Building a bullet catcher. Advice, please.

P

Pond James Pond

New member
Another thread on an unpleasant but, thankfully, benign ND at home got me thinking.

So far I only shoot at the range and I clear my guns there (mag out, chamber check, dry fire), packing them empty and without a mag in the case of the Glock.

However, I am worried that the fact that I do clear them at the range may, over time make me complacent at home.

I will try hard to avoid this, but an added safety would beto have a bullet catcher at home.

I don't want to do up a whole wall, just something that I can have handy to put the gun at when doing dry-fring trigger exercises, or when firing the trigger to check the weapon (I still do the chamber checks at home when I pull the guns out, despite storing them empty in the safe).

So, I have a space about 45cm x 20cm x 20cm next to the safe. I want to make something that I can point the gun at, designed in a way that any bullet would travel down the 45cm axis.

The question is what materials would I need to handle the .44 Mag (soft point) or FMJ 9mm that I have, and how would they need to be put together?

I'd like to avoid metal. Wood, plaster board and other stuff, I have in abundance from recent renovations!

Thanks.

PS: I have searched on the internet also, but would appreciate any first hand pointers.
 
Clearing barrel?

So, basically what you are looking for is a clearing barrel. Usually a metal can (10-20 gallon size) with a central pipe into which you point your weapon before clearing it and/or pulling the trigger.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...BT4HrI4WjiQLnrJiEDQ&ved=0CEEQ9QEwBA&dur=10720

You could make an extremely rudimentary one with a 5 gallon plastic bucket filled 90% with sand and with the lid put back on. Point the gun straight down at the center of the lid. No bullet I know of will penetrate all the way through the depth of the sand and the lid will stop the blast of sand from a bullet (except for what comes back through the brand-new little hole in the lid). It would be easy (and cheap) enough to test one at the gun range.

It won't muffle the noise of a discharge, but if you put a second, empty 5-gallon bucket lined with a blanket, small down comforter or pillow, that should absorb a lot of sound. Don't hold be responsible for cleaning up the feathers.

I am sure there must be more sophisticated devices you could fabricate, but this is just the expedient that came immediately to mind.

Good luck,

Lost Sheep

p.s. This thread has some good observations, including the advice that a sufficiently powerful round, while being stopped by the sand, will possibly cause the sides of your standard 5 gallon bucket to split, spilling sand all over. So you probably want to put your 5 gallon bucket inside a larger bucket or trash can or at least a heavy duty plastic garbage bag.

Post #8 gives some interesting construction details

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=124122
 
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Pond.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot7.htm don't know if you've seen this already but here is a gentleman who conducted penetration tests using boxes holding sand. I would recommend staying away from the drywall as he used it because it was shown to do a poor job of stopping rounds.

Hopefully this will give you a general idea of the capabilities of sand and wood.
Good job being safety-oriented.

Happy New year

Whoops, someone already mentioned sand. Well that bucket is not a bad idea either. If the inner bucket will split, you could buy 2 of the same bucket and stack them together - unless that isn't strong enough to handle the expansion.
 
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Great answers!

Thanks!

Those aimpads look very nice and tidy and are a definite option for the future.

However, given the wood and building materials handy at the moment, I'll make a catcher with those and some sand for the time being.
 
About 30 years ago I made a bullet trap out of a stereo speaker box which was roughly 15" x 12" x 40" long. I layed it on it's side with the ends all ductaped up, and filled it with dry phone books packed as tightly as I could get them, and then I forced 1/4" plywood in between every third phone book until I couldn't get another one in.

I fired hard cast 44 mag slugs into it for years, and never had one go more than 3/4 of the way through.
 
I fired hard cast 44 mag slugs into it for years
Click to expand...
I had a stack of old magazines I used to test out .44mag handloads on.
A 2 foot high stack stopped everything I ever put into it.
 
The question is what materials would I need to handle the .44 Mag (soft point) or FMJ 9mm that I have, and how would they need to be put together?

I'd like to avoid metal. Wood, plaster board and other stuff, I have in abundance from recent renovations!
Click to expand...
If you're not set up to build a spiral bullet trap out of heavy-gauge steel, my suggestion would be a big bucket of sand.
 
I once put a 5 gallon bucket of dirt in the closet so I could shoot my POS 308 CETME into it. it stopped the bullet just fine but a lid would have been a great idea as the dirt went everywhere lol thats the cheepest solution I can think of.
 
These posts make me so happy that I live in the country.
I don't usually carry fully loaded(round in the chamber)guns inside except for my CCW which I seldom unload at all. My primary carry pistol is unloaded for less than 2 hours per year(the time it takes to clean it twice). Many accidents occur during loading/unloading so the fewer times you do those things, the less likely you are to have such an accident. We don't have small children in the house except a few times a year so the "using" guns stay loaded full time.
 
Well, I've made one!

Following advice on here, and using what I had available, I have made a bullet catcher.

No sooner have I made it, I then need to then trash it by firing at least one .44 Mag SP and one 9mm FMJ into it at the range to be sure it is up to the job.

It is not as deep as some have recommended.

bcbucket.jpg


Here's how I made it.

First I located a bucket and some dense fibre board (the type used to make kitchen furniture and surfaces. It is much dense then plasterboard. First I cut one circle. This was supposed to be a back stop at the base of the bucket. However, my geometry being what it is, it got jammed about two thirds of the way down ! :o

bcpartition.jpg


Instead of removing it, I decided to drill three holes in it, and poured sand in, until the space beneath was full.

bccavityfill.jpg


I then put a strong plastic carrier back in the remaining space and filled it with sand: 25 kg in total (57lbs-ish)

bcfull.jpg


Finally, I cut another circle of fibre board; a tight fit, and tapped in firmly. And voila!

bcwithlid.jpg


No sooner have I made it, I then need to then trash it by firing at least one .44 Mag SP and one 9mm FMJ into it at the range to be sure it is up to the job.

All that'll need is to re-cut the two circles, and replace the existing, assuming the second has also been penetrated.
 
If I went to the range and didn;t know if I had emptyed the rifle od hand gun..I think I would stay away from such things..You sound like a very forgetful and dangerous humanoid...lol
 
So your plan is to empty the gun at the range, take the gun home, then "dry" fire it into this bucket to make sure it's empty?

Couldn't you just, you know....lock the bolt back, swing open the cylinder, whatever and just VISUALLY inspect the chamber??
 
Where I live, I am legally obliged to store my weapons in a safe, at home, unloaded. At present I do my safety checks at the range.

However, if I were to start carrying I would need to unload at home: precisely the time when accidents are even more likely, according to others more experienced than I.

If that were to be the case, I'd rather have a strong safety practice as I'm developing now, and, something I can point at in case there were a round I missed because I got distracted, were tired or any of the other trillion reasons that I've read for why ADs/NDs have happened...

So if you are disparaging attempts to reduce the chances of harm to myself or others through an AD or ND by having an additional measure against the unthinkable, allow me to draw your attention to the thread title:
It says "advice". Advice is not a synonym for "ridicule".
 
If you were to fill the bucket with water, it would make the entire thing much more denser and would assist in stopping the bullet.

I would make sure that it is placed in an area that won't be damaged if a bullet passes through it. We had some clearing barrell made in Kuwait almost like what you have made.
 
I assume you mean to fill it with water with the sand in the bucket because a bucket filled with only water is not deep enough to stop a bullet. Me and my buddy tested that with his 9mm in his basement lol
 
Yes, fill the bucket with water after the sand is added.

When we arrive at our new camp, we had no clearing barrels, so someone made us one. Sand was pretty cheap there.
 
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