Maintaining and Improving the Back Yard Range

After three seasons of almost daily use, the range got into really bad shape. Burlap targets left outdoors in the Northwest rain rotted out and/or were shot out. Also, I had to drop down to pretty light weight bows, and started to find arrows bouncing off of targets instead of going in. I decided to devote a week to improvments and updating...

Once a year, our local indoor range installs new large size plastic sheet bale target stops. The sell the ones that have had holes shot out where targets are normally mounted. Before selling them, the reband them so the unshot end, which is the narrow side is out and the steel bands are on the shot out or wide sides. I bought a couple. They were OK for closer shooting, but too narrow once I started moving out to some distance. I decided to rent a bander and reband them back to their full usable size, and then got cans of "Tough Stuff" spray in expandable polyurethane foam and filled in the shot out holes. Here's how that work, and the general range improvements, went...

 

Here is one of the large plastic layered target bales. You can see the marks where the range I bought it from used rebanded it. This was the "wide" side that faced the shooters. The narrow side was perfect and served me as a closer range target. Targets were normally mounted in pairs, one up and one down, and you could almost shove your fist through the shot out areas. Here I've inserted the long thin nozzle of a can of Tough Stuff and squirted about half the can in until the stuff started to come out. I found that one can did both of the holes in the bale.

 

 

As the stuff cured, it expanded and oozed out. This is looking down the side at one of the "burls" that formed...

 

I ruined a hand saw by cutting off this burl too soon... the inside was still soft and stuck to the saw blake so badly I decided it was easier to buy a new saw than clean this one up...

 

This is the next day. The foam has cured and I pinned my favorite burlap face, the bear, to the bale back at my longest backstop. I can shoot up to 30 yards to this target.

The "Block" target will, I think, go indoors. It was serving where the bear is while I got this work done.

 

 

I did some heavy pruning under this pine tree and cleared a path for another shot. The turkey you're looking at is one of the old rotted bags, but is ok for the moment. I am seriously thinking that this spot might be safe for a javelina 3D target... any ricochet shot would hit the fence to the right, or go out into my yard. An overshot would just go back to the bale the bear is on.

 

I went in under the tree and took a flash pic to give you a better idea...

 

Of course, while working on a range on a hot day, you have to take some breaks and shoot. After all, I had to make shure the foam inside the bale was fully cured... This was shot with a Rose Oak Puma... don't get too excited, it was only at 10 yards, but since the bow was new yesterday, I was darn pleased...

 

 

Note:

 

I'm far from done with this work... I'll be at it most of this week. I'll post the rest of the results when I finish.