Shooting steel

[desertrider]

I stumbled (literally) across some steel plates ( NOT AR500) this weekend while poking around some garage sales with my wife.

Some are square and approx six to eight inches square, others are rectangular and approx six by ten inches. They vary in thickness from 3/8" to 1/2".

I threw one on the drill press and was able to drill through it with a 5/16" bit at a slow speed with an occasional squirt of cutting oil to keep the bit from overheating.

My plan from the get go was to use these exclusively for .22 plinking, but I'm wondering if they will hold up to some low velocity .38sp and .45acp rounds?

I don't know if all the plates are of the same grade, which sucks because I'd like to sacrifice one for testing, but that doesn't mean the results will be consistent among the remaining plates.

I'm certain that .22's will just flatten out against them, but I'd hate to dimple them with the .38's and .45's.

Any of you guys use standard grade steel with low velocity pistol rounds? Any deformation/craters?

[Baeleron]

I have a steel handgun target, no idea what grade of steel it is. But .223 goes right through it without even slowing down, so don't make that mistake!

[Barleyologist]

Yeah you are just going to put holes in it. I 'tried' that also and the steel was so full of holes and now sharp edges that I had to dump the plates.

[BrokerB]

Who cares if they dimple. Just be dam sure to keep them ata safe distance and absolutely at safe angle. I have rail toad tie plates at 150/250/300 that I blast with 7.62.

They were free plates. They will last 1,000 rounds at least. The farther back the less dimples/holes ect.

Problem is shooting pistol at anything under maybe 50 yds, and you dimple it, you can create an angle to send a ricochet back at your eye ball. Even if your plate is at a 30 degree angle facing down, you make a good enough divet and you will create an angle perpendicular enough to shoot a copper jacket back at you. Bad news

Be very very careful. I have been hit twice pretty dam hard from being too close and bad angle.

[NapalmCheese]

Don't do it.
Ar500 plates aren't too expensive.

Why not?
Shoot them till they are swiss cheese, recycle them, use the money to buy AR500.

[Vlad 11]

Mild steel is perfectly fine for standard handgun cartridges.

.38 and .45 will not dent a 3/8 " let alone a 1/2" mild steel plate. They will just splatter.

I have 1/4" mild steel plates dedicated for handgun and they hold up great, although not for magnum loads

Mild steel and centerfire rifle is a bad idea. Less than 1/2" will blow right thru. 1/2" mild steel will get dimpled and pocked up, and dangerous.

A quality AR500 3/8 and up will hold up to most any standard round, though high velocity require some distance be given to the target

[81turbota]

I have shot mild steel plate before, I'll never do it at ranges less than ~300 yards. Shooting 7/16-1/2" mild steel at 500 yards with 8x57, 7.62x54R, 30-06 and .303 usually leaves a clean hole or massive crater.

In my newer shooting days I set up a mild steel plate at 25 yards for handguns, previously shot with rifles. The plate was cratered, bowed and had holes in it. After a few shots of .38 SPC I caught a chunk of ricochet fragment to my glasses. Never again!!!!

AR500 is cheap, safer and gives a much more satisfying report than mild steel. Remember, even with AR500 don't shoot it at ranges closer than 100 yards with rifles, 25 yards with pistols.

There are many places to source AR500. I bought an 8" AR500 gong from an online auction site for $25 shipped. It has withstood thousands of rounds, most from higher powered rifles in the calibers mentioned earlier in my post.

[desertrider]

Don't do it.
Ar500 plates aren't too expensive.

AR500 is cheap, safer and gives a much more satisfying report than mild steel. Remember, even with AR500 don't shoot it at ranges closer than 100 yards with rifles, 25 yards with pistols.

There are many places to source AR500. I bought an 8" AR500 gong from an online auction site for $25 shipped. It has withstood thousands of rounds, most from higher powered rifles in the calibers mentioned earlier in my post.

I have a couple of 12"AR500 plates and an 18" AR500 plate for long distance shooting.

I was planning on using these mild steel plates for 22lr but then got to wondering if they would hold up to low velocity rounds like 38sp and 45acp.

Mild steel is perfectly fine for standard handgun cartridges.

.38 and .45 will not dent a 3/8 " let alone a 1/2" mild steel plate. They will just splatter.

I have 1/4" mild steel plates dedicated for handgun and they hold up great, although not for magnum loads

It sounds like the safe range for the larger pistol calibers is farther out than I want to practice with my handguns though. So these plates just may become dedicated 22 plinking plates.

I may still use the largest of the mild steel plates at 50yds for my 45's just to see what happens. If there's no damage, I'll bring the plate in five yards at a time until I find some damage.

Thanks for the input guys!

[Vlad 11]

I shoot my 1/4" mild plates @ 20' to 10 yds with 9mm .40 and .45 regularly, even 7.62x25 . Thousands of rounds. The plates are still straight with some tiny superficial marks. These plates are angled slightly downward when set up

Handgun rounds are highly unlikely to beat up any plate over 1/4". Unless its some kind of cheap pot metal or cast

Heres some images:

These are 1/4" mild plates from the square plate bins at IMS.

Maybe 8-9 yrs old.. countless .22 thru .45 --- lead , FMJ, even Tokarev steel jacketed. Handgun rounds hardly leave any mark in the steel





Next:

These are mild steel 3/8" 6" rounds from the IMS scrap bin

These plates have seen it all handgunwise. Up to and including .44 mag and .50AE. They have held up great

[desertrider]

I shoot my 1/4" mild plates @ 20' to 10 yds with 9mm .40 and .45 regularly, even 7.62x25 . Thousands of rounds. The plates are still straight with some tiny superficial marks. These plates are angled slightly downward when set up

Handgun rounds are highly unlikely to beat up any plate over 1/4". Unless its some kind of cheap pot metal or cast

Good to hear. The thinnest of the plates I got is 3/8", but I'll still start at about 50 yds out and move closer. I always angle the plates downward to deflect the rounds to the ground.

[ElDub1950]

Try a few rounds. If they crater, turn them around and reserve them for .22

[Pardini]

My plates are 3/8 mild steel and have been shot thousands of times with lead handgun rounds as close as 10 yards. The only damage done to them was when I let a gal at the range shoot them with jacketed bullets at major PF. Even then it was very slight damage.

[desertrider]

I took some time this evening to start working on my plates and frames.

Here are the five plates after I started the drilling. The actual dimensions are 6 x 6 x 3/4 thick, 8 x 8 x 3/4 thick, 6 x 10 x 3/4 thick, 8 x 16 x 1 thick, and 6 x 6-1/2 x 2 thick.






The drilling went pretty easy using four steps with progressively larger drill bits ending with 3/8" holes.




The whole reason I was garage saling with my wife was to pick up some bed frames to make stands for my AR500 plates. Here are some bed frames I picked up and stripped down to the angle iron.




Done for the night, still have a couple more holes to drill to reinforce the frame with bolts and still need to hang the plates. Hopefully I'll have the time to finish this weekend.




Total investment so far is $15, five bucks each for two bed frames, and five bucks for all the plates. The chains and hardware I already had. Can't wait to see how this works out!

[BrokerB]

That is some dsm thick steel. The gong effect will be reduced, pleasure will still be good though.

I am in high opinion they should always be angled down and not able to swing close to 90% back at you. Copper shrapnel will do gbi.