Railroad tie plates as steel targets

[DixieReb]

This may have been discussed before on here or other topics throughout the forum but if it has I haven’t seen it since coming on board. Does anybody use old railroad tie plates for target shooting? Are there any cons to using them? I want to set up several for my oldest granddaughter to shoot at with a 22LR at 50 yards. I plan to make them swingable so as to deflect the bullet downward hopefully rather than shoot them mounted rigidly. Can get a few of these old plates for free and got plenty of scrap steel to build stands for them to swing on. If this is a bad idea please don’t hesitate to chime in why it wouldn’t be safe. Thanks for all input…..

 

[Southalabama]

Don’t tell the railroad

 

[ls1_guru]

Buddy of mine uses them, they work good

 

[DixieReb]

Don’t tell the railroad

I’ve got a few plates from where the railroad was abandoned from my lovely little town about 30-35 years ago, can still walk the old railroad bed and find them and thousands of spikes. Have made some cool knives out of the spikes. I guess when the railroad company left us high and dry and abandoned the service then everything reverted back to the landowners as miles and miles of fencing as been put up over the years and even homes built on the old rail bed along the west side Gantt Lake. Have to look hard to even know we once had a railroad coming through as trees have grown up and folks have dug out the rail beds for dirt and gravel.

 

[indy1919a4]

The Southern states used them to armor the sides of some ironclads during that recent unpleasantness between the states. They seemed to work against large caliber ammunition.

 

[Fodderwing]

Some of the RR right of ways were turned into trails for public use.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/florida/gen-james-a-van-fleet-state-trail

 

[Fodderwing]

Those old tie plates should be fine for the stated purpose.

I suppose there is a one in a billion or so chance that a bullet could find a spike hole resulting in an unexpected ricochet, Murphy's law and all that.

 

[Tovarish]

Anything softer than AR500 steel has the flexibility to rebound and throw the bullet back at you. You want the bullet to shatter not ricochet. I would never use anything but hardened steel, but I guess that depends on your attitude toward those shooting at the steel.

 

[DixieReb]

Woahhhhh, so Tovarish you’re saying don’t use the tie plates. I want to set one at 50, 75, 100 and maybe 125 yards for a 9 year old to plink under my supervision, and she’ll have on eye protection. I’ll weld up a swinging bracket so each plate should tip down upon impact to hopefully prevent any ricochet. Please elaborate on the metallurgy of the tie plates and why it could be unsafe to use. My intent is to get her a lot of action for the end of next deer season when we hit the food plots and shoot rabbits at sunset, talk about some good eating, barbecued on the grill, yum yum

 

[Duckyou]

I use some crappy cast iron pans for 22 and they have not had an issue.

 

[DixieReb]

And speaking of old railroad’s, I’ve had my hunting lease for 24 years that joins my property, little over 1400 acres. Years ago I noticed an old road bed that was grown up and as deep as 12’ on the banks, nobody knew anything about it, over the years I’ve walked the old bed all the way through the property tracing its route, took a metal detector in the woods and bingo ! Started finding small spikes, went to the public library and did some research. I had found an old logging railroad bed, the virgin timber had been logged here in the late 1890’s and the last of the railroad tracks were pulled out in 1911. There were 8 or 9 locomotives that travelled these tracks back then hauling the virgin timber out on the west side of the Yellow River where I’m located. I think about all the back breaking work that went in to digging these rail beds out to keep the locomotives moving on level ground, lots and lots of hand digging, probably used dynamite, mules and slip pans.

 

[Raven]

I’ve got a few plates from where the railroad was abandoned from my lovely little town about 30-35 years ago, can still walk the old railroad bed and find them and thousands of spikes. Have made some cool knives out of the spikes. I guess when the railroad company left us high and dry and abandoned the service then everything reverted back to the landowners as miles and miles of fencing as been put up over the years and even homes built on the old rail bed along the west side Gantt Lake. Have to look hard to even know we once had a railroad coming through as trees have grown up and folks have dug out the rail beds for dirt and gravel.

Hundreds of tons of crushed stone free for the taking... dang it man

 

[Raven]

The Southern states used them to armor the sides of some ironclads during that recent unpleasantness between the states. They seemed to work against large caliber ammunition.

View attachment 165458

Yes they did work quite well and yes the idea of ripping up tracks for high quality armor has not been forgotten

 

[DixieReb]

Fortunately not Raven, doubt any stone was ever laid in the woods on this old logging railroad bed, never seen a trace of any gravel, they probably just used oak ties and laid them on the ground way back then

 

[Raven]

Woahhhhh, so Tovarish you’re saying don’t use the tie plates. I want to set one at 50, 75, 100 and maybe 125 yards for a 9 year old to plink under my supervision, and she’ll have on eye protection. I’ll weld up a swinging bracket so each plate should tip down upon impact to hopefully prevent any ricochet. Please elaborate on the metallurgy of the tie plates and why it could be unsafe to use. My intent is to get her a lot of action for the end of next deer season when we hit the food plots and shoot rabbits at sunset, talk about some good eating, barbecued on the grill, yum yum

Swinging plates should solve any ricochets your way. Will still have ricochets though

 

[Raven]

Fortunately not Raven, doubt any stone was ever laid in the woods on this old logging railroad bed, never seen a trace of any gravel, they probably just used oak ties and laid them on the ground way back then

Wow must be a really old railroad. You got lucky NOT having a "Rails to Trails" program. The program in Milton was a disaster. A lot of people got vandals and homeless and burglars on their property too, where the trail gave paved access out of sight to peoples backyards

 

[Tovarish]

https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdf

This is a good starting point. Soft steel pits and directs the bullet fragments who knows where. It also has some flex to it. My daughters cross country coach caught a 308 round in the hip from a soft steel plate rebound.

 

[Raven]

https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdf

This is a good starting point. Soft steel pits and directs the bullet fragments who knows where. It also has some flex to it. My daughters cross country coach caught a 308 round in the hip from a soft steel plate rebound.

What kind of yardage?

 

[DixieReb]

https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdf

This is a good starting point. Soft steel pits and directs the bullet fragments who knows where. It also has some flex to it. My daughters cross country coach caught a 308 round in the hip from a soft steel plate rebound.

Yeah, what kind of yardage was the ricochet from? And these railroad plates look pretty dang hard, may be against my better judgement but think I’m going to fabricate some swinging targets and pop a few rounds off before I let any family members go at it, thanks for the input.

 

[Tovarish]

Even Wikipedia says don’t shoot mild steel targets.