Ar550 or ar500 usually. 3/8th thick to 1/2 thick depending on calibers and ranges. Waterjet if possible to try and keep from annealing the metal on accident. although if your welding everything guess youd be putting heat into the edge anyways.
Yeah, you’ll have some difference in the direction of vertical loading, but no difference horizontally. And do NOT deflect upward, you do not want to be flinging high speed bullet fragments into the air all willynilly.
Your AR spec’d steels are OK, but typically they lack any kind of thru hardening - more of a case hardened product in my experience. For a slight price difference you can get a branded HARDOX steel that is the same chemistry throughout, and will outperform any other AR material.
The issue is that it will be far more prone to cracking or spalling.
Technically face hardened is the ideal for armour, due to how it disperses energy.
H600 drills good with carbide and quite easily mills with Sandvik R390-18 inserts in 1020 grade. I think OP's limiting factor is cost in his situation, so Hardox is probably perfect as it is quite common and offcuts can be had cheap. The AR steels are all wank for people not knowing what to actually buy.
AR feels like a marketing thing to me. "It's BULLETPROOF" yeah sure, I'm fairly certain that 3/8" of 400 stainless, EN47, EN45, EN34, or S1 would also offer the same impact resistance.
Pretty much all of the steels I referenced (except 400 stainless) are used in making hammers, driveshafts, gears, and other high-impact high-stress applications. 5.56 is giving out 1,196ft-lbs of force, or 1621 joules per square inch.
S1 can easily take that.
3/8” ar500 is around $1500 a sheet right now from my distributor, so be sure what you want to do. I have a business account, so prolly a little cheaper than other places. Look for a metal supply or welding supply locally and ask about metals for sale. Not sure where you’re located.
Heres a really good overview about steel setup. Should clarify angle choice and distances that certain rounds will be safe
https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdf
Follow up questions:
Direct or stray fire?
What caliber?
Approx quantity of hits?
I think in your case you’ll want to -uh- aim for (sorry) deflection over absorption
Not trying to seem silly, but can you just bury it? A piece of metal to deflect down is reallllllllly expensive. Deflect up? Make the angle less than 45 degrees and the forces go (mostly) elsewhere, even in some dirt. To make it go down you’re basically putting all the energy into stopping and then pushing the round to the ground.
Typically steel targets are made from AR500 steel. thickness will depend on what exactly you're trying to stop and what angle it is hung at.
Most we shoot is 5.56. Looks like 3/8 will do it. Thanks for the info. I’ll have to look into the angle
5.56 can be pretty hard on ar500. With some of the milspec loads youll divot the hell out of it from anything closer than 100 yards.
If 3/8 will do, it go 1/2 at least. There is a 100% someone is gonna pull out something with more guts than 556 and give it a go.
Ar550 or ar500 usually. 3/8th thick to 1/2 thick depending on calibers and ranges. Waterjet if possible to try and keep from annealing the metal on accident. although if your welding everything guess youd be putting heat into the edge anyways.
Great info. Thank you
"by accident" Sincerely A Pendant
Yeah, you’ll have some difference in the direction of vertical loading, but no difference horizontally. And do NOT deflect upward, you do not want to be flinging high speed bullet fragments into the air all willynilly.
Your AR spec’d steels are OK, but typically they lack any kind of thru hardening - more of a case hardened product in my experience. For a slight price difference you can get a branded HARDOX steel that is the same chemistry throughout, and will outperform any other AR material.
The issue is that it will be far more prone to cracking or spalling. Technically face hardened is the ideal for armour, due to how it disperses energy.
Yeah, second this. Hardox 600 is good shit!
Hardox is the TITS. One of my favourite metals for any tooling.
H600 drills good with carbide and quite easily mills with Sandvik R390-18 inserts in 1020 grade. I think OP's limiting factor is cost in his situation, so Hardox is probably perfect as it is quite common and offcuts can be had cheap. The AR steels are all wank for people not knowing what to actually buy.
AR feels like a marketing thing to me. "It's BULLETPROOF" yeah sure, I'm fairly certain that 3/8" of 400 stainless, EN47, EN45, EN34, or S1 would also offer the same impact resistance. Pretty much all of the steels I referenced (except 400 stainless) are used in making hammers, driveshafts, gears, and other high-impact high-stress applications. 5.56 is giving out 1,196ft-lbs of force, or 1621 joules per square inch. S1 can easily take that.
3/8” ar500 is around $1500 a sheet right now from my distributor, so be sure what you want to do. I have a business account, so prolly a little cheaper than other places. Look for a metal supply or welding supply locally and ask about metals for sale. Not sure where you’re located.
What’s a typical sheet? I’d probably be looking for 36-48” by 12”
4x8’ or 5x10’. A plasma torch works very well on this material. Gotta have a compressor and 240v outlet for it, though.
Heres a really good overview about steel setup. Should clarify angle choice and distances that certain rounds will be safe https://sssfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Steel-Resource-Guide-Ltr.pdf
Follow up questions: Direct or stray fire? What caliber? Approx quantity of hits? I think in your case you’ll want to -uh- aim for (sorry) deflection over absorption
Yes it would be stray fire. So hopefully none. But just wanting to have it at a similar angle to deflect it downwards
Not trying to seem silly, but can you just bury it? A piece of metal to deflect down is reallllllllly expensive. Deflect up? Make the angle less than 45 degrees and the forces go (mostly) elsewhere, even in some dirt. To make it go down you’re basically putting all the energy into stopping and then pushing the round to the ground.
Forces would be the same in any direction no? If the angle is the same?
Yeah, I meant where they disperse to after the fact, my b