hunting... for things to keep the kids interested

[magnumwheelman]

yep... grand kids need practice, looking for interesting things for them to shoot... eggs, pop cans full of water, bottles of water, all "explode" when hit with 22's... heard a recommendation of shooting lil plastic army men for adult practice once, & while scanning for army men on E-Bay, I ran across 2-3" plastic dinosaurs, 2-4" plastic rats... I think these might make interesting targets, & quite possibly re-useable, where the water filled & eggs, leave my range a mess

so interesting things for the kids to "hunt"

... I'm also thinking of building a smaller target table... maybe 1/4" thick table top, ground to an edge on the front side to cut down on ricochet

what are you guys using for lil guy training aids

[subsonic]

Charcoal briquets are fun. A center hit "powders" them. Good for shotguns too.

Get the 15lb bag of cheapies at Wal-Mart for like $8.

Regular old clay pigeons are good too.

Potatoes, while messy, can be a ton of fun with a larger caliber.

Neco wafers, crackers (turn them on edge if needed), and when they start getting a little too confident, strike anywhere matches can be lit by skipping a bullet across them.

Use wooden clothes pins to hold the smaller items.

[zac0419]

Balloons are good too. Easier to hit and know you hit at a distance. Just blow em up, staple the valve to anything, and shoot.

[Stump Buster]

Big Blocks of Ice...

When they are hit... you have a bunch of rapidly shrinking smaller targets that you won't have to clean up later.

[magnumwheelman]

Ice is a good idea as well...

since I posted this thread, & since it's in the hunting forum... I thought I'd share that I've bought a couple packs of plastic rats, for closer up shooting about 1" high, & 3" long, as well as a couple packs of plastic African safari animals, like 4" high, I thought these could be used at 50 - 100 yards, depending of the use of a scope, & or the shooters ability... this way I can finally go on that African Safari I always wanted to go on, & could never afford, & can take the lil guys with...

I also found several small plastic dinosaurs, that I thought about buying...

I think I'm going to make a couple shooting "tables" or target stands, out of some 3/16" steel plate, & some stubs of rebar sharpened on one end & welded to the corners of the plates, so they can be stepped in... I was originally thinking about 6" X 36" for multiple targets, but a hit to the table would likely topple the animals... now I'm thinking several 6" X 6" squares, spray painted white so I can put one animal on each plate, at varying distances... maybe a rolled sticky side out piece of duct tape would stick the animal base to the plate, so a solid hit would be required to "put the animal down"

thoughts

[Markbo]

Not sure if it would fit your bill but I know as kids we kept ourselves well occupied shooting little plastic soldiers (and cowboys and Indians) with BB guns. Other than they couldn't be shot more than once, I don't see why you couldn't do that with a .22.

Check out this page at Cheaper than Dirt for self healing targets:
www.cheaperthandirt.com/prod/Self_Healing_Targets

[robl]

Golf balls and baseballs A bucket of baseballs for 14 at Wally world & of course; Tannerite! Fun & Family recreation with Explosives:-)

[lange1]

We like charcoal briquets for the 22LR too, and old cans of food blow up great with a 223.

We also regularly buy a case of the cheapest soda available at Walmart. If there's a couple different kinds on sale, the brighter colored cans get the nod. You can sometimes get a case of something like that nasty strawberry soda for about $2.50. Put it a little farther out to make them work a little for it. Even a 22LR will blow them sky high if hit solidly.

If the kids are able to sit and hold a 308, an old bowling ball from the local bowling range is a heroic target, put it at least 50 yards away, and watch for the chunks to be able to get out of the way. The first time we did this, I started walking toward the ball after the shot and got about 15 yards toward it when the biggest chunk came down, about 1/4 of the ball. After that we watch more carefully.

Steel plates work pretty good, kids and newbies love the gratification of hearing the clank when hit.

Couple weekends ago we took a huge old TV out, the kids had been asking to shoot it, but the clean up really wasn't worth it. Took a long time, had to take it to the hazardous household area at the dump, and I still have chunks of glass in the bed of the truck.

[stevemb]

So I'm not the only one with a redneck range ! I've hung various size cans and up to 2-liter plastic bottles by strings, from tree limbs. These scattered at different ranges, down my back hillside. Have a couple hanging steel plates too. stevemb

[rabbit9146]

Get a helium tank from wal mart. fill up balloons and tie them to bushes. shoot tank when done. best done on a day with a breeze for moving targets

[subsonic]

I was really dissappointed in those green coleman propane tanks. Wal-Mart had a sale on ammo and propane tanks. Why not mix them?

I can tell you that a 9mm FMJ WON'T penetrate them from 50yds, but a 10mm sure as hell will go through both sides.

[boxhead]

Though my two eldest below are in their 20's now there was no substitute for jack rabbits when we lived in West Texas. Ground squirrels ran second and Neco candy a distant third. ;D I look forward to do it all over gain with grand kids sometime down the road.

[0369]

Whe I was a kid my brother and I spent days with 22s at a spot behind the house in the woods that was an old farm dump. If I only knew how much all of the old glass bottles would be worth now! Unfortunately, we got to be good shots and when returning to salvage some we found nothing a lot of small
pieces. Oh, hind sight is surely 20-20.

[magnumwheelman]

had my buddy & his grand kid over last Saturday... too wet to get out to my shooting range, ( through 100 ft of plowed field )... so I set them up against my dirt pile, & put a 3' X 4' sheet of cardboard up... I punched a bunch of holes, & had his grandson pick a bunch of dandy lion flower heads... we put the stems through the holes, with the "yellow dots" facing us... gave a good target to shoot... dandy lions flew apart pretty good when hit directly...

less dandy lion seeds, & targets... they shot as much as they wanted... ( or had ammo for )

hoping next time we can shoot the plastic animals I bought... but the "yellow dots" worked pretty well

[flyfisher66048]

We used to glue primer to a sheet of paper with a drop of Elmers glue. They are mighty hard to hit, and explore when you do hot them. Set them as far away as you can see them with a handgun. Set them just a little farther than you can hit them with a rifle.