Home made target!

Hudzi93

New member
Hi, I'm wanting to make a home-made target and I have an idea for one. I'm thinking of stacking a bunch of catalogues and putting them in a box. The catalogues are hard backs though so I'm wondering if this might damage the arrows at all and if I should take the hard backing off.



Here's a picture of how I would be laying out the books. I won't be shooting into the face of the books but rather into the pages as I've heard it'll last a lot longer like this, sort of acting in a similar way to the foam layered targets. Piling them up to about 60cm and have two columns of books will give roughly give me a 60 x 60 target.

Then maybe put a metre square of a soft wood to prevent my arrows from destroying the fence (not that I ever miss the target, it's my dad I'm worried about as he wants to start shooting too 😜)
 

Vass

New member
A mtr square will not stop an arrow that clips the top of your 'target' and flies off high into the distant neighbours.

Scan this forum for advice on shooting at home.
 

Hudzi93

New member
A mtr square will not stop an arrow that clips the top of your 'target' and flies off high into the distant neighbours.

Scan this forum for advice on shooting at home.
Don't worry. The wood is just to stop the arrows hitting the fence. The target is put up right against the fence so a deflection off the target won't have enough distance to deflect upwards by a metre or so.
 
D

Deleted member 7654

Guest
Don't worry. The wood is just to stop the arrows hitting the fence. The target is put up right against the fence so a deflection off the target won't have enough distance to deflect upwards by a metre or so.
You'd be surpised at how often the 'It can't possibly happen' happens.
If an arrow can bounce back, or glance past, it can also go near vertical and fall into a neighbors garden where it would cause great consternation even it it had insufficient velocity to do harm.
If it can happen it will happen.
To quote from my brother shortly before shooting an airifle slug through a closed window "It's alright Dad, its not loaded"
Del
 

Vagabond

New member
Re. your comment "Then maybe put a metre square of a soft wood to prevent my arrows from destroying the fence..."

Just a thought: A compound archer at our club reckons that a roll of glass fibre loft insulation will stop any of his arrows, with the added advantage that it's almost impossible to wear a hole in it with repeated hits. Never tried this myself so would welcome any feedback if you (or anybody else) try it. Be carefully though: I once shot a Navigator arrow with my recurve bow through a 1mm layer of mild steel and put a serious dent in a second layer. Arrow survived without a scratch.

V
 

Hudzi93

New member
Ok, I'll take your advice about shooting in the garden and I'll see if I can find another place to shoot, but can I please have comments on the target. I just realised though, if I make a 60 x 60 target then I'm looking at target of about 40 books weighing a total of pretty much 100kg!!!
That's not feasible so I might have to make something smaller, about 40 x 40, which would still be ridiculously heavy.
 

Hudzi93

New member
Re. your comment "Then maybe put a metre square of a soft wood to prevent my arrows from destroying the fence..."

Just a thought: A compound archer at our club reckons that a roll of glass fibre loft insulation will stop any of his arrows, with the added advantage that it's almost impossible to wear a hole in it with repeated hits. Never tried this myself so would welcome any feedback if you (or anybody else) try it. Be carefully though: I once shot a Navigator arrow with my recurve bow through a 1mm layer of mild steel and put a serious dent in a second layer. Arrow survived without a scratch.

V
Are you saying to use the glass fibre as the target or as a backstop? I might give it a try and see how foot it is at stopping arrows.
 

Vagabond

New member
Loft insulation: I was suggesting using this as a backstop material and/or a gap-filler. A pile of books will always have gaps that arrows will find eventually. Not sure how this could be used as the main target: again the challenge would be to ensure there are no gaps.

My own back garden would accommodate an archery range of 20 yards and I've often thought of setting up a target. But if an arrow were to slip from the arrow rest, or if a nock breaks, then the arrow flies off towards a populated area. Not a nice thought. Arrows are expensive.

Rather than shooting away from the house towards the neigbours, would I be confident of shooting from the bottom of the garden towards a target mounted close to the house? With wife and kids in the house? My mother-in-law would kill me! Slowly & painfully. An even worse thought.

Ho-hum!
V
 

Hudzi93

New member
I just figured that if it has enough stopping power as a backstop then it could probably be densely packed into a box and used as a target.
 
If you have a safe place to shoot then layered foam targets are not that expensive to buy and they work , I'd just spend the money because the time you would waste trying to make something work could be better spent practicing !
 

Hudzi93

New member
If you have a safe place to shoot then layered foam targets are not that expensive to buy and they work , I'd just spend the money because the time you would waste trying to make something work could be better spent practicing !
I may consider getting a foam target later on, but right now I'm not willing to spend ?70 or so on a 90cm target
 

NickL

New member
It's not often that you read the words 'cheap' and 'safe' in the same sentense, and there's a reason for that....!!!!
 

Hudzi93

New member
It's not often that you read the words 'cheap' and 'safe' in the same sentense, and there's a reason for that....!!!!
Don't you mean 'cheap and 'good quality'. There's no factor of safety involved when buying a target. Unless you're talking about me shooting in my garden, in which case I could find somewhere else to shoot that's safe at no cost, so 'cheap' doesn't come in to that one.
 
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