Hi - newish shooter here. Our local range has opened up the matches to ARs which is great - get new shooters in any way we can. But I've often seen protests about small caliber weapons due to target damage. Is that really true? Target damage is more prevalent with small caliber weapons? Any reasons why?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Sandwedge

sandwedge, the speed of the small caliber tends to dent and someitmes even go through the metal.

Mary

Ain't that the truth Mary. We have a swinger 10 inch sq plate 1/2 inch thick made out of T-1 at 100 meters and wouldn't you know it, someone poked a small cal hole right thru the thing. I welded it back up and set it out at 250 m. Haven't seen any new holes yet.

Small bullets driven very fast cause problems, However I don't consider AR15 speeds very fast.And unless you are using AP I'm skeptical of real damage. I say this only because our club has 1100 members and we suffer all sorts of unsolicited destructive testing....well, some of it is solicited....you humble director has done some destructive testing ...purely in the interest of science. At 100 and 200 meters 22's of every variety including the Swift leave bright spots and shallow craters at best. 6mm are particularly nasty..with some bulging on .5 T-1 at 100. The all time destruction prize goes to the 270 winchester 130gr stoked to the max....it'll damn never penetrate a turkey at 385m ... with some stress fractures noted on the off side. AP .30 cal is moderately disturbing at 100 and will almost go through .5 T-1 or AR400...it will penetrate 3/8ths at 200. 50 BMG will break the feet off chickens and do some serious bending at 200 ...that's non-armor piercing ball. The AP will go through the ram at 500m..ditto for the other animals. Match ammo is very frangible, hunting ammo has harder/ thicker jackets and will eventually break something. If the feet are welded by first heating both surfaces feet stay on longer.

i find that a target just sitting on a rail will fare much better than a swinger or a fixed gong. all about resistance verus the speed. we shoot pistol cartridge right next to small bore and sometimes there is a flinch that smacks the little guys with a 22 hornet, one would thing it would cause damage. not so from what i have seen, does toss them a fair pace though!
but even a swinget has something holding it in the vertical plane thus much more resisting the bulllet than a regular target

dave

I agree that a "supported" target has less give and suffers more. As an anecdote a few years ago my friend had a Lahti anti-tank rifle. It was shoulder fired, bi-pod mounted and had a huge muzzle brake. It was in 20mm Lahti which is considerably larger than our current 20mm Vulcan round. My friend had it loaded with 1500gr aluminum tipped "practice" rounds; it had a leupold 6.5x20 mounted on the side of the receiver (the magazine fit on top) I let one fly at our 500 m ram swinger (made from an old ram) The 'Practice' round went through and into the berm BEFORE the swinger -swung!!! (or is it swang?) The slight retention of that swinger at the top may explain why the delay in the target movement...it was restricted and thus vulnerable to easier penetration.....

If you put a small drill in the drill press it goes through metal much easier than a large one. Big holes are usualy drilled in steps starting small. AR's are the same way small bullet makes holes easier than large ones, Get some distance they have so little energy the drill effect is mimimal, Our club they can and do tear up anything at hanging at 200 rarely do much damage to swingers at 300 or more distance. We keep swingers at 200 just for AR's and the like replacing when they get too shot up. How easy they drill depends on what kind of steel is used. We don't let them shoot our Regulation NRA HP Silhouettes. May not hurt the targets by why take the chance they are expensive.

Club member who is a Silhouette shooter had some personal swingers hanging the other day and another shooter drilled holes with his .223 before he could be stopped. We are getting ready to spend a lot of money for a long range Buffalo, It's going to lay back and lock to keep the AR guys off it. No worries about hits from the firing line at 600 plus but the black gun crowd will drive down range and ruin if for sure.

Don't take me wrong have one myself but keep it confined to matches intended for AR's. Good advice for any club.

Boats

The behavior of drills is not necessarily indicative of projectile behavior. The AR does not get the velocity of a bolt gun...yet everyone seem OK with letting 22-250's, Swifts and the like shoot our silhouettes. We have 1100 members in our club..AR's and every other .22, 6mm, 6.5,.277, driven as fast as they'll go, damage cold rolled steel. T-1, Abrasion Resistant 400, 500, Jelalloy and various other high carbon hardened alloys resist severe damage...(excluding bright spots,dings etc)There's just too many myths about the AR...Worry about a well stoked 6mm or .270

You are right nothing special about .223's Lot of those myth's started by the goverment when it was phased in. I recall my first look at one, Gunners Mate shot ammo cans full of water. Tolds us how powerfull it was. Couple of us were shooters and knew a varmit round when we saw it.

Only thing is there are a lot of them and shooters tend to put AR's on the bench and shoot many rounds same spot. Had my .222 out the other day checking zeros. Used on our mild steel CLA 200 meter Ram swinger would have damaged it no doubt. Hot Hornet on Hunters Pistol targets can cause damage too. If your club has money tied up in regulation or regulation sized swinger targets best keep them for match legal calibers only

Boats

Boats: If a guy can keep hitting the same exact spot I guess damage would be in the cards. Our swingers are regulation 'hard' steel (our ram swingers are 1" T-1) The only damage is on the mild steel chicken...looks like the surface of the moon even though its 1". we have every manner of jackass using everything including 416's and other magnums etc to 'sight in' .plus we have conducted all sorts of destructive testing. Snake knows target damage!!! The AR isn't a problem...the AR and AK are ricochet problem children because of the need to use them to spray....most aren't used or set up for precision...

Pardon this minor topic derailment............

Snake, how about a P-T-R swinger this year for your out of town guests to fire on Friday afternoon. We have been firing only on that POS chicken for years. Shooting at grasshoppers in the P-T-R berms is tough. I hate to wound them when I only shoot their legs off.

MC-A I'm sorry to say that you're stuck with the POS until Saturday morning unless certain things change. I will discuss this situation with you privately. Sometimes, bobby boy, the jerks just make it harder on everybody
As for the wounded grasshoppers.....at least you can knock them over ....legs or no legs

As for the wounded grasshoppers.....at least you can knock them over ....legs or no legs

Yes but as a Bobby, he can't hit the dinger on one, but as a Bobbi she would be able to.

Innocent

Velocity is probably the biggest factor and so it becomes more a problem as the caliber decreases. You don't want to see what a .17 cal would do to your chickens.

The Army has let a contract with Win/Olin for some .50 cal saboted light armor piercing (SLAP) ammo. It uses a 30 cal tungsten penetrator in a plastic sabot fired in the .50 cal case. It is reported to have a muzzle velocity of 3,985 fps compared to 2,800 fps for the standard .50 cal loading. Obviously, the penetrator is designed to defeat light armor, but the reduced weight gets the velocity up which improves it's performance.

Even some light weight 7-08 loads can be pretty tough on chickens.

The steel core AR rounds are a big problem for every range. Our range won't allow their use, but some nimrods are just too ignorant to know what they're shooting or their consequence. I'd like for our club to require a membership applicant to pass a psychology exam and an IQ test before joining.