Ohioans For Concealed Carry Discussion Forums

After cleaning my EDC pistol, it of course needs to be loaded. Aiming in in a safe direction, I load a charged magazine and rack the slide. In my garage a "safe direction" is wood 4"x4" chunks gorilla glued together. I would like something a bit more refined and less prone to possible ricochets in the event of an AD. Also want to get/build one for my daughter's house. The only commercial (small sized) bullet traps I can find are rated for rimfire only - need up to & including 9mm. Searching for plans online gets me many results for shooting range backstops, but not much for home use as a just-in-case-safety-backstop.
What do you guys use?

5+ gallon sand bucket.

This is what the Army uses:



50-gallon drum filled about 3/4 with sand and then secured in place with sandbags. Works pretty well and I've seen a number of more "refined" products available on the market (mostly aimed at police departments) that are essentially the same thing, but far more expensive.

An idea I have!
Get a scrap (or purchase) piece of 12" plastic or PVC pipe/tile, say 3-4 foot long. Cap one end or bury it in the ground or on a frame, set at an angle. Fill it with sand. Or water?

Curzyk wrote:5+ gallon sand bucket.

This.

Inexpensive, easy, unobtrusive, and can be used in a garage, workshop, even off in a corner of just about any room (maybe want to pretty the outside up, and put a plant in it...).

JustaShooter wrote:

Curzyk wrote:5+ gallon sand bucket.

This.

Inexpensive, easy, unobtrusive, and can be used in a garage, workshop, even off in a corner of just about any room (maybe want to pretty the outside up, and put a plant in it...).

Keep it in the garage, add a little oil in it and store your garden tools in it.

TJW815 wrote:

JustaShooter wrote:

Curzyk wrote:5+ gallon sand bucket.

This.

Inexpensive, easy, unobtrusive, and can be used in a garage, workshop, even off in a corner of just about any room (maybe want to pretty the outside up, and put a plant in it...).

Keep it in the garage, add a little oil in it and store your garden tools in it.

Dual purpose. This is actually a pretty good idea.

I don't understand the need, when has a modern pistol discharged by racking a round in? A bucket of sand seems simplest if you feel the need.

Imcrazy wrote:I don't understand the need, when has a modern pistol discharged by racking a round in?

The XDs recall of a couple of years ago had that as one of the failure modes. Seems a prudent precaution for that action, as well as when pulling the trigger during disassembly of firearms that require it.

JustaShooter wrote:

Imcrazy wrote:I don't understand the need, when has a modern pistol discharged by racking a round in?

The XDs recall of a couple of years ago had that as one of the failure modes. Seems a prudent precaution for that action, as well as when pulling the trigger during disassembly of firearms that require it.

I guess I take it for granted that being a home owner with a slab floor in my basement I always have a safe direction to point my gun in...

Imcrazy wrote:I don't understand the need, when has a modern pistol discharged by racking a round in? A bucket of sand seems simplest if you feel the need.

Agreed. An even simpler and cheaper solution would be to take it into the backyard after dark, point it at the ground and rack the slide.

Imcrazy wrote: I guess I take it for granted that being a home owner with a slab floor in my basement I always have a safe direction to point my gun in...

Be careful of ricochets. Remember that a bullet "follows/skips."

TSiWRX wrote:

Imcrazy wrote: I guess I take it for granted that being a home owner with a slab floor in my basement I always have a safe direction to point my gun in...

Be careful of ricochets. Remember that a bullet "follows/skips."

I'm not too worried, If I can't remember to check if it's loaded before I pull the trigger to disassemble I am not responsible enough or trained up enough to be carrying around a loaded firearm... Just my .02... SEMI OT: I've never understood the marketing point that "you can disassemble without pulling the trigger" to me that reads: "you're too lazy and negligent to check clear before working on a gun so, here dummy we'll help you over come your stupidity".

I think the attitude that it 'might go off' so I better have a sand pit to point it at means that either you're not following proper procedure to verify clear before working on your gun or if you think your gun may go off when racking a round in maybe you need a different gun or to take better care of it, what if you're in a gun fight god forbid and you have to do a slide lock re-load and you kill an innocent by-stander because you gun goes off when the slide hits home? Now your really in trouble...

I've never even given it a thought that the gun might go off by racking a round into it, how would that even be possible? Hammer falling past the safety catch on a series 70 1911 maybe?.... I guess I can see the example of a defective gun causing a ND/AD like the XDS did at one point so I will say yeah point it at something that will absorb the shot and you won't be devastated if it's destroyed...

If you're really worried about it though, pick one of these things up I guess:
http://www.safedirection.com/safedirection.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

glocksmith wrote:

Imcrazy wrote:I don't understand the need, when has a modern pistol discharged by racking a round in? A bucket of sand seems simplest if you feel the need.

Agreed. An even simpler and cheaper solution would be to take it into the backyard after dark, point it at the ground and rack the slide.

Yeah I've got 3-1/2 acres of safe direction two steps out side my front or back door! I wouldn't need to wait for it to be dark either.....

Imcrazy wrote:I've never even given it a thought that the gun might go off by racking a round into it, how would that even be possible? Hammer falling past the safety catch on a series 70 1911 maybe?.... I guess I can see the example of a defective gun causing a ND/AD like the XDS did at one point so I will say yeah point it at something that will absorb the shot and you won't be devastated if it's destroyed...

Neither had I until the recall, to be honest. But since I had an XDs and was now aware that simply chambering a round could result in a discharge, it got me to thinking, and I decided that my concept of "safe direction" needed to be reevaluated. I honestly didn't know without looking what was below me in the basement at any given place on the 1st floor (I'm thinking of things like gas lines and the things that run on gas, water lines and other important infrastructure), and whenever I'm on the 2nd floor I really don't know who might be below me. Seemed prudent to have something in my workshop and in my bedroom that would absorb a potential accidental discharge since those are the places I normally chamber a round. I'm not worried about the disassembly step as I do double/triple check the firearm before pulling the trigger for disassembly but I could see where some might like that additional comfort.

Imcrazy wrote:If you're really worried about it though, pick one of these things up I guess:
http://www.safedirection.com/safedirection.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sure, but it seemed to me a simple bucket of sand was sufficient, cheaper, and essentially infinitely reusable.