The Gun Counter

Cleaning house and came across an old magazine. A quick browse and there was this portable target frame. PVC with a couple of pieces of rebar driven into the ground for support. Thoughts?

Nice and light. But an errant shot will break the pipe. I suppose you could apply a field expedient dressing of 200 mph tape until you got home to install a new piece of pipe. Keep in mind, once PVC pipe is glued, it ain't coming unglued. So you won't be able to pull the broken piece out of the fitting. You'll have to use a female to female union to splice in the replacement piece.

ETA: It could be the fittings are just jammed together and not glued. Does the article say?

I do the same thing but just make the frame out of 2x4 ripped in half to 2x2. then I put a little 45 degree triangle in each corner for better bracing.

Tape or roofing nails to secure the cardboard to the frame and away we go.

10 minutes, $5 and off we go.

Usually I can recycle the bottom half of the upright supports into the next frame as the cross pieces.

When we shot a Dragon Mans the other day I saw that his approach was rather simple. He used old wooden pallets stood on edge. On the other note regarding the spray foam - I like to use the plastic cups from the hospital for drinking tea and water out of while in the shop. I once got the idea that I could foam the cavity between the double wall plastic of the cup and it would be insulated better than with just the air gap. I drilled a hole in the bottom and filled it with the foam - Great Stuff - I think it was. Anyway, it filled the gap and about 10 minutes later it had no foam left. It was just a thick, sludge. I threw the cup away. I think that foam must have air to allow it to dry and harden up.

Those old wooden pallets do work well, at least until the wind picks up and blows your target over. It's happened to me many times when shooting there. Dragon used to have some metal frames welded up from rebar, but they didn't last long.

CByrneIV wrote:...

Using those bases, typically I simply take a couple of garden stakes, or scrap 1x2, or 2x4; then I use my heavy duty staplegun to secure a large piece of salvaged cardboard (I've got tons) between them.

This is exactly what I have done the last few times out.
I have a stack of 40x60 foam-core sheets from a project years ago. I pound two wooden stakes about 2 feet apart and staple the rigid foam-core to the stakes. Tape or staple the targets to the foam-core.
Light-weight, simple and can be reused several times.