"Quiet" archery target??

[lanky]

Im looking to build a target to keep in the garage so i can practice, any ideas on whats quiet??, my styrofoam body board and folded cardboard make to much noise!, the only thing i have found so far is a orange mesh fruit bag stuffed full of rags, the arrows droop but im only intrested in my techique.
Any ideas??

[Fraser]

I use bags of rags in the back yard, either hessian backs or the woven plastic bags that stock feeds come in. Two problems, the hessian rots if I gets wet, and the plastic shoots out easily. Other people use the big foam cushions off an old couch.

Fraser

[rodlonq]

A stack of hay bales? Might get problems with mouses wanting to move in though.

Cheers..... Rod

[Fanto]

foam block targets are pretty quiet

scrap wetsuit neoprene in a hessian sack is quietest

[Jim]

I've got a backyard carpet target that's basically the same as this:



Much quieter than my cardboard targets. Hot tip I got from a carpet layer is don't buy carpet. Go to a carpet store and either ask them or dumpster dive out the back because they throw out heaps of scrap. Mine has a face of about 900mm by 800mm and about 450mm deep. Total cost for parts was about $40. $35 for MDF sheets and $5 for a pair of wheels so I can move it around on the concrete, everything else was scrap.

My 40lb bow (i pull to about 45) gets about 100mm penetration and my 60lb (pull to 65) has never gone in more than half the depth (both of those from 10m). So if you're not shooting heavy bows you could get away with a quite a lot shallower, I'm sure 300mm would be heaps.

It was well worth the Saturday spent knocking it up. One more tip, if you go this way, is that each sheet of carpet was worth about 10mm of height, so I had to cut HEAPS of tiles to fill the target. So grab way more scrap than you think you'll need. I ended up doing three trips to the carpet store because I kept underestimating

[Fraser]

I've got a backyard carpet target that's basically the same as this:



Much quieter than my cardboard targets. Hot tip I got from a carpet layer is don't buy carpet. Go to a carpet store and either ask them or dumpster dive out the back because they throw out heaps of scrap. Mine has a face of about 900mm by 800mm and about 450mm deep. Total cost for parts was about $40. $35 for MDF sheets and $5 for a pair of wheels so I can move it around on the concrete, everything else was scrap.

My 40lb bow (i pull to about 45) gets about 100mm penetration and my 60lb (pull to 65) has never gone in more than half the depth (both of those from 10m). So if you're not shooting heavy bows you could get away with a quite a lot shallower, I'm sure 300mm would be heaps.

It was well worth the Saturday spent knocking it up. One more tip, if you go this way, is that each sheet of carpet was worth about 10mm of height, so I had to cut HEAPS of tiles to fill the target. So grab way more scrap than you think you'll need. I ended up doing three trips to the carpet store because I kept underestimating

That's a great idea Jim, I'll be ring a carpet store tomorrow.

Fraser

[discord]

Yeah, nice one Jim, I like that a lot. The best thing is, the bits you had to pay for are not the bits that wear out

[hazard]

Many people told me to just collect pillows off the lounges being chucked out on council clean up and tie them up like a present. They last for ages and take a hiding.

They are as quiet as your going to get and stack up very well.

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target 2 aaa.jpg (175.34 KiB) Viewed 3390 times

[lanky]

So many ideas!!, i dont know how many old lounges i have been driving past every day!!, and i found a carpet shop with two chock full skip bins!!

[Stickbow Hunter]

Nifty idea Jim and one I haven't seen before.

Jeff

[scuzz]

I must admit, that carpet idea seems like the go. Havnt seen it before but i like it.

Scuzz

[Jim]

Thanks guys but like all my good ideas I stole it off someone on the internet. The same guy had another carpet idea where you get a single long, narrow piece of carpet, roll it up tightly and stuff it into a suitable round frame (like a half a 40 gallon drum).

Here's my one here:


I really wanted to clamp down on the stack of carpet so after screwing the lid on tight I used a hammer to bang in that extra piece of scrap wood in the top. As an afterthought I screwed on a couple of narrow strips of timber on the edges because occasionally when pulling arrows out, some of the carpet tiles would work out a little. They're a bit of a pain to try and slide back in.

I started off using a a sheet of cardboard with targets painted on as a target face, but it got torn up pretty quick, so I tried this with another square of carpet and it seems to be working quite well. My target point arrows have been penetrating even less having to punch through this first. I just used a CD for the template of those painted targets. I punched a hole into the corners of the target tile with a nail and threaded that string through. For future targets I'll try pressing eyelets in there to make them last longer, because that target face is standing up to quite a bit of abuse, but the string has already torn through one hole and had to be re-punched/threaded. I'll make a few with different targets on them and with eyelets they should last a while.

A real negative for this kind of target, especially compared to an alternative like hazards, is that it is really heavy. There's no throwing it in the back of my car and taking it to a field somewhere to plink away. It lives at home. Other than that I have been very happy with it.

Jim

P.S.
You can obviously see at the top where it gets very messy. After my third trip to the carpet store I just cut a suitably long strip and folded it and threw it in the top to make it all fit I was a bit over cutting carpet by that point, but I'll take that out and tidy it up my next weekend off

[rodlonq]

Nice one Jim.

Cheers.... Rod

[Jim]

Cheers Rod

Incidentally those depths of penetration I was reporting up there were with 11/32 wooden shafts. I fired a couple of 5/16 carbons out of a 70# long bow yesterday and they easily penetrated 300mm. Hopefully that helps if any of you are considering building one.

[Shrek]

Good quality RUBBER BOOGIE board with back frame with hanging carpet.The boogie will take a huge amount of hits and the loose hanging carpet takes the speed off the arrow if you miss the board.Wont cost more than $20 at the tip shop.Put some holes in the bottom of the board and peg it like a 3d target,when its shot out just put up another board.

[lanky]

Got bored today!

Found a old recycling tub and filled it with cardboard and a bag of rags!, works great!

target.jpg (156.34 KiB) Viewed 3244 times

Ran out of cardboard to fill it, but its super quiet!

[Ronster]

Im looking to build a target to keep in the garage so i can practice, any ideas on whats quiet??

Hi all, I use cane mulch bales from the local hardware store, $12.00 a bale. They take hundreds of arrows before needing to change, and then they go on the garden.

I really like the carpet target idea!

Ronster

[Gilly]

I wish we could shoot at home in the garden, but we have loads of people who walk behind our place, (a rental) and they can see into the garden, plus our neigbours seem to be a bit delicate, and visibly paled when I got talking about my liking for throwing a dirty great axe at a target!

[asparky]

Twin Cities in morwell use the carpet for there indoor butts...Liverpool use thin rubber sheets for there field targets mounted the same way as the carpet..

[longbowinfected]

make the sides shorter and use screws at the top to tension the target material. Make a corflute overhanging roof to limit how rain affects the target material or spray/soak in boron based timber preservative such as Boracol....reduces decay fungi if leaving outside for carpet or get offcuts of self healing material.

[Jim]

Sorry for bumping this, I just thought I'd do a little update on that carpet target as I just stripped it down to pull a couple of broadheads out that got lost in there. So here is the worst of it, 6 months after it began it's life:



So that centre section obviously copped the brunt of the arrows and as you can see got chewed up. About a month ago I stopped shooting at that part altogether, but funnily enough not because I was worried arrows would pass through and hit the back or anything, but because that chewed up carpet was rejecting field tipped arrows like they were blunts. No point shooting for groups when your arrows just end up in a pile on the grass

After stripping it down I put the worst of that chewed up carpet back to front and at the very top and bottom of the target and now it's like new again, with no extra cost and about 15 minutes work. I anticipate being able to do the same thing a couple more times so at my current rate get maybe two years total out of it before I do another trip to the carpet store (dumpster).

In terms of actual abuse, I'd say a modest estimate would be an average of 100 arrows per week. There have been single days that I've shot that much into it, but I figure a low ball estimate wouldn't leave anyone disappointed if they built their own. For 6 months and maybe a couple of thousand arrows I'd say it's doing ok. My main concern about it will be tested soon though, how will it handle the humidity of the wet season? I imagine if that carpet gets wet it wouldn't get unwet for quite some time...

Jim