This design was originally inspired by Tracy Bullock’s thread on Archery Talk (unfortunately the link to the thread had to be removed as it no longer exists.) The design appealed to me because of the simplicity of the design, easily available materials and the ability to refresh the target to a new state. It can be made to fit any size area and if the right lumber and other materials are used, should last a very long time.
The Design
All frame materials are readily available at any lumber/hardware store:
2×10 kiln dried boards
2×1 framing
1/4″ plywood
Tarp/burlap
Chickenwire
Filling: discarded clothing with any hard objects removed (zippers, buttons, etc.)
Full height of the target will be 72″ with the shootable area approximately 48″x54″. All wood will be waterproofed as well as a cover built to keep the rain/sprinklers off of it.
The frame will be fastened together with screws and the front cover that holds the target face (tarp/burlap) in place will be held on by bolts and wingnuts that pass through the entire frame. This will make the cover easy to remove and replace without damaging the main frame.
The Build
Main frame pieces cut and ready to go
I had originally planned on making the target 10″ thick but after reading more about similar targets and considering that I want to shoot high-energy and small diameter arrows (Easton ST Axis), I decided to go with a little more stopping power and a 12″ thick target.
The first step was to go on a little shopping trip to get all the necessary materials for the target. A quick trip to Lowes resulted in a couple of eight foot long 2x 12s, two eight foot 1x4s, some 3/8″ staples and a bunch of sizes of wood screws since I was running low on them anyhow. Next stop was at the local farm supply store to buy a roll of 36″ chicken wire. At home I already had a large roll of weed control ground cover to finish things off.
Next I cut the 2x12s into two sections, a five foot length and a three foot length. This resulted in zero waste of the wood and exactly what I needed. Using oil-based Minwax, all boards were thoroughly stained with a couple of thick coats to protect against the elements and give the wood a nice rustic look. By using the oil-based stain and lots of it, the boards will survive well outdoors without needed any other treatment other than a touch up every couple of years to keep the wood from drying out.
Next up was to cut the top hole into which the arrow-stopping material would be placed. I picked the tightest-grained, densest boards that I could find and not much is going to cut through them than a good solid blade. For this the trusty ol’ Porter Cable radial saw was the perfect tool. After marking out the cut-out, I made for cuts with the saw and then trimmed out what was left of the corners with a jigsaw.
Cutting out the top hole
The main target frame consists of the two five foot boards forming the vertical sides with the three footers forming the top and bottom. A long time ago I learned that if you want a truly square structure, a couple of clamps and squaring tool go a long ways to making this easy and possible. After the squaring jig and clamps were in place, I put four, 6″ wood screws in to each intersection of boards.
Squaring the frame before screwing together
Attaching the chicken wire
With the frame complete, it was time to break out the chicken wire and get it into place. Because the actual target area is three feet square, the 36″ chicken wire was easy to cut and line up. I used a very generous amount of staples to secure the wire. By wrapping the wire around the sides of the frame a bit, it will prevent the chicken wire from coming off after all the abuse the target is sure to go through. There are rows of staples along the front of the frame as well as the side to solidly anchor the wire. After using the staple gun to place all of the staples, a solid whack with a hammer seated them fully.
Now it was time to start stuffing the target with the clothing. From hearing of other people’s experiences I knew that denim would do well at stopping arrows, but also tends to be tougher to pull the arrows from. Because of this I made the very bottom layers out of our discarded jeans where the arrows are less likely to hit and saved the shirts and other thinner cloth for the top layers. To prevent the chicken wire from bulging out as the stuffing was piled up, I placed a row of three tie wires for about every 9″ of stuffing.
Wire ties across the bottom layer of denim
Packing in the layers
Before beginning to stuff all of the clothes and rags in, I made sure to remove anything that could potentially damage an arrow. All zippers, metal buttons or other hard objects were removed. Any clothes with silk screens or anything I thought might rub off on or melt on an arrow I separated and put towards the edges of the target.
As the layers built up I altered between stuffing and rolling the clothes up to get the densest packing possible. By making rolls of cloth and packing the spaces between with cut up pieces the arrow stoppign power should be increased. It takes a lot of clothing to fill up a target this size. The picture to the right shows the target after putting in about five large garbage sacks!
Once the target was filled it was time to put on the front frame and face. I decided to use weed barrier ground cover for the face because of its durability and soft texture. In the past I have used the ubiquitous blue tarps for target faces and found them to be very noisy (the arrows make a loud “smack” on impact) and the
All framed in
blue coloring will rub off on the arrows. The soft, yet durable weed barrier will hopefully make a quieter and more user friendly surface. I also like the black color because when setting a bow up and shooting with bright fletchings, it’s easy to see how the arrow is flying against the black background color.
The ground cloth was tacked into place with a few staples and then framed in with the 1x4s and a few screws up each side. When the target face wears out, it should be a simple and quick task to remove the screws, attach and new face and replace the frame. Even though the weed barrier should weather well, I plan on putting a lot of arrows into it and want to be able to replace it easily and quickly.
The only thing left to do was to stick a few arrows into the target and see how it would perform! It sure looks nice, but that means nothing if it doesn’t stop arrows well.
These first shots were taken with a Bowtech Destroyer 350 and a 490 grain arrow which results in just under 100 ft.-lbs. of kinetic energy; definitely not an easy arrow to stop! The arrows penetrated about 6-8″ and stopped dead.
First test shots
The total cost for this project was probably under $40 by the time I include all the materials I had on hand. Time to build was around three hours with several interruptions. Anytime the target begins to get shot out, the cloth inside can be re-packed and/or new stuffing added and it should literally last a lifetime if cared for. For now the target is covered in a tarp when I am not shooting to protect it from the elements but in the future I will be building a more permanent structure around it.
Update April 2011
Bulge in the back from lots of shooting
I’ve been shooting the target for about a year now and thought I’d give an update as to how it has been performing. The target has been shot at least 5000 times and is still holding arrows well. Every once in a while I’ll have an arrow poke out the back but overall the target has continued to stop arrows dead.
Over time there have been spots in the target where the fill material shifts or gets moved a bit thus forming a small void. By taking a rod I can pack the material tighter and fix any problem areas. Every once in awhile it is difficult to pack down a certain area because of the depth of the target and the ties that hold the two faces together. To solve this issue, I have been saving any old socks and pushing them through the holes of the chicken wire in any soft areas I can’t pack down easily.
Supports across the back of the target
Throughout the last year this target has seen everything from skinny Axis and VAP arrows to big, thick and heavy 30x t
arget shafts. Because of the nature of the material and because it is difficult for the thicker arrows to penetrate it, the entire bulk of the target has migrated back slowly. The image above shows the concave front of the target and the bulge in the back. This wasn’t to hard to fix as I simply laid the target on the ground and lightly jumped on it a few times to flatten it out.
Instead of having to do maintenance to fix the bulge every so often, I decide to try a couple of support beams across the back to see how they work. I took a couple of 2x4s, cut them to length, stained them to match and fastened them to the back of the target.
A section of the target face, still going strong!
The target face made of the weed stopper fabric has performed much better than I had expected. I had figured that by now I would have had to change it, but it’s still holding up quite well even in the most worn sections. This choice of material was made somewhat because I had some laying around. However, it turned out to be a great material and I would highly recommend it’s use to anyone considering a target like this.
I must admit that I was somewhat skeptical when this project began as to how well this target would perform. So far I have almost zero complaints and though I have had to do a little maintenance here and there, the work has been minimal and the shooting has been great!
Other posts you may enjoy:
- DiY Lifetime Target: The Build
- How to: Build a Broadhead Spin Tester
- How to Destroy an Arrow (in the name of science!)
- Archery History: The Mongol Bow
- Friction and Penetration in Archery: target vs. animal penetration
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Sorry folks! When I updated this article I lost all of the old comments
Seems the last thing I would want to do with my new Lightspeeds is shoot at metal chicken wire which would rip them to shreds…why would this NOT happen. Curious
This question always comes up and I thought the same at first! I have had zero damage to any of my shafts while shooting at this target. The arrow point will deflect off of the chicken wire, forcing the arrow to the side. This does have the drawback of having the final resting point of your arrow be slightly off from where it originally hit if you hit the wire head on, but it’s a minor complaint. I have shot everything from Victory VAPs (very small diameter) to GT 30Xs (very large diameter) shafts and had no issues thus far.
I would like to see an article on the new round vane design you are using.
Type of rest needed, benefits..the good and bad etc
Bob,
You can read a little more about the FOBs here: http://archeryreport.com/2009/10/fletching-review-speed-drop/ and here: http://archeryreport.com/2010/06/fobs-fletching-rest-rocket/
They have been a popular subject and I will be doing a full write-up featuring them in the near future..
What keeps it from falling over with all the arrow force? It seems kinda high to be balanced that easily on 2x12s. It also looks like it would weigh a ton and not be easily transportable for events?
Judith,
It’s actually very stable with the cross beam feet on the bottom. You can make them as long as you want depending on where you are placing the target. If I were to place it out in the open with lots of wind, I might make the feet a little longer.
I would not take my version to events as it is quite heavy. With the 2x12s and 3′x3′ face, that’s a lot of stuffing inside! Eventually I plan on making a smaller, portable version that will probably use 2x10s and be 2′x2′ and without the taller legs. That should make it about a third of it’s current weight.
Ach, I see. There’s no pic in your tutorial that actually shows the full view with the cross beams, so that was throwing me off.
If you look at the first image with the exploded view of the parts used, you can see it there. I should add a finished photograph that shows it better.
Excellent, thanks. Nice design.
do you think a plastic mesh would work better than the wire or no difference.
The plastic mesh has been tried by people before with mixed results. The two biggest issues are that it will bulge and stretch more when pack the clothes in and that it will get shot up by the arrows and have to be replaced more often.
Wow, I built one today and got out to shoot it. This thing works…very well. It is straight forward to build, even got the kid’s involved.
As long as we can hit the target there will be no more lost arrows. Thanks for the step by step instructions and pictures, they went a long way to describe what you built here.
Thanks again, it’s a long way to bow season but this is going to pass the time nicely.
G.
Greg,
It’s great to hear that you got one built and are using it already! Hopefully yours will bring you as much shooting and fun as mine had.
I’m glad you did the updated write up. Planning to put one of these together soon.
happy hunting, dv
Nice write up! Loved the design. I’ve been wanting to build my son a target and you’ve provided the final pieces! I plan to use the frame design filled with layers of dense straw rugs (from garden ridge) with a couple of layers of the weed stop material between them. I also plan to build a 1×1 subframe behind the main frame, hinged at the top with a chain stay on the cross member. I like the wire also.. However, to prevent sagging, i think i’ll put a couple of wood rods vertically in the back. I think drilling through the top and half way through the bottom of the frame to allow the rods to spin would go a long way. Can’t wait to get started! Thanks again for posting you knowledge!
Did I miss something about removing the chicken wire? The only reason I’m asking is because this is a wonderful target design, but wouldn’t you have an increased risk for damaged or broken carbon arrows?
The chicken wire has never done any damage to my arrows. Because you are shooting with steel points, the points will hit the wire first (when they do at all) and deflect the arrow off to the side slightly. Every once in a while you may hit a wire direct enough, and I just periodically trim these off so there are no “pokies.” Eventually the chicken wire will have to be replaced.
I have not shot for 5 years and decided it was a great time to get back to business. I purchased a new bow “Hoyt Alphamax 32″ and the shop who set me up has 3 of this style targets. 5 feet high by 20 feet wide. I was skeptical at first but now after using the range for weeks I decided to build one just like it. The version I built is very similiar to your plans. 95% of the time the wire is never hit and when it does it deflects slightly to the side. Thanks for the plans and easy to follow instructions.
Thanks for the great instructions. I have been looking all over the place for an inexpensive target. I can’t wait to get it built and start shooting at it.
Great plans, thanks for the information! Two quick questions… Would this target work well with low poundage bows (25lb-35lb)? Do you think the arrows would stick well? Also, after shooting at it for a while, do you still think it needs to be 12 inches deep, or would 10 inches work?
James, I have found that my daughters’ bows will sometimes bounce off, but most often they will stick fine. Even my son’s bow at 40 lbs maybe have an occasional bounce out, but even down to 20 lbs they stick most of the time.
For the depth I still prefer 12″, especially with my heavier, higher-penetrating hunting arrows. It’s tough to stop my Easton ST Axis arrows and I have to re-pack the material every now and then to keep things tight. Even my lightweight 3D arrows that are fatter will often poke out the back if I don’t keep the material packed well. I think you could get away with 10″ if you pack it tight and keep it that way, but I’d still recommend 12″ if you can do it.
Any issue with the clothes getting wet and moldy??? It looks as if your back is open and I would think the clothes would be a problem. Do you have yours under cover or is it not an issue? And also what do you think of the shrink wrap material instead of clothes?
I am just rounding up my supplies for one of these and great plans!
Thanks
chris, I keep my covered with a tarp at this time. Eventually I plan to build a roof over the whole thing, but that’s a project that keeps getting delayed! On occasion it has gotten wet, but a decent sunny day takes care of it pretty quick. In the past I have used different plastics/shrink wraps and the biggest issue I had with them is that some would melt and/or stick to the shafts. I was constantly cleaning stuff off of the shafts and am much happier with the fabric now.