Target Stands - Update

In a previous post I went into some detail on the design and construction of some light weight target stands suitable for use with either steel plates or cardboard targets. Now that I've had a chance to use them for a while, I've got some feedback, and a new stake type stand for use with the current uprights.

If you are only shooting rimfire, and if you can keep most of your shots on the plates, the 1/2" pipe uprights will work just fine for you. A .22 bullet will slightly dent the pipe if it hits it, however if you hit the pipe with a larger caliber bullet, or regularly with the .22 you are going to dent up and eventually collapse the pipe. To prevent this I would suggest a 24" piece of 1" by 1" angle iron, 1/4" thick minimum, be put over the front of the pipe upright. A hose clamp or so should hold it in place just fine.

I've also noticed that when .22 bullets hit thew plate they flatten out into a whole bunch of little tiny flakes. Some of these flakes go downward with enough velocity that they will eventually chew up the wooden bases close to the upright socket. A 2x2 or a 2x4 on top of the base in front of the socket will take the hits and save the bases.

Finally, I've come up with a second target stand that allows placing a steel target closer to the edge of the berm. I used an old piece of metal fence post for the stake, and secured an upright socket made from a piece of 3/4" pipe to the fence post piece with a 1/4" bolt.

Upright socket bolted to the stake.

I left a bit of the fence post above the socket so driving it into the ground with a big hammer would not risk damaging the socket pipe.

The slot on the bottom of the upright that lines up with the 1/4" cross bolt.

The 1/4" bolt not only holds the socket to the stake, it also provides a place for the bottom of the upright pipe to lock into so target hits won't turn the targets sideways.

Ready to go!

Here's the stand, ready to drive into the ground. If you set up several different target layouts on a regular basis, make up several of stakes and you can leave the stakes in the ground. Moving a plate and the upright pipe around takes just a minute and you don't have to re-measure the layout each time.