YAPT - Yet Another Pellet Trap

[vinenator]

I started out with an A rcher Airguns 8.5 x 11 pellet trap in popular and finished the outside with "weathered gray" stain and a few coats of water based poly satin finish. added a nickel finish stylish handle.

The inside has 2 1.5" layers of the ballistic flooring material i wrote about in another thread backed by the 1/4" ballistic tile.

i'll pound the rubbery material to see how it holds up under fire.

[Tater]

Looks nice, looking forward to hearing how the ballistic flooring holds up.

[vinenator]

Ok, I have a very interesting test to share regarding the above mentioned pellet trap materials.

I finished phase one of my shooting bench (photos in an upcoming post), and the postman had left me an order of pellets from PA, so i was chomping at the bit to try out some wad-cutters.

i get all set up and ready to shoot at my indoor target at 50ft . I shoot my Cyclone on the low power setting which is about 13fpe. (650fps'ish). i startrd out with some JSB Exacts to warm up and then switchrd to the H&N wad-cutters.

Now keep in mind, that at 13fpe, the JSBs penetrate the first 1.5" of the ballistic flooring (rubbery) and that is about it. But when I sent the first wad-cutter down range i got a very different result.

THE PELLET BOUNCED OFF THE FRONT SURFACE OF THE BALLISTIC FLOORING!!!

I shoot, i hear the pellet hit the paper target then i hear "ding", as the pellet bounced off the metal door behind me and fell to the ground!!

i find the pellet laying on the ground and it is in pretty good shape. it literally bounced off the front surface of the ballistic flooring and came back at me. the trap was slightly angled backward so the bounce caused the pellet to hit above me on the come back.

not to be deterred, i checked out the trap and did some thinking. i had a piece of dense packing foam about an inch thick (like the stuff PA sends their pellets wrapped in) laying around that was big enough to put in the trap, so i put that in front of the other ballistic material at a slight angle. my idea was that the pellet would easily pass through the first layer of foam, lose some energy and even if they still bounced back, they wouldn't have enough reserve energy to make it back through the first layer again. also, by angling the first piece which created an air gap, there was also little chance the pellet would bounce back out the same hole.

sure enough, that did the trick and the following 7 pellets were found either laying in the bottom of the trap or partially stuck in the first layer of foam.

i don't dare attempt wad-cutters indoors at higher power settings, considering the results so far, but there still is some additional tests to do with these materials.

[Geoff]

thank you for the write up on the trap and your mods

[vinenator]

Another materials update...

The ballistic flooring works fine for mid range fpe (20ish), but for lower settings, especially with wad cutters, it is a hazard. They just bounce off. I solved that by putting a 1" piece of dense foam (the kind PA packs pellet tins in) in front of it, but now i have to contend with the noise of the pellet hitting that.

so, this weekend i pulled out the foam and the first 1.5" layer of the ballistic flooring. it was a lot heavier as it absorbed a lot of pellets. it showed bulging on both the front and back sides where most of the pellets hit, so i'm not sure how it would stand up after a 1000 or so were banged into it.

i replaced that layer with one layer of duct seal.

so, now i have 1" of duct seal, 1.5" of ballistic rubber flooring, and a 3/8" piece of ballistic tile as a last resort. i won't be shooting indoors at a level where the tile will be engaged.

the tests continue.

hopefully the duct seal will be quieter (haven't shot into it yet) than the foam slab.

[Frank in Fairfield]

I started out with an A rcher Airguns 8.5 x 11 pellet trap in popular and finished the outside with "weathered gray" stain and a few coats of water based poly satin finish. added a nickel finish stylish handle.

The inside has 2 1.5" layers of the ballistic flooring material i wrote about in another thread backed by the 1/4" ballistic tile.

i'll pound the rubbery material to see how it holds up under fire.

I like it too. I too have one and I added some aluminum strips to protect the box. I just use duct seal. About 30 pounds. Funny, the box weighs almost 50 pounds:

[vinenator]

it does't appear as if the aluminum molding has taken any hits. do the pellets bounce off? i would want to avoid that, esp. when shooting indoors.

the 1.5" of ballistic flooring behind my layer of duct seal is not as heavy, so the box is somewhat lighter. i think it will easy to rip out the single layer of duct seal in the future if I ever need to replace it. THAT will be down the road many years! LOL

[Frank in Fairfield]

Uh. I have replaced the strips two times.

[Kauaira]

Its ideas like this that get my creative juices flowing. I'm going to a metal/scraps dump and cant wait to see the possibilities.

[Chevoldsmoyota]

I have a similar set-up. . .We have a horse trailer manufacturer here in Preston and I got some scraps of the rubber floor matting they use.  It is about 1/2 inch thick.  I placed three layers of it in a piece of metal low-voltage wiring tray (about 12" wide, 12" long)  In front of that I placed a piece of cardboard to tape my targets to.  So far, I have shot about 700-800 pellets into it.  Mostly .177, but a few .22 also.  There are NO PELLET HOLES through the second layer of floor mat!  The first piece is quite holy, and there are a few pellets lodged in the second layer.  I have not seen or heard any ricochets.  I think the cardboard is working similarly to the foam packing material mentioned above.  The whole package only weighs about 10 lbs.

Craig