Canadian Airgun Forum

Hello Guys & Gals,

Being the environmentally conscious fellow I am, I wanted to create a simple, portable, inexpensive and yet highly effective pellet trap that could be used indoors and out. A trip to Home Depot and a wallet $15.00 lighter did the trick.

I purchased one bag of black rubber mulch and a cheap plastic container w/lid. This combined with a chunk of corrugated plastic sheet and a bit of masking tape formed the basis for the trap. Please keep in mind this is all experimental. Result? Works like a charm, stopping even .25 calibre pellets at high velocity from my Hatsan B65SB. I must have pumped 500 pellets into it, not a one making it all the way through to the backside of the box. To retrieve the spent lead, I simply dumped the contents out into a second box with a piece of 1/4" chicken wire in between -a little shake and all the smallish rubber fragments /pellets filter out, to be disposed of in an environmentally sound way (I melt down the pellets in a solder pot used at my place of employment). Still working on an effective way to filter rubber bits from pellets, but I'll eventually McGyver something.

Now that this set up proves to work well, I've got some additional ideas to apply in future iterations. The corrugated plastic sheet is sort of self healing, which keeps the rubber mulch from falling through holes created by shot groups however, it does eventually fall apart and small bits of plastic end up mixed in with the pellets and rubber. I'm thinking perhaps some vinyl floor runner material or something like that might work better. More experimentation is in order. Members thoughts and suggestions are certainly welcome!

Cheers!

Avianmanor

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Air Arms S510 Extra .22 / Sidewinder
FX Streamline .22 / Aztec Emerald
Daystate Huntsman .22 / Aztec Emerald 3-18
Hatsan BT65 SB .25 Sightron SIII
Benjamin Marauder .22 / Hawke Airmax
Cometa Orion .22 / MTC Viper Pro
Weihrauch HW100S .22 Leapers SWAT

Do the rubber bits float?
I had a large pellet trap lined with carpet, thin ply and lead sheet, most of the dross including the cardboard from targets could be floated off in water.

Hey timmytree,

I thought of that -unfortunately the rubber is heavier than water, however, the bits and pieces of corrugated plastic do. A simple old fashioned panning motion easily separates the pellets from the rubber bits.

I've fired about 1000 pellets into this trap so far, and not a one has come out the back. Have yet to experiment with vinyl floor runner as a "self-healing" membrane. Tried some 1/4 rubber sheet I had kicking around -works reasonably well until you start nailing the same hole multiple times, then it opens up. It's a little on the heavy side and far to costly to use on a regular basis. Will keep y'all posted.

Cheers!

Avianmanor

_________________
Air Arms S510 Extra .22 / Sidewinder
FX Streamline .22 / Aztec Emerald
Daystate Huntsman .22 / Aztec Emerald 3-18
Hatsan BT65 SB .25 Sightron SIII
Benjamin Marauder .22 / Hawke Airmax
Cometa Orion .22 / MTC Viper Pro
Weihrauch HW100S .22 Leapers SWAT

Great idea!

Sent from my LG-M154 using Tapatalk

I use a cardboard box with newspaper and flyers stuffed slightly lightly into it. It is put on a thick nylon camping chair. Plywood 1/4 inch 4x4 foot square behind that to keep neighbors happy. Very rarely my guns go thru the box, but if they do the chair very thick nylon that is loose fitting on the back of the camping chair stops the pellet dead and falls on the seat. The same happens when the shooting area when it gets hole filled. Turn the box around and I have a fresh shooting surface. Use painters tape to hole the target sheet. Once all four sides are done I get a fresh box and shake out the pellets from the flyers into the used box carefully on a tarp. Re-stuff the new box with the flyers. Most of the pellets find their way to the bottom of the box naturally. Pickup any from the tarp. Put the pellets in a baggie for the hazardous waste site we have here when I make my yearly trip to drop off batteries, used engine oil, etc.... Recycle the used box in our weekly garbage & recycle pickup with any shot out flyers. Get the boxes from the liquor store. Wine boxes that hold 12 bottles with the cardboard dividers work best. Get a fresh bag of flyers once a week. Works well with .177 pellets using guns under the 500fps limit.

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Walther CP99, Walther CP88 Competition, Beretta F92FS, S&W 586, Colt 1911 A1

Mine is simple, and costs nothing. I like the cardboard cartons that hold business size window envelopes. I cut used vinyl backed carpet scraps for a close fit. I get 8-10 layers of carpet in there, depending on the thickness of the pile. Carpet lasts about a year or more, if I rotate the layers on a semi-frequent basis. Sometimes the outer box doesn't even last a week. It really depends on how much I'm shooting. I have yet to fully penetrate this set up, even with mid to high power .22 pcp's. I do change the carpet out when it starts to look holey. It's more labour to write out a description than to do the actual work the trap requires.

-D.S.

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"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

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