DIY Ghetto shooting tree

[Sasquatch]

(not sure what section this goes under, as the only other hands-on section is firearms)

I recently came into a bunch of small steel targets. I've already set up some on my range hanging from inner tubes (they can take a lot of hits, but I'll move to firehose soon).

But something I thought would be fun would be a plate rack (they have a single hole drilled in them), but before I do that I though I'd do a shooting tree.

This is a proof of concept, and it worked. I've got the plate bolted into a groove I cut in a piece of mild steel tube (blackpipe). On the other end I have a hold large enough for a piece of rebar to go into. I'll get a piece of angle iron to go in the front, but for now, I've got a couple of pieces of rebar to act as the stops on either swing.

It worked- we shot it from side to side. Some failings- the plate swings violently enough that it sometimes bounces off the opposite stop. I might have made it too slick as even a .22 can knock it around.

Repeated shooting loosened up the groove I had cut in the pipe. That will only get worse, so I need a different mounting system, or I need to beef this one up.

 

[NKD]

Neat. What if you welded a piece of angle over the tube. Giving it more mass may slow the swing. Just thinking out loud.

 

[GymB]

One trick for slowing it down and stopping the bounce is to file a depression into the pipe that you’ve got outside the rebar. The depression should be perpendicular to the shooter. This forces the mass of the target to go uphill a little and then drop down into position on the other side.

 

[Sasquatch]

Neat. What if you welded a piece of angle over the tube. Giving it more mass may slow the swing. Just thinking out loud.

Yep, that's the standard way people do these. Apparently there are kits where you do just that: https://www.amazon.com/AR500-Duelin...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JY4WAJ6KXR43M5K5GXTD

But- no welder (yet), and all those designs have the paddles with an L-shape. The angle iron in front will help. Slacker keeps telling me about this place that sells scrap, so I'll see if I can find a piece.

@JimB yep- I was thinking that as well, a slope/pin/ramp for it to have to fight uphill. Looking at the above designs, they did a simpler one- the tree is tilted forward so gravity always pulls it to one side or the other.