I was at work today doing some rather dull busywork, and got to thinking about shooting. I've always enjoyed reading about the guys who do the
The Box of Truth testing. I started thinking about trying to do some similar testing using some of the 5 gallon buckets we had laying around, but we only had a couple of them so I couldn't have done much testing....
I've thought about some of the problems associated with these kinds of home-built ballistic testing devices; one of the main ones being a dependence on milk jugs to hold the water. When you're out of milk jugs, you're done testing. Another problem is the wood frame being destroyed by errant rounds.
Then, I had an idea. We've got lots of scrap lengths of 6 inch schedule 10 stainless steel pipe. I'm going to cut this pipe into 12 inch (or maybe 6 inch, depending on how many decent sized pieces I can dig out of the scrap bin) lengths, then put a small ring about 1 inch from each end of the pipe. I'm going to put a piece of thick plastic sheeting (the painter's dropcloth stuff) over each end and tie it down in the ring to prevent the water inside the pipe from leaking out.
I'm going to use some 1X2 and build a cradle to lay these pipes end to end.
If this works like I think it will, these pipes will solve both of the above problems. The pipes will act as a reusable water container, needing only cheap plastic sheeting replaced to be refilled and reused. Since the pipes don't require a frame to hold them in place, you won't have to worry about the occasional errant bullet destroying the entire operation. If a bullet hits a pipe, simply discard it and replace with an extra. If a bullet hits the cradle, you'll be out of operation for the day, but since it's no more complicated than a sawhorse and only built of cheap 1X2, it's not going to require great effort to repair.
Any thoughts?