Favorite Target Ideas.

[Ivan the Butcher]

These have all been pistol targets, and not a thing wrong with that. But for 22 rifles or center fire rifles at longer distances: Cheese-it crackers at 100 yards (much closer without a scope). Dark construction paper with 25 aspirin tablets hot glued to it @ 25 meters (makes small white cloud when hit). For a hard target: light colored M&M's @ 100 for rimfire and @ 200 for centerfire. Use a piece of electric conduit as a Tee with a paintball on it (usually a row of 10). And the hardest that I ever saw: 1' block of 2x4, 10 spaced 1/8" holes with strike anywhere kitchen matches. Now light the matches with your 22, now blow them out, now cut off at the top edge of the block.Start at 25 yards and repeat at 10 additional yard increments. (Works best with no limits on gun or ammo, but establish handicaps with distance) (tip: drill several rows of holes in each block as they hard to get matches out of)

Handicaps and "Classes" can be established by limiting the gun and ammo quality. For example, a stock out of the box semi auto, or Bolt action 22 that retail for a limit. An Ammo handicap could be everybody shoots the same bulk pack of ammo. Scope power can be limited or not.

The whole idea is to help teach people (grandkids) to shoot better, not show off! Tiny targets result in the old adage; Aim small, Miss small! (light colored cardboard make a good backer to see misses, but no backer is for advanced shooters.
Have fun. Ivan

 

[rwsmith]

Small plastic pop bottles.....

Fill them with water and they make a nice reaction. for my 30-06 I like filling a gallon milk jug full of water and playing 'Taliban'. I always clean up my mess.

 

[feralmerril]

Necco candy waffers. Bright colors, no mess, varmints and birds probley love the any chips and they would melt with the first rain anyway.

 

[Mike McLellan]

For a challenge, I have my son launch a marble up in the air with his sling-shot. The bullet shatters the glass marble into a cloud of dust. I've never hit one, but if I ever do, I'll post a picture.

 

[G-Mac]

You can go on "safari" with animal crackers.

 

[Frank237]

Many years back a friend of mine who was a chef had two cases of BIG cans, the size of a gallon paint can...full of spoiled/out of date, tomato sauce.

He and I took them out to some forest land the top of Mc Donald pass outside of Helena. We had snow on the ground and put a can on a fence post and got back a hundred yds or so.

A .25-06 with 87 gr bullets at 3K+ REALLY exploded them.

We cleaned up the cans, took them all home and forgot about the day.

Few days later I find out the Fish & Game was investigating the SLAUGHTER of an elk herd up on the Pass! Seems someone flying over saw the red on the snow, and assumed it was BLOOD.

I always think of that incident when I try to get CREATIVE with targets.

I'll vote....STEEL PLATES for my current favorites.

 

[Old Corp]

Need a REALLY accurate scoped .22 for this, but a friend had a CZ .22 rifle with a 6-18x scope on it. We pressed #209 shotshell primers into a sheet of cardboard and shot from a rest at about 40 yards.

A good, solid center hit on a primer resulted in a nice small explosion and a ~1" hole in the cardboard. Fun.

 

[ky wonder]

we never throw away our empty plastic milk containers, rinse them out and store them in a large trash bag, then on range day we fill them with water and food coloring , little ones are for shooting up close with and the gallon jugs are used on the rifle range.

colored water, and hydraulic pressure always gets a wow factor

ever see a one pint milk jug totally disappear, cap a full one with a 44 mag at 15 yds , i am still looking for the last one i shot

 

[brucev]

My number one all time favorite target for handguns is a used harrow blade. Spray paint it white using flat appliance paint. Two or three light coats works best. Step back and take aim at the axle hole. Fire away. Bullets that go through the hole simply impact the backstop. Bullets that impact the blade leave a little black/grey splat mark. Photograph the group w/ your cell phone camera. Spray paint the impact marks. Step back and repeat. I've shot thousands of rounds of standard and magnum handgun ammunition into such blades. Over the years I had one, which was rather thin, start to crack from the axle hole. After about 2,000 rounds of .40 S&W, it broke. The next plate I used was thicker. After three years of shooting, it was still in fine condition.

If you want to shot a harrow blade with a rifle, it will probably work out fine as the plate is tempered steel and the bullets are simply lead w/ a gliding metal jacket. I can't say that a rifle bullet will not pierce a harrow blade. Sooner or later it just may break the blade, but it will not likely pierce the blade. For common soft-point hunting bullets, the blade works well. Firing at distances beyond 100 yds., it is quite likely that you will never actually wear the blade out. For smaller calibers such as the 5.56mm round, even loads using a steel penetrator are unlikely to do anything more than merely leave a little smear on the metal.

Another good target is to take balloons and put some water into them, then inflate in the normal way and tie off the bottom. Throw them out on a farm pond and let the wind push them. Back off a goodly distance and try to hit them. Moving targets are always a challenge. Shooting w/ a .22 LR rifle or handgun you'll rapidly learn to allow for wind, movement, etc.

A final suggestion. Take an old tire and put a piece of thin paneling in the middle. Spray paint the paneling tan. Roll the tire down a hill and try to hit the brown paneling. This is a good way to force youself to learn to shoot running deer. Standard issue deer are usually a brown/tan color, and they never come with little bullseyes on their side. If you can get used to hitting the tan center of a rolling tire, you will be well ahead of things when you need to shoot a deer that has turned on the after burners.

 

[zonker5]

Another good moving target is a balloon attached to a radio controlled car.

For police training I have seen them attach 2 balloons of different color; one is the hostage the other the bad guy. Trying to hit one while not hitting the other is difficult.

 

[shouldazagged]

Another good target is to take balloons and put some water into them, then inflate in the normal way and tie off the bottom. Throw them out on a farm pond and let the wind push them. Back off a goodly distance and try to hit them. Moving targets are always a challenge. Shooting w/ a .22 LR rifle or handgun you'll rapidly learn to allow for wind, movement, etc.

You might want to be extra careful with that. My brother was shooting a .22 rifle at a moving target on a pond (muskrat, they were burrowing into the dam and threatening to drain the pond). Two ricochets went through the roof shingles of a house some distance away. Could have been a hell of a lot worse, but the guy who lived in the house was not thrilled.

A .22LR bullet can and will ricochet off water it hits at a shallow angle.

 

[walkin jack]

Pretty common but bowling pins are a lot of fun. Depending upon your proximity to a bowling alley they can be easy to come by.

But my very favorite is and old junk car, truck or van. Ideally with all its glass and tires intact. A few summers ago be and my 2 BILs and 3 nephews chipped in 10 bux apiece and got an old Chevy Caprice from the early '70s. No motor in it but it was all there except for that.

One of my nephews is married to the daughter of a deputy sheriff. He borrowed his FILs full auto M-16.

When we were done we sold the remains for scrap. Got 70 bux for it. I call that some good cheap fun. ('Cept for the cost of the hundreds or rounds of ammo we went through)

 

[Kinman]

Call me an old Fuddy-Duddy but I still think trying to tear all the black out of 3" NRA bull at 25 yards offhand with my muzzleloader is alot of fun. There are six bulls on the target, the first is for practice, the rest are shot in series with a best of 50-5X. Thats the easiest way to score but often we shoot five shots at each bull...its a rare day when someone can put five shots in all five bulls...the X is about a half inch across on that target.
The problem I see with putting cans and stuff out for targets is that many people just leave that stuff behind when they are through. I used to like to blow up gallon milk jugs full of water, often you had to hunt around for chunks. I'd have to say that if I had to choose a "garbage" style target I would have to go with the gallon milk jug.

 

[GaryS]

Call me an old Fuddy-Duddy but I still think trying to tear all the black out of 3" NRA bull at 25 yards offhand with my muzzleloader is alot of fun.

THIS is the important part. It's what you think is fun. It's also what gets new shooters to think it's fun.

For new shooters, I use 9" paper plates. It seems to take a lot of stress away when I tell them all that they have to do is put holes anywhere on the paper plate and it's good shooting.

We can work on tightening up groups if they come back for a second session.

 

[cass]

If you live near St Louis, you might enjoy popping looters tonight !

 

[Straightshooter2]

Political signs picked up the day after elections. Gets trash off the road and serves a useful purpose.

CW

 

[g8rb8]

Another one we like during the winter months is 1 gallon plastic milk jugs full of frozen water. A center hit with a center fire rifle gives a good show. Shoot from 50 yards because the ice chips fly a bit.
John
Scoundrel and Ne'er-Do-Well in Training

 

[brucev]

You might want to be extra careful with that. My brother was shooting a .22 rifle at a moving target on a pond (muskrat, they were burrowing into the dam and threatening to drain the pond). Two ricochets went through the roof shingles of a house some distance away. Could have been a hell of a lot worse, but the guy who lived in the house was not thrilled.

A .22LR bullet can and will ricochet off water it hits at a shallow angle.

You are certainly correct regarding the potential of ricochets. When we have shot balloons on the pond, we have always directed our fire away from the houses. There is nothing out beyond the pond except lot of woods and swamp.

 

[Engineer1911]

Political signs picked up the day after elections. Gets trash off the road and serves a useful purpose.

CW

Elections are usually on Tuesday, Polls close at 7:00 or 8:00 PM. Start your harvest at 7:05 or 8:05 PM for the best picking. In 2012 I harvested nine 4' X 8' plastic board campaign sheets. I believe that will last my lifetime.