting myself up for ridicule here but with too much time on my hands I took some empty toilet paper rolls, punched a hole at one end, and put about 8" of string through it. I took my granddaughter to the range and hung 3 of them about 6" apart on the target frame. She had a ball shooting those things! Every time she hit one it would jump and dance. They made great reactive targets. She would start at one end and shoot each one and even hit a few when they were still swinging. We only shot them with the .22 but it was a challenge and a lot of fun. It's a great way to have fun and you have a never-ending supply of targets. Those things are tough and take a lot of pounding. Give it a try.

 

[DeathGrip]

No ridicule from me. You are having fun with your Granddaughter.

I'll bet she smiled ear to ear. Just like you.

 

[fordson]

Any time you make your granddaughter smile, it God telling you that you did good...

 

[Peak53]

You have a never ending supply of toilet paper?

 

[pasound]

So good to have fun plinking. I'm passing this idea on to friends who have the ability or space to go shooting.

 

[joe44va]

Got to be 30+ years ago; bought my son a Marlin model 60, 22 for his 10th birthday. Went to our plinking range with a bag of toilet paper centers, a few cans and some clays. He didn't want to quit. He shot a whole brick. He had blood coming out from under his trigger fingernail (that thing must have had a 20 pound pull) and was nothing but smiles. Fantastic memory.

 

[JJEH]

Can't they be "reloaded?" Maybe with some +p paper?

 

[ParadiseRoad]

...gotta use the roll for the same purpose as the paper these days...

 

[WardenRoss]

In the chain gang, you have to turn in the empty to get a new roll.

Just sayin!

 

[6518John]

I have now lived to see two things I never thought I would see—.22 ammo and toilet paper as valuables.

I could have envisioned gold or diamonds or sliver. But as one of my friends said “try to wipe with a diamond!”

 

[rwsmith]

I've always loved plinking....

Walk through the woods and practice on every pine cone and object I came across and even got good at it. Two houses I've lived in and could walk down the road out of the subdivision out of the town limits and plink. Not any more......houses, all over, acres and acres of them.

 

[sheepdawg]

But I've found that you can get one good wipe out of the empty cardboard roll.

 

[rwsmith]

If you cut it into quarters.......

But I've found that you can get one good wipe out of the empty cardboard roll.

.....you'll have eight ends to wipe with.

 

[mmb617]

Way back in the dark ages we used to go to the abandoned strip mines and shoot cans and bottles. Of course you can't do that anymore.

One day I got the bright idea to take some empty plastic water bottles to the range instead of just shooting paper all the time. I'd already asked if it was ok as long as I picked them up before I left. I set a couple of them up and started shooting at them with my .22 and none of them fell. I couldn't believe I was missing them all, so I walked up to check and the bullets were going through without knocking the bottles over. I never would have thought that if I hadn't seen it myself. The plastic is really thin but the bottles are also really light. I tried some heavier plastic bottles, like milk jugs, same result.

Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to see if 9mm will do the same or if it'll knock them down. Next trip I'll have to find out.

 

[Salty RI]

I used to fill them with water.

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk

 

[Shooting Padre]

New Targets

We are having some tough times now, but my Father and Mother in law really brought it home what that means.
Being depression era folks, everything was scarce and important to them, as I found out this day,

Dad had picked a watermelon early to see if it was ripe, it wasn't. He always rushed the fruit! My sons and I were dong some shooting and seen that melon just sitting there and decided as long as it wasn't ripe, we would re-purpose it as a reactive target. When done we were talking about how it blew up and mom happened to overhear us.

Her head snapped up and she remarked, "You're shooting food??!!

 

[Kinman]

I like the toilet paper tube idea. A friend of mine came up with a dandy to introduce his granddaughter to shooting. He took a piece of cardboard the size of a standard target and stapled blown up balloons to it. I thought it was genious, get her to shoot at the blue one, then the red one, etc. you could spot her shots on the cardboard. The other good thing is our range does not allow any target that cannot be easily picked up and nothing that could allow for a ricochet. It was easy to police up the broken balloon bits.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

Gotta ,make your own fun. It is the best kind.

 

[fiasconva]

Our indoor range is shut down until at least June 10th but as soon as it opens back up we'll be shooting some more of them. BTW, if you put a little food coloring in the water in those plastic bottles it makes it more interesting when they splatter.