Lotboy and I located the supplier of Beast's armor here in AZ.  (he did not want to tell me when i asked him at the gun show years ago)

The beast gong is 1/4" armor plate, but we bought 3/8" armor plate in 12"X12" squares, and had a dog target cut as well.

Even with the Beefy 3/8" armor....  we have some plates that have been pounded to the point of penetration in a few spots.  The plate does not give, but there are a few holes that look like AP rounds have penetrated it.

Those gong have been fired on at under 50 yrds. with full- auto!

the gongs that we don't shoot under 100 yrds are lasting much longer!

To answer your Question...


The beast gong will last a long time if you fire ball at over 100 yrds, but 50 yrds and closer and you'll waste the gong pretty quick!

The cool thing is shooting M855 at the gong in low light!  Showers of sparks from the penetrator hitting the armor!

I checked into one of these awhile back, but couldn't get eenough information to give me a warm fuzzy.  I have shot the Blackwater steel, and was very impressed.  The only way to go is 500brn high abrasive.

Yeah....   the closer you shoot these gongs the FASTER they wear out!

The effects are dramatic!

If I were looking for a close range target I would not choose a gong!

I have a 1" thick steel plate welded to square steel tubing that is then embedded in the ground a few feet.  The steel is 70ksi structural steel cut from the flange of a bridge girder.  While this grade of steel is pretty strong, it has not been heat treated or hardened as far as I know.  I have shot at it with both 5.56 and 7.62 ball ammo and it is holding up just fine.  At close ranges, with 5.56 ammo, the ammo will make approximately a 1/4" crater in the steel, but that is about at bad as it gets.  

The only downside with this setup is that due to the thickness of steel and that it is rigidly affixed, the target does not really make a ringing noise when hit, more of a loud smack type noise.  

One problem I see with the setup shown in the link is that if you accidentally hit the chain links or bolts one or more times, the target is going to be out of commission and will require fixing.  Kind of a pain when it is set up at 100 yds or more.  That is the reason I decided to welded mine to a square steel tube.  The tube will take quite a few hits in the same general area before it is going down.

I've had a Beast rifle gong for about six years. The thing finally broke just last month - one corner snapped off due to a .308 just in the wrong place.

I've hit the thing with thousands of rounds of .223 - including green tipped. Lots of .308 - possibly more then a thousand rounds. Whacked it with a .30-06 and a .22-250 too. The plate has a mild 1/2" or so bow now and it's time to reverse it and start beating it flat.

The main issue with shooting steel plates with high power rifles at ranges less then 100 yards is return fire. The rifle rounds normally vaporize but I've had pistol rounds come back when shooting 25 yards.

When assigned to a US Navy ship I'd bring home deck plate and structural bulkhead cuts for sample. Plate 0.20" is like butter to even a .223 - pistol rounds are safe. It takes a nice 0.50" plate to be rifle proof. We took a shot at a 1.5" plate with a pulled .308 armor piercing round out of a magnum bolt action (300 WMR?) and it put a nice 3/4" dent into the plate.

The problem is that this stuff weighs in at 40 to 80 pounds per square foot. The Beast weights like 20 pounds.

I got a quote from a local steel distributor for 1/2" thick AR400 (Abrasion Resistant) steel plate for about $37 per sq. ft., cut to shape.   I gave the guy an autocad file with an NRA D-1, an IDPA standard target, a small popper and a large popper. The total price for all 4 was about $350 or so. The AR400 plate isn't quite as tough as the AR500 that some target manufacturers use, but I think the extra thickness would compensate.

My fear is, that if we leave these things out at the 100 yard or 200 yard positions... which I almost have to do, since they weigh so much... some hotshot with his .50 BMG will shoot the crap out of them... I don't know how the steel will hold up under those conditions, especially with AP rounds. The range is a private club range, but totally unsupervised.

Does anyone know what sort of penetration a .50 BMG AP round can cause?