So, besides punching paper/shooting for tight groups, what do you guys shoot at for fun with an AR?
I enjoy laying out some shotgun clays at 50-100 yards on an embankment and plinking them as rapidly as possible. Obviously shooting fruit and water bottles never gets old either. Taking classes or competing in 3 gun matches is another thing to do.
What are some other fun things that you all do with them?
I love to splatter bullets into gongs.
I can’t get into the clays thing. It’s overkill for one. And close misses will break them apart sometimes.
clay pigeons, pop cans, i did use water bottles for a while but not anymore…funny story: i set up the empty water bottles up at 25 yards on a piece of wood. My sights were all tuned in or so i thought and I started firing away. I emptied a magazine at the damned waterbottles and didnt hit them once…or so I thought. turns out there was a shitload of bullet holes in the water bottle, but the 5.56 prjectile is haulin the mail at 3000 fps, so it goes right through the bottle and out the other side whilst not disturbing the bottle in the least. So, that is why i like clays. It is more gratifying when you hit one because they break.
Small plastic containers like 20 OZ Coke bottles filled with water with food coloring. It is fun and very impressive spray when shot with V-MAX or A-MAX bullets.
I have a picture of a 1 gallon jug being hit with a 110 V-MAX from my LR-308, in the picture the jug is 12 feet up and still rising.
flyboy1788: I had a similar thing happen, hit a water jug but no explosion, so I hit again and still no result on it, moved one over and big water spray. Muttered I couldn’t have missed twice, went and checked it and two bullet holes through the jug. Guess it must have leaked enough out that the bullet just passed through.
CQM at contact to 15 meters on IPSC cardboard targets always gets me going…
ETA: also whacking 1/2lb Tannerite bottles at longer ranges is fun as hell…
My father in law hauls scrap alot so he gets a tom of old propane tanks from gas grills. He removes the valves before taking them in. We take them after the valve is removed and set them up on logs and they will sometimes fall when hit with the .223. They almost always fall when hit by 7.62x39. We also like partially full spray paint cans, but that gets messy! What else works well is the old ceramic coated cheap tin tables from the 50’s because the white ceramic flakes off at about a 4" diameter around the hole. You can see it at 100 yards real easy. I never tried water bottles, but I may. Our local fire dept got donated 200 cases of orange flavored water and they all hate it… they are throwing it away. I may go grab a few cases to shoot!
Cars/trucks/vans are fun to shoot, but my Father-In-Law doesn’t get cars and truck every week. When he does we play with them. Interesting thing is that in movies, a car will stop a bullet. In real life I can hit you with my glock 9mm by shooting thru both doors. Door skins wont stop even a pistol unless you hit eh window regulator or the cross bar.
Sometimes he gets washers/driers/dishwashing machines. We normally shoot them up and then throw 1/2 sticks of dynomite in them. We have a christmas video from around 2005 where we we went out and blew up a dishwasher that went about 30 feet in the air… in pieces. Good redneck fun!
I also have 20 acres of my own and have a private little shooting area for myself and my children and also some pals of mine. I have no close neihbors to worry about, so we go set up paper targets and get pretty loud out back. Its a good time and we spend a lot of time with the children teaching safe gun handling and proper aiming. My 13 yr old son is a MUCH better shot than I am. He is just a natural.
I learned the hard way what is cover and what is concealment during my time in Iraq, especially when 7.62 is involved.
That being said we had various Japanese, American, and European cars left over from explosive testing at our range and I too was surprised to see what even a .22lr would do to a car, much less an M80 ball or .45 ball.
Yea, we were all amazed because after a life of watching TV’s one wouls suspect that a car door can stop a pistol. My Father-In-Law used his Tech-9 and shot up an old Chevy Astro van body and we were all shocked to see the 9mm bullets went right on out the far side of the cargo area! Then we started shooting doors, one in particular that we thought would stop a bullet was a 77 Buick Electra… huge and heavy old American car with doors that felt soooo heavy to open. Nope. The 9mm went directly thru it as well! Rims stop bullets, engines and axles stop bullets… car bodies and windows do next to nothing on most shots. We even put a watermellon on a milk crate in the front seat of that Buick and used a sharpie to color in a black dot. We were all under the impression that shooting thru the windshield at an angle would deflect the bullet and save the life of Mr. Watermellon head… Nope. It hit where you aimed it. When in doubt about getting shot at, get behind and engine block! If your stuck at the rear… become real small and mold yourself into a rim! Other than that… your a sitting duck according to our farm-land-security tests.
I enjoy shooting old golf balls. you can get the waterlogged balls really cheap. it makes for a small target that will either explode, or launch a long way when you hit it.
I never tire of coffee cans filled with Florida dirt (sand ;)). Little holes in the front, big holes in the back.
The Wal-Mart brand 12 pack cases of Diet soda (shiny cans…easy to see). They make a nice explosion that confirms you’ve hit them and are super cheap.
Will try fruit - sounds fun and easier to clean up.
I take plain white printer paper and staple it 2 high on the target frame at the bottom.
I then take a 2x4 drill a bunch of hole and take Golf TEES and insert them into the holes place it in front of the white paper …
then place PAINTBALLS on top of the tees and have FUN 
+1 orange clays
me and my friends sometimes take old prop. grill tanks and fill them with air. close the valve put them of a soft dirt mound. and shoot the valves off. if you do it right the tank will disapear in the mound. if you do it wrong or get unlucky hit the dirt leason learned the hard way. oh yea also make sure there is no gas in them when u put air in em. that had a very nice and unexpected explosion. it was cool but not cool at the same time.
toilets are fun to shoot at, televisions…plates of glass.
There’s some private land we used to shoot at (all dirt/rocks - quarry) and we took a toilet out once and plugged the tank and filled it with gasoline…shot it with tracers.
Was really cool.
chunks of metal- circular saw blades are good cause you can usually build up a pretty good pile. big 12" chopsaw blades rock, but a far and few between. jobsite materials are great. bricks, faux rock, chunks of concrete overspill, any other chunks of metal- hold-downs, joint plates, etc. tile is usually plentiful and perfect size for 100m speed drills, sheetrock can be fun, old wall-plates from remodels, hardwood floor planks usually shatter pretty good, etc, etc… i save anything that looks like it would explode or otherwise react from hits. baseplates for construction road signs are fantastic permanent targets… haul them out there and leave them- big CRACK and particle spray when hit.
Animal crackers.
Tannerite:D:D:D:D
Frozen gal water jugs and water bottles.