This very useful heavy duty pellet trap was built by HAM Tester Doug Wall. It’s been “battle tested” by the HAM Team over many years and has emerged with colors flying. Here’s Doug to tell us about it…
If you go through all of the data that we’ve collected for various Hard Air Magazine articles and tables of data, you’ll come to the conclusion that we have fired many thousands of pellets downrange.
A lot of the common, lower powered guns get tested on our own indoor 10 Yard ranges and Steve’s 25-Yard range. The more powerful, and precise airguns need to be tested at longer ranges, as well as all of the HAM Ballistic Coefficient (BC) testing.
This gets done on the test range in my backyard. We have developed a “method” for this madness. By a lucky chance, we can shoot out of the back door of the garage, as far as 75 Yards.
The 25 Yard line is about at the end of the pool fence. The 50 Yard line is out to the beginning of the woods, and the 75 Yard line is at the furthest clear spot at the back of the woods.
We typically set up a shooting table just inside the back door of the garage, where we have the Labradar Doppler chronograph, and the shooting rest set up. Having the firing line inside the garage, we can avoid a lot of the weather problems that are common with outdoor firing lines. We avoid hot sun, cold winds, and any light precipitation that might be around.
This “home range” also overcomes the issue of Labradar being tripped from the sounds of firearms when testing a a public range.
The big issue is that this is my backyard, and I don’t want to have a bunch of permanent backstops set up, and I also want to minimize the lead going into the environment. Several years ago, I came up with a solution that works pretty well for us.
I went to a local steel supplier, and purchased a ¼-Inch thick steel plate, 14 x 24 Inches. I made a frame to mount it on out of some assorted 2x wood stock, and some assorted plywood scraps.
The back plate angles down onto a lighter steel plate that lines the lower inside back and bottom. There is a steel “skid plate” that goes from the lower front, backwards, to about 3” from the back plate.
The lower compartment is filled with some old plastic bags to prevent any bounce out. The front faces of the frame have some steel on them to catch any strays.
The actual “target area” for this is about 12 x 18 Inches, so as long as you’re reasonably well sighted in, it’s tough to miss!
I added some old lawn equipment wheels to make it easy to move. Also I gave the outside of the back steel plate a coating of spray, truck bed liner: this dampens any ringing sounds.
This target has been great! We were recently shooting a 0.30 cal. air rifle, with about 130 Ft/Lbs of Muzzle Energy into it, and it didn’t complain at all.
We have tested some more powerful big bore guns, but not into this target. With a 3/8-Inch thick back, it would probably handle those real powerhouses.
Doug, thanks for this description of your heavy duty pellet trap. I’m sure that the concept will be of interest to many HAM readers!
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it happens. 
