I'm preparing a presentation for my County Forestry Department so we can get some construction upgrades on the public pistol range. Now all we have outdoors is a 15,25,50,&100 yard range with 8 ft. shooting positions all on the same line. Considering I will be teaching the certified pistol course with friends this summer on a range that is very busy we want to isolate the 15 yard portion for privacy. The plan at the moment is to build some kind of safety wall around the one lane so classes can run without concern for the starting and stopping of other shooters.
At this early stage of the game all I need is suggestions from other shooters here on GT as to what kind of materials can be used to build walls that are high enough and 100% bullet proof to make a safe area for shooting. Maybe the range you shoot at has some safety walls. . . can you tell me how they are made?
If I can get an approval for this project, then I'll spring for the NRA Sourcebook to complete the details, and have the NRA range experts OK it.
So, what can you tell me.........

I'm a member at Bend of the River Conservastion Club, and they constructed their bays in a dried-up river bed.  The bays are dug into one of the banks, and there are natural dirt walls between some of the bays.  The small hills work pretty well.

I am a Director ( past president) of a small club in Ontario Canada.

We are currently building all brand new ranges at our place.
a 350 yard rifle range.

a 100m small bore/shotgun/black powder range

a 75 yard pistol range.

and a 15 yard pistol range.

The price to use fill to make all the berms ( back and side berms for all ranges) was well over $120,000.   Since we just finished building a new indoor range there was no way we would be able to pay for it.

HOWEVER.....

We have since then teamed up with a company that hauls for a newsprint recyling plant.

We take the short fibres that cannot be made into paper again.  Mix it with local sand ( we will have a very large trout pond when we are finished).  The mix ratio is 70/30 ( paper/sand)

Total cost??

Well we have to supply all the drainage tile etc.

They do all the trucking and digging and dozing...

We might end up with a bill of about $20K


You might want to look into such a plan.

A u shaped berm would be good but doesn't sound like you've enough room.

Old tires--a straight line from behind firing line to backstop.  Then a stack at each point where the tires in the straight line butt each other so nothing slips thru the cracks.  Depending on how tires match up, you may have to use some juggling or another row. Couple of long 2x4s or rebar extending from in the ground to top tire should keep them from shifting,

Fill them with dirt or sand, and water down so filler is tight.

Could do something similar with railroad ties. You could stagger them horizontally and vertically.  Run rebar pieces to anchor the ties and then put sand, mud, or steel plate between the two sides.

powderburner, We use stacked tires filled with sand to protect our back-stop framing. We need about 46 meters of wall, so that would be a lot of tire, but something to think about.
One thing for sure the county doesn't want to spend a lot of money here, because we are moving to a large gravel pit in about a year down the road...