Bullet Catcher Renewal and other Works
Prior to the work party some preparation works and prototyping of the new target frames and boxes was undertaken by John Tadman and Mike Kettle. Also, many thanks to Richard and his colleague at Southern Sheeting for guillotining ten 8' x4' sheets of 9mm Stokbord into the much smaller sizes (288 of them) we need for the new bullet catchers.
We also required 31 battens cut into 401 peices ready for the box construction. Many thanks to Mid-Sussex Timber Co Ltd for a good price and especially to Nadia for cutting them up for us.
Having completed the preparations, a work party was organised for Saturday 2nd December to undertake some much needed maintenance:
- clear shrubbery from the right hand side of the outdoor range.
- remove the old boxes and recover the lead,
- disassemble the old boxes to recover useable plastic board,
- make up some of the new boxes.
- fill new boxes with rubber crumb ready for use.
- Make up the new support poles
- Make up the new ladder racks to support the target frames
- Make up the new target frames.
- clearing the leaves from the car park now that autumn had finally arrived and they had fallen of the trees!
- servicing the gate lock.
On the day 13 members attended so the work party was a bit busy but well spread out so lots of work got done. Thanks to:
- 50m Target Frames (Jim Howard, Jeremy Allen)
- 50m Bullet catcher assembly (Jonathan Wood, Keith Ballard, John Tadman)
- Empty old boxes and recover lead (Richard Nichols, Elaine Kettle)
- Recycle materials from old boxes (Bob Shelly)
- Service digital Gate lock (Nick Morkot)
- Strim southern side of outdoor range (Charles White, David White, George Christopherson)
Huge apologies to John Tadman as I forgot to order some of the wood! Which messed up his orignal task.
Jonathan and Keith putting the boxes together. (Image: M Kettle)
Final stack of boxes (Image: M Kettle)
Target Frames awaiting holes! (Image: M Kettle)
Many thanks to all that rolled up their sleeves. In retrospect we probably bit of a bit more than we could chew but it has been a while since we had a proper work party. The last one was pre-Covid. Nonetheless we did get a huge amount done.
Following on from the main work party John Tadman, John Mason and Mike Kettle finished the woodwork for the ladder racks, painting the new target frames, making the remaining boxes, and filling enough of the new boxes to allow them to start being positioned and tested to ensure they are located correctly as they are a slightly larger size than the old ones.
Woodwork and Ladder Racks ready for fitting (Image: M Kettle)
In total there were:
Plastic 288 pieces
Wood 508 pieces
Screws 2044
Holes drilled 912
We also recovered:
138 Kg of lead
42 Kg of brass
Given that all our targets now have bullet catchers the recovery of the lead is not only a lot easier than shovelling and sifting sand but we also get a 100% recovery rate!
John Mason now seems to be on a bit of a roll as he's taken on the decoration of the unisex toilet which was in need of a refresh as it was missed out during the great lockdown clubroom painting session of 2020.
