Recycled Project: Rifle Target Stand

For the first time in a very long time, I drew for an elk hunt. It's at the end of November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. The next few weekends will be spent in the hills, scouting and sighting in the rifle.

It occurred to me in this process that I needed something to hold the targets up. My dad had one that he made out of scraps, and I was thus inspired to do the same. This project is 100% recycled, except for some glue.

I had some old, well-used 2x6 lumber lying around, so I cut it down to make the uprights and back legs. I designed a groove that holds a board to which I could tape my targets and slide it in/out from the top. The top of the frame is composed of two thin pieces sandwiching a tongue on the uprights and bolted together. The bottom of the frame that holds the target is held in place with a mortise & tenon joint, as are the braces at the bottom of the stand. The back legs hang slightly lower than the front legs so that the target will be more or less vertical when it is standing up, which will be nice at 100 yards. The hinges were old cabinet hinges from our last house. Since the frame is made out of 1 1/2" thick material, it is fairly substantial, which will keep it from blowing over in a stiff breeze. A piece of parachute cord passes through some random holes in the cross braces to keep the stand from splaying out.

That's the official U.S. Army "50 ft small bore rifle target" in the frame. My dad had a box of probably 1000 of these targets, so I took 100 or so. I hope I can see those circles at 100 yards.

All in all, this was a quick and easy project. I plan to try it out in the near future.

Thanks for reading!