Steel Plates at 300 yards - A Comparison of 3/4" T1 and AR400 Plate Steel

Brent · #1 03-13-2004, 05:44 PM

As some of you know, there's quite a few guys on here that practice fairly regularly on steel plates. This is my most recent experience with some of the tougher/harder plate steels to see how they compared. I've been using 3/8" and 1/2" "mild" steel plate up to this point with not so good success until I'm at 800 - 1000 yards.

My opinion on the usefullness may differ from others, but if you consider what I have posted below the pictures in the "description" line that I'll post links to, you'll better understand what I look for, and why.

This is to help you hopefully help you better understand what type and thickness of plate steel you might want to look at for your particular needs or wants, and save you a step to see what works and how well it does.

These plates here are now hanging at the local shooting range on the 300 yard line, and will no doubt be suffering quite a bit of abuse in years to come.

Summery -

3/4" T1 plate at 300 yards -
Expect divots about .030 - .060 deep with a crater around the edge about the same height when using the more common high power cartridges with heavy for caliber bullets (lighter facter bullets may in fact do as much damage, maybe even more??) These were primarily tested with the 6.5 WSM using 140gr SMK's at (I forget but will edit it in later), and the 30-338 Lapua Imp using the 200gr Accubond at 3130 fps. Some groups appearing were from either the 300 WM with (I forget now) or the 338 WSM with 300gr SMK's at 2350 fps ( I also forget which groups were from this load, but on the plates their effects were close to the same, a bit less effect than that of the 6.5 and 30-338LI)

3/4" AR400 plate at 300 yards -
Expect .010, "maybe" .020 deep at the most craters/impressions with no raised edge at the top of the crater at all. It will barely remove any meteal from the surface of the plate, if any. A 300 WM or 300 WSM leaves litterally no damage, just paint removed.

Refer to the "description" line below each picture for more details. Some of them are lengthy, so I won't repost it here. There's some explanation to what I used for the frame and how I attached the plates in one or more of them in case you wondered.

Enjoy. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

A couple posts down are the links to the pix. I hope I'm not the only one that can access them, let me know...

[ 03-13-2004: Message edited by: Brent ]

Brent · #2 03-13-2004, 06:04 PM

[ 03-13-2004: Message edited by: Brent ]

speedbump · #3 03-13-2004, 06:15 PM

Good post & interesting stuff Brent. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

Brent · #4 03-13-2004, 06:19 PM

It appears I linked to the pictures only, so the "description" I refered to is not shown in that link, damnit! I'll post the proper links to the "page" below... [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Brent · #5 03-13-2004, 06:20 PM

[ 03-13-2004: Message edited by: Brent ]

Brent · #6 03-13-2004, 06:32 PM

Ian M · #7 03-13-2004, 08:07 PM

Brent,
Your photos beg the question, what difference would there be if the plate was hanging by a chain, vertical vs sloped.

We hang our soft steel plates from "S" hooks and I like to have them a couple of inches above the ground. That way we can tell low shots easily, hang the plate too high and the low shot does not show well. I have shot commercially made targets with angled plates that were extremely effective, the stand that held up the plate was somewhat flexible also, they stood up to hits perfectly.