[Painfulitchingandswelling]

I grew up on a 180 acre crop farm. I always had plenty of space to shoot, have fun, and be safe. I love to plink. I'm not an avid hunter. Shooting paper is ok and informative, but I love to plink.

Now I am talking about shooting pop cans, soda bottles, coffee cans full of ice, etc. Oranges, apples, potatoes, are pretty fun also. Love it, just love it.

The two local ranges in my area do not allow anything of this nature. Closest they will allow are clay pigeons, which is fun for a while but,...

Private land owners; I only know of a couple and both have declined despite my promises to clean up. I even offered help with any of their projects.

Does anybody know of a place or an event in the Midwest where you can do this sort of shooting. I'm in Cincinnati.

Plinking is how I fell in love with shooting, but it seems to be a dying aspect of the hobby.

Feel free to share your memories of plinking. I would love to read them.

 

[old grump]

Dirt clods, acorns and walnuts, green wild plums from the top of the fence rail made a pretty good splat even with a 22 standard velocity 40 gr bullet. 60 years later I'm still shooting 2 liter bottles of ice, playing cards, saltine crackers and little pill bottles filled with sand only now I have some bigger toys to play with.

 

[usmc0341]

.22 Mag vs 1 gal waterjugs is fun along with

Highway flare taped to a 1lb propane canister : IDK if it is legal or not but I know it will vaporize a wooden pallet.

Other than that I used to use soup can lids to shoot groups on and my other go to target was those free AOL CD's that they used to give out at the stores and in the mail. Try and put a round through the hole at 50-100m without touching the CD. Pretty damn hard with Iron sights but relatively easy with the Trashco Pronghorn scope I picked up at China Mart when I was a kid.

 

[dh1633pm]

I still love to plink. I like to shoot at a six inch steel target hung with bungee cords. I like to shoot empty shotgun hulls, cans, water bottles, anything that makes a noise when you it it.

 

[Painfulitchingandswelling]

I always enjoyed hanging cans and plastic bottles up from a string. When you hit'em they start swinging and I did'nt have to run down and set'em back up.

 

[jethro]

I always enjoyed hanging cans and plastic bottles up from a string. When you hit'em they start swinging and I did'nt have to run down and set'em back up.

Sounds like a fun/inexpensive project to get the kids/me out of the house. This time of year cabin fever is getting bad.
pole+string+cans and plastic bottles= a couple hours of fun.
Thanks for the idea!!

 

[Risasi]

One side of my family was a wild bunch. They got together on Easters to "shoot things and blow things up". One year it was the field run-off pond. They just about drained it with all the dynamite. Next year some brought a few M-1000's instead. Facts:

- using one on a watermelon is just silly.
- a frigidaire will lift about 10" off of the ground.
- one in a washer will blow the lid about 60ft in the air, and the base goes from square to round.

We used to shoot up a lot of appliances and vehicles too.

 

[hylander]

I always enjoyed hanging cans and plastic bottles up from a string. When you hit'em they start swinging and I did'nt have to run down and set'em back up.

Always fun, even more fun with a bow.
Eggs are fun and cheap plinking and chasing golf balls.
Still my favorite plinking is Belding squirrels with the HMR :lol:

 

[fishslayerbob]

I love to plink too and am always looking for new stuff to shoot at. A while back I bought some of those self healing spinner targets and one of those self healing cubes. I was all jazzed to start shooting at them. Imagine the fun! I've got an old Marlin bolt action .22lr with a scope that is a tack driver. I unloaded on those things with a vengeance and couldn't hit a thing! I walked downrange to inspect the targets and they were full of tiny black pin pricks. I was hitting them but they weren't moving at all. The spinners nor the cubes were even vibrating. So I tried my mini14 with the same results. I was getting pizzed. I had actually read the instructions which said not to use varmint bullets and since I had a bunch of them loaded up I thought I would see why. They made the spinners spin and the cube tumble downrange as advertised. Bad idea! The Vmaxes blew big holes in them. Drat!!! next time I'll take out my Winchester .30-30 and see what happens. It's not a good plinker though because after about 40 rounds my shoulder hurts. Anyway don't waste your money on any of that self healing stuff unless you are using something of a larger caliber.

 

[fishslayerbob]

Any responses? I know there are some sun country afficionados out there ! Lets hear some plinking stories out there!

fishslayerbob

 

[dexter]

golf ball makes a good active target.

 

[fishslayerbob]

You're right! I forgot to mention golf balls. That's the only good use for them, by the way. I once built a black powder cannon that shot golf balls. I discovered that you could use silica sand and a small Vicks vapo rub jar to cast lead bullets. I still have one that I fired at a bank ( a dirt bank, not a money bank) to impress my friends. Ah, the good old days.

fishslayerbob

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

my fondness of plinking with chucklehead buddys evolved into a 'gambling addiction'. we set up targets and shoot a round for closest to the 'x' or swinging target and eliminate missers betting a dollar a shot. the serious plinkers even buy match grade ammo - as I do for the 'x' shoot.
it's just good fun with a .22lr plain sights, both pistol and rifle.
good luck, marlin.