Saturday, August 18, 2012

316 Stainless

I've got an acquaintance who works in a metal shop and he saw me fooling about with steel targets.  I've done some favors for him in the past and yesterday he dropped by with a freebie.  This guy's shop makes high-end metal products with demanding applications and he had some scrap steel that he thought I might be able to use as a target.

That's a 10-inch disk of what he calls 316 stainless.  He says that it is hard, and tough.  "We have to use special tools to cut that material.  A normal drill bit won't cut it, and we had to cut those  holes on the plasma table.  It will destroy a standard grinding wheel."  He thinks that it will make good target material, and I'm willing to fling bullets at it.  It's a freebie, after all.

My calipers measure it at 0.276", a tad over a quarter inch.    I'll hang it on the hundred yard line, between my A500 targets and my mild steel targets.  We'll see how it holds up.  If it does well, I might have a supply for hard steel scrap pieces.

5 comments:

Old NFO said...

It should work pretty well, it's actually got a higher tensile strength than A500.

Termite said...

That's a 10" S/S blind flang, about $80-$90 worth of target.

Gerry N. said...

If it's out of spec., it's scrap. Shooting it full of dents won't lessen the value a whit. Busting it into bits won't either. I'm waiting with bated breath to see the results of bullet wounds on it.

Gerry N.

MSgt B said...

Termite's right.

I use the stuff all the time, working in a salt-water environment.

That baby's gonna hold up to whatever you throw at it.

Make sure you post pictures.

mostly cajun said...

It's nasty thing to cut, but I'm thinking that a quarter inch of it won't stand up long to high power rifles.

MC