Your Best Home-Made Reactionary Target

[too many choices!?]

What are some of the targets that you use to," shoot and see" so to speak. I sometimes use soda cans filled with water. If you hit the bottom just right they take off like a rocket :D . But you have to be careful to have enough open area, witch luckily I do. I just had an idea about using stale bread colored with something, but haven't tried it yet. What else makes an inexpensive reactionary target?p.s. something besides fruit and veggies please :rolleyes:

[Northwest Cajun]

I've seen neco wafers (candy) and 10-22 target guys sometimes use asprin :eek: at 50 yds.

Cajun

[TargetShooter2]

eggs, small cartons of milk , old lightbulbs
set them out and see how you like them

TS2

[pax]

Milk jugs filled with colored water, with the lids on. Great for teaching a kid to shoot because it's a nice large target and does exciting things when hit.

Eggs.

Zucchini (which nicely explode).

Pumpkins. Open em up like a jack o lantern, fill with water. (They're boring if shot just 'as is.')

Balloon, filled with air and tethered to something with a 2 foot long string.

Water balloons.

pax

[pinkfloydman]

gords...there some kind of hard vegetable...

the greatest is a milk cartoon filled with gas and then shoot tracer bullets at it...to bad i cant find anymore tracer bullets...but it worked the one time i did it...

[DMK]

Cheap lollipops make nice little exploding targets.

[Cowled_Wolfe]

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156985

You might find this useful.

[Bass Man]

Pinkfloydman,

Cabela's sells .22 lr in .50 cal ammo cans that are tracers.

[pinkfloydman]

really???thats nice...ive guess ive missed that for the apst 4 years

[rauchman]

I've never done it, but I have to believe paintballs would make great .22lr targets.

[Dave R]

I buy old skillets at the Thrift Store. $3-5 ea. Cast iron or steel. I like to shoot 'em at long distance (200 yards) with centerfire rifles. You can plainly hear when you hit them. When they get too holey, dispose of properly.

[2400]

Clay pigeons work well and so do paint balls. I made some small reactive targets out of 1/4 and 3/8 armor plate and I also made 2 dueling trees.

[Long Path]

Small 8 oz cans of peas are impressive, and not overly expensive.

If you find a construction site where they're putting in heavy water main, the steel pipe ends that they cut off are great reactive targets. They ring like a bell, and will resist most centerfire rifle at 100 yards. Put dirt in 'em while they're standing up, and you can tune 'em to ring at a particular pitch. ;)

I found that strips of reinforced concrete cut out and removed from a 12" thick parking lot for laying electrical lines make nice reactives. You stand up the monolithic collumn of concrete and plink at it from off-hand at 200 yards with your rifle. When it's hit, it sends up a plume of concrete dust and makes a satisfying thump! At dusk, it sparks nicely, too. Construction guys are all to willing to let you cart those off for them.

The big Birchwood Casey Shoot-N-See peel-n-stick targets are Godsend, too. With even a moderate scope, you can see your .30 cal hits on target from 100 yards. .22 pistol holes shine out at 20 yards.

Sandstone or limestone rocks on a rocky hillside are a fine reactive target for long-range pistol shooting, but they have the drawback of the shooter not knowing their size until he hoofs it over there. Half the time there's a big canyon or creek (or both) betwixt the shooter and his target. :rolleyes:

For long range .22 rimfire plinking, (say, 100 yards) it's hard to beat a few claybirds laid out, bright side to the shooter.

The iron plates that railroad rails sit atop RR ties are often good reactive targets, too, but the steel is mild (if it's actually even "steel"), and the best way to do it is to hang 'em from a chain. Broken examples are sometimes found along RR right of ways.

[RevolverLover]

water/milk jugs, paintballs, clay pigeons, and various fruits and vegetables. :D

[Hkmp5sd]

Fire extinguishers, pressurized gas bottles (like oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen), spray paint cans and any other discarded pressurized containers you can find at the dump.

[k_dawg]

We like to use compressed "powder" candy, such as Sweet Tarts, Spree, etc. They go "poof" in a nice color cloud :-)

[wudjalike2no]

a big pack of dumdum lollypops

[BTR]

Golf ball bounce mightily if hit with a .22 just right...

[esldude]

Tennis balls for 22LR. Doesn't even poke holes in them. Just scuffs the fuzzy covering and rolls them along. Never tried them with centerfire though.

[ksstargazer]

I use hedge apples. I've got thousands of them.