1/2" AR 500 is pretty good stuff! I have 3/8 AR 500 and they hold up very well to 223 and 308. In some zeroing of a 308 a bullet hit near the holes for hanging at 25 yards and dented it. Mine are a little soft for an inch around the holes. At 50 and 100 yards no problems at all. I haven't tried the 338 Lapua at all yet.
My brother and I are retired from various real estate ventures and have several sign frames! I've been using chain clevis pins to hold the gongs on the frames. They are hardened and withstand the splatter, but will be cut like butter by a direct hit for the first few hundred yards! One range I shot at was/is using 1" AR 500 or 550 targets, these held up to anything short of 50 Browning at point blank and are 50 Browning rated at 100 yards. He used to use grade 8 bolts to hang the targets, but those shatter with a direct hit at 400 yards or less with a 308 (Did I do that? yes you did, NOW STOP IT). Now he uses a hook to hang most plates, the hook is protected with a shield of armor that he is in the process of patenting, but not yet marketing!
On Martin Luther King day 2011, I was shooting with friends and was shooting at a plate we call "The Cigarette Pack" at 500 yards. I had already hit a 8" circle and a 5" circle, now was the 2 by 3 inch rectangle. In Ohio we get a January thaw most years and that year was no different. I hit the cigarette pack with a 338 Lapua, I heard a weird clang/clunk noise and couldn't find the target in my scope. I looked at my spotter and he was laying the beside me just shaking he was laughing so hard. In gasps he said to look at the target, I said, I tried and couldn't find it. He said look up hill on the backstop. Then I found the target still connected to the steel post, that had been concreted in the ground and with about a 2 foot ball of concrete still attached, drug back and up a 45 degree slope about 15 or 20 feet. By the next official shoot at the end of the month he had repaired that target, but was trying a different method of suspension!
On plates of the same thickness, small plates suffer more damage at the same distance. At least they cost the least! I total I have 3- 10", 1-6", 3-4" and 2 -2" plates and pick up 1 or 2 more every chance I get! A 2" plate at 300 yards is a 1/3 MOA target. 1/3 to 1/2 MOA is the standard to practice with, but you haven't started working the wind until 600 or 800 yards. It is hard to find safe places to shoot that kind of distances!
Hope this helped,
Ivan
