5 gallon buckets as port holes

[Shay1911]

I want to set up a stage where shooter has to shoot through ports in walls. I want the ports to be made out of 5 gallon buckets with the bottoms cut out.

The question is, how would the comps work with the buckets?

Would they destroy the buckets? Would they be too loud?

Thanks,

Shay

[Thomas Moore]

it will be loud.

[busyhawk]

X-3 games used them last year for a rather large multi-gun match...yes they were loud (not to loud) if you put you muzzle into the barrel and even louder if you tried to use the bucket as a brace and got your head almost/into the barrel too! The 5 gallon (from DQ I believe) had no problems holding up to the comps. Now the shooters on the other hand:-)

Use them if you want to...let the shooters figure it out on thier own. Pain is just...well painful!

Just my .02 anyhow.

RLTW,

Scott

[D.Hayden]

To add what Scott said..

At X-3 we talked about it before hand.. wondering.. actually shooting it, I don't recall them being bad at all.

[dt1]

I haven't experimented with 5 gallon buckets, but pipes made of plastic etc will get chewed up pretty good with muzzle break blasts.

The best advice I could suggest would be to set some up and see how they do. Stick a variety of muzzle breaks in them and blast away.

Anytime you put a muzzle break inside a port or tube, it's going to create damage. Check it out first or you'll spend a lot of time replacing buckets during the match.........something you probably won't want to do!

DT

[ken hebert]

LOUD!

[Shay1911]

LOUD!

LOL, that's good As long as it doesn't rip them apart.

I think I will take them out and test them before the match.

Thanks for the information guys!

[open17]

Did a pistol stage with 5 gallon barrels a few years ago. Cut the bottoms out, mounted them on

posts. I shot the stage with my production gun, no problem. Buddy shot it with his open gun.

3N37, 38 super. BOOM BOOM BOOM WHOOOOMP. Gases from comp built up in barrel

and ignited on about the 4th shot. Backblast did some interesting things to his eyebrows.

I stopped laughing within 4 hours or so, then shortened the barrels to a ring about 8" long.

[Jim Norman]

I've shot where they used heavy PVC pipe and also where they've tried Sonotube (cardboard concrete forms) The PVC held up, the Sonotube did not and after a while there was an unfair advantage ans the ends of the tube grew shorter, you could see more targets later in the day than you could earlier. Made for less required movements. Can't remember if the stage was tossed or not, can't even remember which match.

Jim

[Chris Conley]

I would like to add that while AR-15's are still comfortable to shoot thru the buckets .308's and 30/06 are a different issue. Alot of noise and they really put a hurting on the prop. One trick is to wrap the outside with duct tape and that will give the bucket alot more strength. Another issue is don't try and set them in close in areas where the RO has to be in there with the shooter. RO's take a real beating after a day or so.

Chris Conley