Penetration of a .22LR

T

Tony Z

New member
I just completed re-building my .22 backstop. Originally, it was several bales of hay(also use it for my bow), backed up with 2 x 8's and 1/2" OSB board, then against a16" poured concrete wall. It is now backed with 6 layers of 2 x 8's or 6" of solid lumber and then a double layer of 3/4" plywood, again against a concrete wall.

I'm curious if anyone knows of the actual penetration of a .22 LR round.
 
I know it won't go through my backstop of a piece of plywood, 4 inches of pea gravel, and another piece of plywood.


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A .22 LR can penetrate four pine 2X4 studs stacked together in my experience. Phone books will easily stop them, interestingly, even more effectively than solid wood.
The thing is, that as bullet after bullet hits the bullseye, it tends to shred the backstop material and eventually goes through it.
That's why sand is so good. It stops the bullets and is "self healing".
 
I have shot 1x4 pine wood at 200 yds., and 3/4 inch ply wood at 250 yds both were penetrated with CCI mini-mags and CCI standard velocity.
 
I read once that a 22LR can penetrate 6" of pine, but I have seen many, many 22s stopped by 4" X 4" fence posts, so it seems contradictory. Pretty sure a 22 won't make it through concrete, though.
 
I know it won't penetrate the concrete, but am more interested in stopping before the concrete. The first backstop (this is my third), used about a foot thickness of acoustical ceiling tile, thinking the tile would act as news paper, but were easily penetrated.

I may build a sand entrapment container to place ahead of the concrete.
 
Another option instead of sand is pea gravel. I remember when our Air Force base firing range was built the filled the baffles with pea gravel. It worked and the pea gravel was less prone to leak out than sand.
 
The problem with wood is that it will be shredded after a couple hundred rounds and disentigrate after a couple thousand. Any backstop with wood should be designed to be easily replaced.

I would think something with a couple layers of plywood, pea gravel, plywood, pea gravel, etc would stop 22 rounds pretty well.
 
Have you considered discarded tires stacked up and than filled with sand or pea gravel. The tire will act like a self sealing medium when penetrated and keep the sand or pea gravel in place.
 
There is an unbelievably perfect bullet trap that you can manufacture are home. Take a sheet of steel heave enough to support the power of your cartridges. Build a wooden frame that holds it at the correct angle slot a piece of well casing pipe and add to your frame, with ten angle set so the bullet strikes the steel an releases much of the energy. The bullet slides down the sheet of steel and then spins around the casing until all of the energy dissipates. This snail trap is in use at thousands of ranges. My brother in law has one. I will Ryan to get his design specs. He uses up to .357.
 
I was given an 18 in square piece of 3/8 steel. Built a very basic wood frame to hold it at a 45 degree angle. I couldn't guess how many 22s it has eaten and simply doesn't care.
 
I used to have a 3' long X 16" wide piece of 3/8" steel bent sheet piling that was a great bullet stop. I hung it from chains and set at an angle on a dirt floor.

It worked great, but I don't shoot indoors at our new house because I don't want to worry about lead contamination, should we ever want to sell. It's a very costly fix, since lead dust gets onto and into almost everything.
 
I read once that a 22LR can penetrate 6" of pine, but I have seen many, many 22s stopped by 4" X 4" fence posts, so it seems contradictory.
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No one who wants a fencepost to last uses pine, if there is another option. Pine is pretty soft.

At my Grandfather's place (northern NY) there were many old fenceposts made from locust. They were there at least 50ys when I was a boy, some are still there, now, 50 years later. Those suckers are HARD.

They could stop (and did) about everything short of rifle rounds. 230gr .45acp ball would stop in the post, with the bullet base just below flush.

Hard wood!
:D
 
Probably not anywhere near 16 inches of concrete.
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While a concrete wall will stop .22 bullets, the bullets will damage the concrete with the impact, leaving a small crater on the surface. Eventually, after hundreds, perhaps thousands of bullets hitting on the same spot behind the bullseye target, you will drill a hole through a barrier like this.

I used a live oak log for a bullet stop and while it stopped .22 bullets easily, I eventually drilled a hole through that log with the bullets.
 
An HV goes about 2 feet into 3 feet of packed newspaper. Velocity matters, of course. Knew a guy who built and got passed by the CF an indoor range using rail road ties(8 x 8 at about 10 or so feet, I think) for standard velocity out of No. 7 rifles. Any wood will require periodic replacement though.
 
Ties should still be backed up by a berm. .22 won't be prone to penetration, but ties will have weak spots that other things could penetrate, and if too many impacts hit the same area, that tie will be penetrated. If I was going to do a tie berm, I'd double them, staggering them, and add a couple feet of dirt or gravel behind it. No need to box the berm in and drop the gravel/dirt in between to layers of wood, a couple of loads of just plain fill dirt would give a deep, tall berm just dumped and shaped.
 
I know from experience that a 40 grain solid fired from a 4.5" pistol will penetrate 2 interior walls in a 1950s home and bury itself in a pine 2x4 after passing through one more layer of sheet rock.
 
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