How do you all make your indoor pellet traps?

According to your second picture, Medicare is apparently hilarious, so I'm looking forward to it more than ever!

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Well at least those two are happy. One of the craziness things is part 'd' the rx part. If you elect not to enroll in it you will be penalize 1% for every month you do not have it. And that penalty is for life. Yet people do not understand this and still do not enroll in it.

Truck tire retreads work well also

jbravo103 said:

Cardboard box filled with rubber mulch.

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Better yet, a cardboard box filled with cardboard! I cut apart and save all the cardboard from the boxes in which the things my wife and I order online are delivered, so my reusable trap and replaceable stuffing are essentially free. Good price! ;-) I do use a bit of duct tape bought in bulk and Elmer's white glue I get in gallon containers in my assemblies, not to mention my time and the 1 and 2 inch reactive target stickers I put on the front-most sheet of cardboard, so there is some cost involved. When I have a little more time and can get to my PC and keyboard instead of using this tap-tap Samsung tablet, I'll write up how it all comes together and post it in the next day or two. Stay tuned.

I took the folded jeans suggestion and never looked back. I use that and some Cushining fill in a 5 gal bucket ( square). Defently less mess when Tim to clean out spent pellets. That mulch I could see a mess without even using it. ..lol







I like these sloped back ones to d flect the pellet down and kill it's energy. Needs deeper bottom and still use jeans ..

Home Depot for rubber mulch and I use 7gal Rubbermaid office trash can. I tape over the middle as it gets shot up with wide Gorilla duct tape.

My rubber mulch trap is 18 inches deep and has stopped 500 ftlbs from a texan 45 cal several times

Why mess around? Buy it once in your lifetime.

I'm just a journeyman airgun hobbyist really, almost totally disabled (since 1990) and now retired with my retired wife. I sold all my firearms ages ago and only got back into shooting at all after finding out just how much airguns had changed since my childhood and teens (the Daisy 880 my wife bought me in '20 seemed more toylike than the wood-stocked air rifles I could afford as a working kid, but wow, it outshot them by miles). So, while I have all the enthusiasm, I can't get out to hunt anymore and have to watch my hobby budget pretty carefully. I just don't need anything high powered anymore: my inexpensive .22 pumpers (and probably the .177's) can handle any possible varmints in the front and back yards and they're affordable enough for the most part. Moneywise, I don’t want to even think about getting into the PCP side of the hobby, especially since I don’tneed the power, and I don't like break barrels at all (too persnickety and again, don't need the extra oomph), so it's multi pump pneumatics or CO2 for me. That said, my cardboard trap is more than enough, even for the remote possibility I might squeeze 15 FPE out of one of my very best air rifles. With only the three or four pumps necessary for my indoor target shooting, it's definitely all I need. Now, if my wife or I nail a phat lotto jackpot or something, no airgun would be safe. Until then however, it's cardboard for me.

huntr said:

Why mess around? Buy it once in your lifetime.

Amazon.com

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Too small (for me). I use cardboard sheets with 6 columns by 8 rows of two inch reactive targets, and in between each of those 8 rows, I stick another row of five one inch reactive targets in the small open spaces in between. Then it's back to my shooting table, get comfortable, choose my poison (airgun) and settle in for some serious groups. Works for me.

bubbapearson said:

Too small (for me). I use cardboard sheets with 6 columns by 8 rows of two inch reactive targets, and in between each of those 8 rows, I stick another row of five one inch reactive targets in the small open spaces in between. Then it's back to my shooting table, get comfortable, choose my poison (airgun) and settle in for some serious groups. Works for me.

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Well then… it seems like everything previously pictured is too small for you.

DonC said:

Free hanging truck mud flaps, conveyor belts,canvas,floor mats can absorb the energy. My truck flap trap has a tapered bottom, all spent pellets are collected in a coffee can. Self cleaning trap. No bounce back because of the free hanging mediums.

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Pics?

Priority mail boxes from USPS filled with rubber mulch from Home Depot.
After every use put duct tape on the box.
After the box is shot up, dump the mulch and pellets into a large bucket (I use empty shop vac) to remove the pellets for recycling, fill the bucket with water and the rubber will float to the top for re-use in a new box.

I'm on my third pellet trap. My first was a plastic one Crosman offers that has a back plate of steel. Fabric curtain slows the pellet down. I used it with my Prod but it pretty much fell apart. Even pellets that deflected off the back would break the sides. The next one was made of 3/4 plywood and I used the steel back from the Crosman over the back. It was about 6 inches deep. I filled it with clothes one time and it worked but the clothes got shredded and didn't work as well. So I switched to rubber mulch and that works well. But I would occasionally hit the 3/4 plywood sides with a pellet and eventually it got pretty shot up. Then I found a small electrical box in my shed. It's a little more than 8.5x11 inches on the face. I took the front off, screwed 3/4x3/4 wood pieces around the face to screw into to hold the cardboard the target is attached to. It works great but it's only 3.5 inches deep. It stops pellets from my 32 fpe airguns or less but my 45-50 fpe 25s dent the back. No danger of shooting through, the box is about 16 gauge steel, but it makes more noise when the pellet hits the back. I've also started putting steel pieces around the edge so I can't shoot the 3/4 wood pieces inside.

I may make a new one - or another one - soon. My idea is to go back to 3/4 plywood but put steel over the edges, probably 1/8th thick, and use it to clamp the cardboard and target in place. I would make it about 6 inches deep so it should stop my 25s easily. Having two would be handy sometimes and the shallower metal one is fully adequate for most of my airguns.

BABz58 said:

Pics?

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I've had a roughly similar experience: if you've got the space, a sturdy canvas tarp or even a few old, thick blankets, folded over a line strung out behind the target(s), does a great job at stopping pellets cold, and there'd be no metal dust, jagged bits and pieces or totally mangled pellets created by the process either (as you see occasionally with small metal traps), so depending on the pellets being used, they might even be okay for reuse a time or two. I used this setup in our full basement back when I was teaching my kids about gun safety and how to shoot using pellet rifles. I ought to point out that extra large area of protection behind everything turned out to be especially good for the extremely rare (ahem) occasion the target might be missed entirely. ;-) Great family fun.

Best pellet trap I have seen, hands down. I made one recently for about $18.

I love how huge that trap is. I made one using an old mre box 3/4 plywood backing and several layers of old jeans topped with and exercise rubber mat and tapped the box shut. When clothes gets torn I've packed it up again and tapped a new cardboard front to it. Lasted me 3 years so far and has stopped upto 27ftlbs. It's time I really rebuild it and empty it out. This was saposed to be a temporary build but has served me well.
Time for some rubber mulch.

ctshooter said:

Here's my only concern with the cardboard and mulch. Eventually you'll go through it and what stops the pellet then? I'm just saying, for peace of mind, I'd still want to put something additional at the back.

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This never actually happens in my experience. The cardboard box ends up needing replacement long before penetrating the mulch is an issue.

GsT

F6Hawk said:

Best pellet trap I have seen, hands down. I made one recently for about $18.

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This is the way, been using my for several years.

With some help from a friend welder we made this one:




Fully dressed for less noise:



And 4mm steel holds up to .50 caliber - tested:

How well did your noise abatement work? I made a variation on that theme that works really well, but people are always asking how to quiet it down (noise is not a concern in my personal circumstance).

TIA,
GsT