Every once in a while I come across a product that makes life so much easier, I can’t imagine not owning it. Over the past few years, I’ve been shooting a lot more AR-500 steel. I love the instant visual and audio feedback steel offers, and although the upfront costs are somewhat high, in the long run it’s cheaper to shoot steel than paper.
There’s a downside to steel, though: if you don’t own rangeland, lugging the steel back and forth to the range can be a PITA. For me, Rogue Shooting Target, LLC’s new T-Post hanger is making that chore much less difficult.
This product is intended to allow a shooter to hang AR-500 steel targets off of heavy duty T-Posts that can be found at virtually any hardware or home improvement store.
At the end of the day, this little contraption is pretty simple. The main tube and shim are made from A-36 steel tubing and the hook is made from 3/8 inch bar steel. Shawn Hoy, the owner of Rogue Shooting Targets LLC, sells these in two packs for $37.50, which includes shipping. I bought 4 sets, and I could not be more pleased. By using T-Posts as target stands, it really lessens the amount of crap I have to haul back and forth to the range.
Here’s how it looks when it’s set up:
Pretty simple, eh? A 7-foot heavy duty steel fence T-Post costs around $5.50 a piece. You’ll also need a T-Post driver ($27). Truth be told, you could probably get away with using a sledge hammer, but I went ahead and bought the driver because it makes it easier for one person to drive the T-Posts without help. In any event, I’ve pounded in a few of these T-Posts at all of my favorite shooting locations, so now I don’t need to lug any bulky target stands or 2x4s when I visit these ranges.
So far, we have used these with 3/8 inch thick AR 500 weighing up to 30 lbs with no issues. When hit, the steel target bangs up against the T-Post, giving great audio and visual feedback.
If you want to use a heavier target (or if you want even more visual feedback), you can set up target the in a dual post configuration, as follows:
And yes, I’m assuming the T-Posts will eventually get shot up. As shown below, I managed to put a 5.56 x 45 round through one at 300 yards. Hey, at least my windage was good. Seriously though, I think these T-Posts will take a large number of hits before they need to be replaced.
If you do happen to shoot off a hook, Shawn sells replacement kits as well.
Overall, this product works well for me because it offers a compact solution and it allows me to use flat pieces of AR-500 steel, which are easily transportable. By taking up less room in the back of my truck, it leaves room for other stuff. If you find yourself needing to save space when traveling to the range, consider picking up a few sets of these hangers.
Ratings (out of five stars):
Fit, Finish, Build Quality, Ease of Use * * * * *
T-Posts aren’t cut with precision, so any device that’s designed to interface with one will necessarily need to be designed with somewhat loose tolerances. I’m happy to report that the Rogue Shooting Targets T-Post Hangers worked with every T-post I tried. Only thing to go wrong is to pound the T-Post in backwards (which, of course, I did). Even then, I was able to dig out the post in a few minutes.
Value * * *
If you have a shop and some tools, you could probably make something that replicates these hangers. Nonetheless, I was happy to shell out $37.50 for a pair to get something that works so well and provides an easy way to transport steel back and forth from the range without lugging heavy/bulky target stands.
Overall * * * * *
I’m gonna buy more.
The added benefit of shooting steel is the instant audible feed back. That means no more going hither and yon in the hot sun to search for and plug up shot holes on paper targets.
This allows us old fat white guys to stay…………….fat and pasty white.
Um, shouldn’t we install steel targets such that they angle down to deflect bullets down to the base of the stand … and prevent them from coming back at us?
There is no need to angle the steel if you use the proper steel with the proper cartridge at the proper distance. You run into trouble using a round that is too fast, a target that is too soft, thin or damaged, a bullet that has a steel core, or when you shoot at too close of a distance.
Cowboy shooters use lead bullets, and targets that are angled down to shoot at steel less than 5 yards away.
Speed plate shooters use 1/4″ ar400 or better with pistol rounds or 22lr at about 8 yards and out. You do get jackets coming back at you at these ranges, but coated/plated bullets are fine.
Most rifle rounds get shot at 3/8″ ar500 or better at 75 yards plus. The more powerful cartridge the longer the range. The velocity and bullet type are more important than the caliber.
This guy probably shot a rock that wasn’t as flat and hard as AR500 steel. It could even be a piece of rock that came back at him. I’ve seen it happen at a National Forrest range; don’t shoot rocks.
Bullets disintegrate when they hit proper steel plates and as long as they aren’t cratered or bowed. The frag, only thing you have to worry about, usually moves parallel and up to 20 degrees away from the plate. I’ve been hit buy it at USPSA matches and if you are close it may sting a bit. It is definitely no where near as bad as getting hit by falling shot in a dove field.
The backstory I have heard for that video is that they were shooting at pieces of scrap metal.
http://hangfasttargets.com/
These guys also make a great hanger that is adjustable to height.
I am really surprised to see that a 5.56 x 45 mm bullet had enough
assmomentum at 300 yards to go through the steel t-post.it probably would zip through it at 500yds as well. Tposts are soft and 556 is fast
The depths of laziness and inability are truly mind boggling. This product is for someone so completely incompetent as to need some ‘professional’ to change the oil in their car. Or who makes well north of $200K and it’s not worth their time – that I can understand.
A cut-off saw ($80), a drill ($40), and about 5 minutes per. That’s what this ‘thing’ is.
Get a stick of square stock, L-bolts, and appropriate nuts and washers. One can buy the tools and material for this, and make 4 sets of them for less than this guy is charging. And keep the tools, and have enough stock to make 20 more.
I will give Mr. Hoy props for taking money from people who obviously have no need to keep it. I guess manhood is dying fast to actually have a market for a product like this.
So you don’t own a dish washer, cloths dryer, use remote controls, and I know you must reload your ammo? I could buy everything you said, find some place to store it, take the time to make the stand when I needed it, or just spend less than $40 and have it in the mail in a few days. I think it’s called convenience, and I’ll take it most of the time.
As I noted, if you’re making $200K+ per year, this is a great time saver.
For anyone who is able to use a chop saw and a drill, this is just setting money on fire. This has nothing to do with washing dishes, or even reloading. Both of those require specialized tools, and some skill. As to convenience, i could make 20 of them for about $100 in materials. In under 2 hours, including assembly and paint. And they’d be far better quality.
Hell, even the guy taking the money doesn’t respect you enough to spend the extra $.80 per unit for proper “L” bolts – he just half-assed bends a regular bolt in a vise or fixture, and whacks the hex-head haphazardly with what appears to be a handheld angle grinder. For $37 a pair you should expect to at least get something approaching pro-build quality, not an entry-level high school shop project.
Everyday I’m reminded that Menken was right about underestimating the intelligence of the American public…
You forgot to add, “And stay off my damned lawn!”
It’s interesting that you assume I’m that old for telling someone how not to get ripped off, and instead make something yourself, using simple tools, be able to do one more thing without paying for it. And have the tools to do it.
I don’t expect everyone to be able to diagnose and fix their a/c, plumb the house, wire the house, build the house. None are complicated tasks, pretty much anyone can do them. But it seems a new weird sort of, well, “pride” is the only word that seems accurate, to describe not being able to do the most simple tasks of manual labor or skill.
Assuming you have the tools and enough room in your garage to set up a little shop. Once upon a time they used to build houses with basements, but no more; as a result, all the stuff that you would normally store there, plus the washer dryer, ends up in the garage with two cars, a few bicycles, the Christmas lights, and everything else, leaving only enough room for a 5′ table covered with tools.
Shop work is frowned upon in most apartment complexes. Running a chop saw to cut metal tubing in my living room would definitely be a no no.
Do it yourself is a great ethos, but there are practical considerations as well.
When I bounced around the Bay Area I did whatever I wanted in the complex garage, or ran an extension cord outside. At least when we’re talking incredibly quick and easy stuff like this. Neighbors just wanted to know what I was building. I’ve done all sorts of auto maint, up to and including a few timing belts in apartments as well – same reaction from neighbors.
YMMV…
For my mileage, and this is true of a lot of places around here, there’s no way I could run a chop saw anywhere. The garage is four floors below me and heavily trafficked, outside is either my small balcony, the common courtyard between the buildings, or the rooftop deck the next building over. Dragging out a chop saw to any of those locations and doing work for any amount of time would be a great way to get on the path to eviction.
Carlos, I do hope you have a gorgeous view and perfectly innocuous neighbors. Otherwise, how do you survive?
Not sure what you’re getting at, exactly. Yeah, city life is more constrained, there’s no question. I definitely wish it weren’t. But life is about tradeoffs. From my apartment, I can do all my errands on foot. There are three 24 hour grocery stores within ten blocks from my house. There’s a 24 hour pharmacy next door. The movie theater is three blocks away. The pet store is two blocks away. There are tons of restaurants and shops of all kinds.
Would it be cool to be able to do shop work at home? Totally, but that’s going to have to wait until I can afford a house.
Los, not trying to be sarcastic – just an observation. One could also make these things with a sawzall and a drill – for the same money and about 1 cubic foot of space.
I get that you live in an upscale neighborhood, I’m merely offering that you could do it, without any complications with the rest of the tenants, if you really wanted. If you don’t, that’s cool too/ My whole point of it all was that this cat is charging $18.50 each for something that takes ~$3/per of materials and 5 minutes of time to make yourself using the most minimal of skillsets – roughly cutting, drilling sorta right, and tightening a bolt.
Hey 16V, since it would only take 40 minutes of your time, could you make me about 8 more and gift them to me?! Seriously, though, I don’t appreciate your rant. Four sets of these hangers cost around $150, and I didn’t have to mess around with your brilliant suggestion of: going to the store, finding and then buying the materials, buying a bunch of tools I don’t otherwise need, nor did I need to spend a few hours fabricating a device in a shop I don’t have. Rather, I got on line and 5 minutes later: done. Its sounds like you are a pretty handy guy with a shop. Great. In that case, this product is not for you. I even acknowledged in the review above that some folks could make something similar as a DIY project. But or many folks, that is simply not in the cards. Also consider the time value of money: some folks have more money but less time, whereas other folks have more time but less money. As an example, it would only take me 1/2 hour of my time to make enough money to buy 4 sets of these hangers, but it would take me 5-6 hours to find the parts and tools, fab the parts, and then clean up the mess. Absolute no brainer for me which is the better route. Rather than acknowledge that the “time value of money” equation may work out differently for different people, you resort to making character judgments about peoples’ “laziness” and “inability” and lack of “manhood.” That is no more reasonable than if a person said that you were “lazy” and lacked “ability” and “manhood” for NOT making at least $200,000 a year. Obviously, you would not appreciate it if someone made the latter assessment about you, so perhaps moving forward you can keep your judgmental attitude in check and realize that your reality isn’t the same as everybody else’s.
Well [flame deleted] I’ll make them and spend less that 2 hours cranking them out to completion (better than the dogshit you bought). Here’s the rub – I’m still gonna make you pay what you did already – [flame deleted] And so, unable as to actually make your own, you have no choice but to buy, or have nothing, since as an incompetent, you can’t actually make them yourself. Call AAA for a flat? Yeah, I thought so.
[flame deleted]
I would buy cheap land in west texas just to have a shooting range but a lot of that land doesn’t have hookups and requires too much investment to get the basics like running water and electricity. I envy those who can afford that luxury.
you mean mom and dad did not give you a ranch of your own? (sarc.)
Many in rual communities just don’t knwo how lucky they are when it comes to being beneficiaries of family land, houses, vehicles. Hell, i have spent almost $600k now on my farm, and have 30-40 year old guys on either side who got their land free the old fashioned way – from grandpa and dad.
I bought 15 acres in west Texas so I could shoot, hunt, raise chickens, etc. Turns out there were ancient deed restrictions forbidding all of those activities, though every neighbor out here had ignored them for 30+yrs. Everyone shoots, hunts, has animals, and violates most of the clauses. My neighbor still sued me because I’d go out and shoot about once every 2 weeks. (Long story, I offered to temper my shooting to his schedule, he called my work to complain… keeping it severely truncated for this post). Anyway, I won and a county judge said yes, I can indeed shoot out here. But it cost me $15k to do so.
Many lessons learned..top 2:
Research deed restrictions at the county clerks office before closing on property.
Get a damn good lawyer at the first hint of legal trouble.
If folks want the full story, and all lessons learned, I’ll send it in.
As a land use / zoning attorney, I fully concur with your advice. Those deed restrictions should have been disclosed in your preliminary title report and again at closing. 15K is a lot of money to fix the problem, but it could have been worse. I recently was involved in a case where the parties collectively spent over a 1/2 million dollars to resolve a HOA dispute.
I’m not big on shooting steel due to the chance of ricochets.
Yes, I’m what you might call “paranoid” about it but I’ve actually hit someone with a .40 S&W ricochet square in the chest at a rage with a poorly designed backstop. About half of the smashed up bullet hit the guy flat side first, so it didn’t cause any serious injury but it gave him a wicked bruise and scared the shit out of everyone on the range.
Properly made berms are bettah IMHO.
Proper berms are important. Once years back at a commercial range I got hit by a returned 148 grain lead 38 slug from the revolver I was shooting. The dang thing hit me just above the sweat pants I was wearing…when I felt the hit and the burn, I thought I had been shot! I dropped the gun in the dirt, grabbed my sweat pants, and yanked them down much to the young lady I was dating at the time, and that was when the stretched and curved slug dropped in the dirt next to my gun. After making myself more presentable and picking up gun and slug I walked down to the backstop and found the berm behind my target contained railroad rails and apparently my hit got spun around and sent back to me.
Normal flat AR500 steel on the other hand is no problem at all, and I have shot it at cowboy shoots a bunch with no further stories to tell.
It’s not the steel I don’t trust, it’s the potential for retards to shoot at it that I don’t trust.
I’ve seen stupid people shoot at targets 3-4 positions over on rifle ranges and somehow not realize they were doing it.
Was this not posted before???
This was up a few days ago then disappeared, now it’s back.
Roughly the same price, but better…
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/t-post-hanger?a=1864893
Actually, these don’t work well with rifles because there is not enough of a “hook” in the front, and the target simply rattles itself off when hit.
It is funny that this post came back up today. When it was up a few days ago, it inspired me to make my own target posts and hangers. I actually made them today.
My target posts are nicely portable, do not require pounding anything into the ground, and use 8 foot long furring strips for the vertical “post”. I cut 2 feet off of each furring strip to make a horizontal support which supports an old T-shirt. Then I tape a paper plate to the vertical post above the T-shirt. The nicely outstretched T-shirt represents a human torso and the paper plate at the top represents a human head above the neck/shoulders of the T-shirt.
Now I have four human analog targets for “shoot, no-shoot” drills. Aside from occasionally shooting the furring strips and having to replace them (at a whopping 97 cents a piece), I don’t anticipate any troubles. And since they are light and easily portable, I can take them anywhere … and perhaps even more importantly re-arrange them throughout my shooting session at whatever shooting range where I happen to go.
Bonus feature: the furring strip is dead center of the human analog target … if I hit the furring strip and break it, that represents a spinal cord shot with immediate feedback (the target falling over)!
Glad to hear someone went and made something for themselves!
You know, there’s an idea for TTAG – an occasional “You Build It” project. Step-by-step stuff like this, or 80% lowers, or refinishing old furniture, the possibilities are endless. Like PopSci or Mechanics Illustrated but for guns. I have no time to crank one out, perhaps DG does. He sorta does with some of his missives anyway.
I would love to see more DIY ideas here, and I’ll bet RF would post stuff if we send it to him.
* Shooting benches
* Portable target systems
* Reloading benches
Someday I’m going to convert a 2-wheel dolly to transport multiple guns, targets and gear from the parking lot to the shooting bench at the range (where I shoot, it’s a hike). I’ll share when it’s finished.
Home made shooting bench…
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/04/daniel-zimmerman/too-old-to-shoot-prone-heres-an-option/
Write it up when your done Curtis. I’m sure there would be plenty of interest in it!
There are better ways to hang stuff on t-posts.
For example, something like this allows you to choose the height or hang multiple targets on the same post, allows the target to hang on an angle to the ground, and costs about the same.
http://hangfasttargets.com/products/improved-hang-fast-t-post-hanger
I agree with the person above who opined that these things look like a C-grade high school shop project and not worth $37.50 a pair.
$37.50 for two hangers is pretty reasonable for something like this. Think I will order a few of these for messing around at the ranch. Thanks for the review!
I just wish I had a place to set up steel targets. The local ranges are on BLM land, and there isn’t a lot of dirt over the decomposed granite that overlays the solid granite. Plus I don’t think they’d appreciate me trying to drive posts into the ground in the first place, even if it were possible.
You might call your local BLM folks and ask them. Often they know where the best shooting spots are. And I’d be surprised if they cared about a few T posts.