My wife and I are members of a club that has a 300 meter range.
Last weekend a friend of ours brought out a few steel target to shoot at. He hung them from saw horses and a 2x4 with chains. The steel targets are required to deflect downward.
This week I bought a 16 inch gong and am looking for ideas to hang the steel that might be a little easier. The saw horses and 2x4 worked however I was interested to see what others have done.

There you go.

http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/steel-targets/

We use old conveyor belting to hang targets. Holds up FAR better than any other method we have tried. Especially chain or welded chain to a plate. Bang a few holes in the belting with a hole punch, loop belting over your stands cross piece and attach the plate with some bolts.

I have also used the belting material used in round hay balers. They replace that belting every few years....go to a tractor dealership and ask them to save You some.

AR steel is the only way to go. Abrasion Resistant holds up many times better than even thick, mild steel plates.

We use permanent stands to hang steel at my club. But also use rebar stands for unknown range shoots. JC Steel has some nice brackets at a reasonable cost. Or build them from thin wall pipe, weld them up yourself.

Distance is your friend with plate life. Our 125 yd plates, despite being 1/2" AR 500, get destroyed in a matter of months. Yet the 400 yd and beyond plates merely require repainting.

Don't allow any ultra mags or Weatherby's with Barnes copper bullets. They will damage the plates. Same for any Military ammo with penetrator rds. Even at 200-250 yds they can still damage 1/2" AR 500.

We have had 3/8" plates ruined in a few days at 125 and even 200 yds. VELOCITY as well as bullet composition is the key to plate damage.

Sheppard's hook type set up works for a single plate

Multiple plates, I like the Saw Horse. We made ours about 5' high and 6' across. We can hang 2, 3 or 4 plates from the hooks.

I built a small sawhorse style frame and suspended the plate from two chains hooked over nails. The weight is more than sufficient to keep it in place and easy to take down when finished.

I do like the use of an old conveyor belt section. Definitely some shock absorbing qualities with that method.

A range I used to shoot at, out to 300yrds, used heavy chain. Then covered chain with cut up strips of old tires. They had "saw horses" built with RR ties.

The RR ties lasted forever with multiple hits of various calibers. This place was full Auto ok so some would full Auto gong area.

The tire pieces would eventually tear apart with hits. Rounds would pass through and hit chains anyway.

The chains would eventually fall apart due to hits.

The gongs would be attached by a large bolt and nut.

i always had to jerry rig the gongs. The chains would always be shot and delinked. The bolt attached to gong would eventually become shot out also. So I would up leaning gongs against the RR ties.

My suggestion would be to make a saw horse out of available material. But make a shelf across the horizontal support, below or under. Then place steel on the shelf.

This way there is no chain to shoot out. No constant repairing of chains. Only drawback is steel won't "gong" the same as when suspended.

Another option is to use an old steel wheel as a base. Some fill with concrete to help stabilize. Then bolt or weld a vertical post/pipe to base at desired height. Or use a 4x4 or 6x6. Then hang or shelf steel on that. This would make for a portable unit also if needed.

Good luck and have fun. I miss that range.

The saw horse sorts are what I'm used to. Particularly the ones were it's two metal bracket things with 2x4s to make the saw horse, that way most of the saw horse is easily replaceable on the cheap when it inevitably gets shot or otherwise wears.

Thanks everyone. I think I am going to go the saw horse route. It seams the cheapest and easiest to fix when shot up.

Where I shoot we have a steel frame made from 5" angle iron. 2 legs, about 6-7' out of the ground with a 10' piece across the top, also of the same angle iron. The pieces are set so a round hitting a leg would deflect to the right or left. On the back side of the cross bar there are welded chain "grab" hooks. Our gongs are typically old gas cylinders. They are cut in half and have a chain welded to the closed end. To protect the chain we have two pieces of steel pipe, one inside the other, slipped over the chain. A good lesson here is that the long legs and long cross rarely get bullet impacts.

Build the portable ones from wood, but make them longer and they'll last much longer too.

I have one of these.

http://www.arntzentargets.com/folding_stand.htm

Works as advertised. Convenient / foldable / portable.

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Several of the previous posts contained much of the information required for shooting steel and how to suspend them. Let me add a couple of bits of information to help you with your steel and to add a little life to it.

Under NO circumstances let anyone shoot steel core ammunition at your targets, regardless of the distance. These will destroy a target quicker than you can imagine. Secondly, speed kills. Velocities of your bullets should be 2600 fps or less at impact to help with life and avoid cratering. This basically means that most of the rounds people are shooting will require the targets to be 200 yards or farther. Some rounds may see steel at 150 but many, especially .223s, will require the longer distances, magnums even farther. I use my steel in tactical matches and do not let shooters shoot magnums. The heavy bullet weights from the big dogs will require 1/2" steel and set back at distance. Most of my steel is 3/8" AR500 for 225 - 800 yards and 1/4" AR500 for shots taken past 800. I limit shooters to .30 cal or smaller, no magnums and a 3000 fps speed limit.

Another thing that helps prolong the life of steel targets is to turn them around each year. This helps take any dishing out by having impacts hit the target on the reverse side. Hope this helps.

Semper Fi...Sig Marine

I get stuff here.

http://hangfasttargets.com/

Using T-posts is handy.

I really like these:

The Last Stand Target Stand https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J..._r_api_nLNjzbCZ73Q7S

I have 3 sets of them and they have worked great. I just purchased 5' sections of pre-cut rebar from my local hardware store and painted the rebar with some rustoleum to keep them from rusting. They are very quick to setup, they fold up more compact than my other still target stands, and they have been completely durable. A couple years of shooting and I haven't had to replace one yet. The rebar gives it a nice wide base so it doesn't fall over, and having a wide base makes it much less likely to shoot the stands since they are further away from the actual target.

I'm using this target chain kit to suspend 8" and 10"'round steel gongs from the rebar cross bar:
Target Mounting Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014..._r_api_kQNjzb42P7QN5

If you are using a 16" diameter target then you would just get longer rebar for the legs.

I prefer this system by JC Steel Targets:

https://jcsteeltargets.configi...=productlist&cid=318

The conveyor belt hanger usually won’t fail with a single errant hit like chain, and I prefer a hanger that allows free movement of small targets. My range is limited to about 300 yards, and reasonably-sized targets for precision rifles are light enough that they can be completely torn off if firmly attached to the bracket. The disadvantage to conveyor belt hangers is that they can get pretty torn up if the bullet hits the edge of the plate.

I definitely avoid wood or plastic brackets because of the damage caused by bullet splatter.