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I am wanting to make a backdrop, I just don't know how thick the dirt needs to be. I am also going to a scrap yard to find a sheet of metal. I plan on angling it at a 45 degree angle behind the dirt. How thick should the metal be? If there any concerns about this idea please comment.-
Is this for shooting outdoors I hope, if you make the dirt thick enough (berm) and high enough then the steel plate won't be necessary. So many other factors such as proximity to residences, other structures, and equipment.
yes it is in my backyard. I have houses to my right and left. I have a hill behind my property. I also have houses to the right to where I would build the berm. They are a half a mile away. Besides that it is clear. How thick and high would the berm have to be?
what city and state do you live in? inside city limits? what county?
The most frequently encountered range problem with which I'm familiar is that of shooting over the berm.
No matter how high the berm, eventually someone will shoot, or throw a ricochet, over it.
The only way I know to keep that from happening is to build a kind of ceiling over part of the range.
It doesn't have to be solid. You can make it of two-by-fours (although thicker and wider is better) spaced apart just enough so that an upward-angled shot that would otherwise make it over the berm will instead run into wood.
The most effective berm I have ever seen was made of used and discarded 'phone poles, stacked onto a vertical, one-pole-deep pile that was perhaps eight feet high. Behind that was simple dirt, banked up to the top and compressed a little to keep it in place.
You could cut the poles into shorter lengths, of course, depending upon the width of your range. You could also put a layer of dirt in front of the poles.
Stacked and dirt-filled used tires are also extremely effective. They are frequently available free for the taking. But you need a lot of tires, and filling each of them completely with dirt is a lot of hand-and-back labor.
If other homes are nearby, I suggest that you also need side berms, both just as high as the bullet-catching rear one. But these don't require 'phone poles. Slightly compressed dirt is enough.
i have railroad ties that i was going to put on the sides and back of the berm. I live in johnson county out of the city limits. The state is Texas. So should berm be 4ft thick 5ft tall
I think that taller is better.
(See my previous opinion.)