"I" beams to hold plates.

[oddjob]

We had a match yesterday where the "I" beams were sideways to the shooter to hold the plates. The last shooter caught a dime size jacket into his abdominal area 2" deep. The Dr. stated no big deal, stiches and sent the shooter home from the hospital. Point is if you use the "I" beam make sure the "I" is facing the shooter. FYI only.........

[shred]

Any right angles seem to cause splatter to come back the shooter's way. It seems to follow flat surfaces very well.

[EricW]

The two best solutions I've seen are rebar and 4x4 posts. Yeah the posts get chewed up, but it's better than needing kevlar jammies.

[warpspeed]

One more reminder that it is important to be wearing saftey glasses and not just glasses.

[SVI4ME]

Oddjob

I want your kevlar for the next match. My mom bout shit when I told her I was shooting another match sunday. If that chunk went down a foot my wife would left or up a foot I would have had some real trouble in the neck or face.

And the Dr used staples, not stitches. They are gonna hurt like hell when they pull them in 2 weeks. But the Vicodine is great.

DO NOT SHOOT AT I-BEAMS. Makes them damn bullets make a U turn right back at ya.

Rob

[Shooter Grrl]

OH SHIT ROB - are you okay?

[SVI4ME]

I am sore as hell now. I got 6 staples in my belly. Good thing I got some padding or it would have been in the muscle and that would have been bad.

Mark got me to the hospital in a hurry and I didn't spill a drop of blood in my truck.

Thanks Kat for asking

[oddjob]

I will have to state that Rob did not sign his score sheet....., but we gave him the score anyway.......(didn't help him any).............If the jacket hit a foot lower ya gotta say this Rob......In the words of Lee Marvin in the movie the "Big Red One"....thats why God gave you two of those.............If it hit the other....."Go to the bull pen.......give me a right hander!!!!!"

[Shooter Grrl]

No blood in the truck is good Were you at Oakdale? Tis the wrong weekend for VPS?!? (Thinking of times to hospital, Oakdale fast, VPS too far from anything)

[Sterling White]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

[tightloop]

Been there done that, twice. Once in the left thigh, another in the left arm. I am not a big fan of steel closer than 12 yds.

glad you are ok

[SVI4ME]

Thanks all

It was VPS. We are on the second Sunday now.

Hell of a long drive to Manteca in a Chevy heavy Half ton at 90 + down country roads.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Back in 1983 or so, we set up a course on our new range (enclosed ranges so we could shoot 180 degrees, yeehaa!) that was close-range hosing all the way. Shooters negotiated hallways of plywood, and shot past obstacles of hay bales. No shot was farther than five yards except for our new stop plate (hand-timed with stopwatches back then, doncha know) which was a grand six yards out. The first shooter through (the stage designer, Jim Bevins, all of 5" 3" and 120 lbs) hosed like mad and whacked the stop plate. And dropped like Rhino had fallen on him.

The new plate, with its beautiful triple-pass weld and flat foot, had directed a nickel-sized chunk of lead right to his solar plexus.

After that we used steel and stop plates at 10+ yards.

I must point out that hosing was new in 1983, as were steel plates for us.

[EricW]

Is some of the rebound issue caused by foofer steel loads in conjunction with jacketed bullets? Just from watching the bullets splatter it would seem that safety could be enhanced by mandating lead only and having a PF floor of 140 or so.

Angling the plates down or allowing them to swing - sucking up more of the bullet's momentum - would also seem to provide a dramatic safety improvement. I get hit by shrapnel every single match. I guess I'll count my blessings that it hasn't been a bullet so far.

[shred]

There's something to the velocity theory if the bullet won't fall apart at impact. Bouncebacks became a problem in pin shoots with very heavy-and-slow bullets, but the biggest single factor for splatter (rather than riccochet, which is technically what a still-solid bullet is doing) is any flat surface parallel to the path of the shot. Flat-footed plates are the worst.

Angling the plates towards the ground helps a lot too. Take a freshly painted, smooth plate and shoot it from an angle. Look at the splatter patterns-- after a few degrees of angle, much of the splatter follows the angle.

[MoNsTeR]

What are these "I-beams" you speak of?

Our clubs' plate posts are round.

[kimel]

I think that the Steel Challenge rules specify 750fps or higher. I load to 800 fps and haven't caught any shrapnel from my loads...at least not yet.

The majority of the shrapnel I have caught over the years has been lead, not jacket material although I have been nailed by some wicked jacket shrapnel too.

When I have shot plates on solid posts I have caught a lot more shrapnel than on the plates we have suspended on re-bar tripods. You can watch what happens to the majority of the shrapnel if the light is just right and most of it goes to either side in more of a downrange trajectory.

Tilting the plates to direct the shrapnel down is a good idea as long as the range surface will absorb it and not kick it (or gravel) back up range. Maybe tilt down with straw bales there to absorb the junk. That might be the best overall.

[Patrick Sweeney]

An I-beam is a steel beam used in building construciton. In cross-section it looks just like the capitol "I". They come in sizes from about six or seven inches to three feet or more for railroad bridge construction.

It doesn't matter if the I is upright or laying flat (with the plates resting in the now double-U channels) as there is always a perpendicular surface facing the shooter.

They are realtively common, cheap and easy to lay hands on. They are also not very useful as handgun plate holders.

[Flexmoney]

It has been my experience that the softer the steel (plate/holder) the more bouce back you get.

I sometimes shoot a match that has a lot of cheap steel. It doesn't seem to matter if you shoot lead or jacketed...major or minor. I don't know anybody that shoots there that hasn't taken a few hits that draw blood.

[Bubber]

I used to shoot a lot of steel targets in the old days. We learned that if you have any targets on a rail always use angle iron with the wedge < toward the shooter. This will make the bullet either bounce up or down into the ground for the most part. And NEVER shoot steel any closer than 10 yards. Our hanging steel always angled away from the shooter causing any bullet striking the target to go into the ground. We would still have a chance of getting hit by richochets but mostly small chunks, barely enough to bring blood. Glad you are OK Rob

[kevin c]

(tangential drift mode on)

Speaking of lead coming back up range...

Some ranges use 55 gallon drums as props. Plastic drums in good condition are pretty good, safety wise. Rounds go in or through with only small puctures. Steel drums, though, get badly holed more easily, and along with badly shot up plastic drums are potentially hazardous, once there are holes in them large enough to let a bullet out. Drums with targets set behind them often take tangential hits that enter the side of the bbl and then caroom, or even worse, slide around the inside circumference of the barrel (you can hear them whizzing around in there). If there is a large enough hole on the opposite side of the barrel facing up range, guess what might be coming back up range, stepping lively and in one large piece?

Watch those barrels...

(literally tangential drift mode off)

[JFD]

Our plates have bases that tilt them away from the shooter. When the light is right you can see the bullet go straight up and then "flutter" (relatively speaking of course) back down.

When I took over as MD, all of our poppers were bent back toward the shooter, I got hit by pieces of lead and jacket at every match. Since I straightened them I haven't seen or heard about anything flying back toward shooters.

[oddjob]

Just before Rob got hit I was shooting my 45 SS when I had a round go off before it was fully chambered (gun was out of time). The gases blew out the bottom of the case and ignited the next round on top of the mag. All that pressure blew out the back of the slide area and I got whacked with pieces of brass. My glasses protected my eyes, but the rest of my face bled like crazy. I was dripping blood all over my shirt and pants.

My son runs over to the first aid kit, comes back and tells me to turn around. He's got the video camera on me and never did get the first aid kit!!!

It was a rough match for Rob and myself......My son had a good time.

[scooterj]

don't use any steel that is cratered. a popper that must have been hit with a shotgun slug threw a chunk back and that guy is still wearing it under the skin of his belly.

[Paul B]

It's really interesting what can happen when we shoot steel. I have bits of lead shrapnel in my arms and cheek from shooting at the wrong kind of steel target. Anything held rigidly flat and 90 degrees to the shooter will eventually send some splatter back. If the plates are pockmarked from being too soft or too much use it gets even worse.

A steel match that I have shot locally lets the plates hang semi-rigidly angled slightly toward the ground. The poles are angle iron with the point toward the shooter. I have never seen or heard of a splatter problem at these matches.

I also have my own set of practice plates that have taken over 5000 hits a piece with absolutely no splatter back at me. They are constructed on angle iron posts with the plate attached Through the top of the angle iron with a long 3/8" bolt. The bolt has a strong spring on it between the plate and the post that lets the plate angle slightly downwards and lets the plate flex downward more when it is hit. They work great.

By the way the comments above about big slow projectiles being the worst is absolutely true. If you look at the situations where rounds ricochet out of a range it is almost always from the good ole .45 ACP with bullets of 200 gr or larger. Just what a lot of people shoot at steel in local matches.