Anyone have any creative ideas for arrow targets for those of us that don't feel like spending $40 on a low end "block"??
feed bag stuffed with shrink wrap or plastic grocery bags.... cinch the top and your ready to go....
Exactly.
We don't throw away any cardboard here. I take a "Block" sized box and use more broken down boxes inside it to make the layers. Wrap the ends in duct tape and it should last you for 2-4 months.
those cheap styrofoam ones from wally world will last a good while.6 sides to shoot from $15. make a mess if you shoot in the house...
Go to Goodwill and buy the used sleeping bags. Fold them over a rope between two trees. Or roll them in the shape of a deers body and wrap with duck tape. They will stop broadheads.
Game Winner field point target at Academy Sports for $19. Best I have shot.
Ive been liking a hay bale I picked up.
I second the hay bale, i stacked two together, it stopped a .22 bullet, so it is now my target for bows and .22's
GO to Tractor Supply or any place that sells trailers. The trailers are delivered with Styrofoam blocks between them to prevent rubs. They make excellent targets and many places will give you as many as you can carry so they don't have to pay to dispose of them. I did a build-along of making a target with some this past summer here.
try a stray dog or cat just kidding lol
For stumping, I like to make a milk-jug course out amongst my stumps. I tie the plastic gallon milk jugs up off the ground. They sway with the wind...about the size of a turkey or vitals of a deer...and stop judos real well (or at least slow em down). Don't cost nothin' but the effort to set them up....and clean them up later!
I use feed bags stuffed with plastic bags, styrofoam blocks from Tractor supply. Then I spray paint a picture of an animal on them using cardboard templates.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/420W/IM000818.jpg)
I use some leftover canvas from boat covers I have made and sew up a bag about 3 foot square. Then I save the shipping bags we seem to have coming in all the time and stuff them into the bag.When I can't stuff in anymore I sew it up and viola', a target. Something else that works- if you can obtain the foam from couch and chair cushions, 3 of them will stop arrows. wrap the three of them with a garbage bag or such.
I have a big round hay bale. For small targets I take 20 oz. pop bottles and fill them with expanding foam. They take a lot of shots.
Dennis
Hey Flinttim,
Fellow canvas guy here. I'm cleaning up the shop today. Gonna give your idea a whirl. Joe
an other place to get foam would be from floating boat dock makers. I think that would last for years.
3Rivers have the target bags on offer at the moment. I just bought one for $13.
Graham
At our hunting camp we dig a ditch and make a mound behind it with the dirt we dug out. Put two posts about 4' apart and string wire 16" apart from post to post. Use a cut out deer target that we cut out of cardboard and hang it from the top wire using the metal type shower curtain hooks. Works great. Make sure your sand pile doesn't have a lot of rocks in it though!!! To make things interesting we hang a coke can from the wire and shoot at it.
I like all these ideas you are getting, I think while you are at it, it would be a nice thing to make your brother a few targets as well.... oh yeah that would be me! Sounds like we got some work to do over the weekends!!!! Great ideas guys.
I am in the process of layering carboard, then using a banding set to get it nice and tight, should last a long time out of the rain.
I use chunks of packing styrofoam like Vermonster mentioned. I also set up tin cans, milk jugs, or heavy plastic juice bottles around the yard. The milk jugs or big plastic bottles last longer if you fill them with expanding foam. When you fill 'em with foam, put a stick in the opening to use for a stake into the ground.
For target bags you can get 100# feed bags for .50-.75 at the feed store. I have a bag target that is real old that I just keep rebagging in those. You can also fill them with the plastic shopping bags or whatever you have. I am frugal when it comes to things I just plan on destroying anyways.
Cheapest of all. Poly sheeting ('Visqueen', etc.), 6 mil. Make a pillow from it using duct tape, 2 or 3 layers. Stuff firmly with wads of same. Stuff the whole thing in a burlap bag, stitched closed with nylon cable ties. Hang it from the corners between two fenceposts with rope and bungees.
Stops anything. Don't use with broadheads--it stops them easily but they are difficult to remove and the broadheads cut up the burlap.
It will work fine without the burlap bag if you are in a hurry. Fashion hanging loops on the corners from duct tape. But it will eventually leave a mess.
It will last for years if protected from UV by the burlap (also use UV resistant cable ties--usually black colored). The burlap also keeps deer and birds from picking it apart. When the burlap gets shot out, just remove it from the old bag and stuff it into a new one.
I second the bag targets filled with plastic. Where I work we make the Lawrys spices and about all the supplies come in either a cardboard box or a big plastic bag. Our restaurant size bottles come packaged in plastic bags that are about 5 ft X 5 ft square and they are heavy plastic. As the operators run the line and resupply the bottles the put all the empty bags into another bag and when it's packed full it gets thrown away. I occasionally take one home for a target and they work great.
If you think a bit, I bet you know SOMEBODY who works in a factory or warehouse environment and I can almost guarantee they can probably get you about all the plastic or cardboard you could possibly ever use.
Off topic but noteworthy.... You can also ask anyone from a manufacturing plant if they use shrink wrap for the pallets of goods before they get put on the truck. Commercial grade shrink wrap is about the most awsome deer processing "handy wrap" material you'll ever get your hands on and the stuff for wrapping pallets is about 2 feet wide. It's super strong and sticks a LOT better than grocery store stuff. It also shrinks if heated so hitting it with a hair dryer after you wrap the meat seals and shrinks it tight.
Where I work, these rolls start out with about six inches of wrap on a roll and they are suposed to run it down till they can see the cardboard through the plastic but being a union job, they tend to change it well before then if it's getting close to break time. I get them with a good 1/2 inch thick layer still left on them all the time which is about 300 to 500 % more running feet per roll than the store stuff.
All mine are free. I take a 36x36 box we get gear in, that they are gonna throw away anyhow, and I tell the shipping guys to fill it with any cellophane wrap that they cut off of the incoming pallets. They gladly do it because it keeps the them from having to empty the trash trolly a couple times a day. I have two of them stacked up in my garage, works great. I've also bought the burlap pillow targets and filled them with the same stuff.
My friends with compounds all shoot the block or some similar layer target. When they have them shot out I ask for them and then cut them apart and get the foam out of them. This stuff I shred up a bit and put it in burlap bags that I get free at a local coffee house that roasts their own beans. So total cost is $.0. and I keep the block out of the landfill.