Homade Pellet Trap

[Red Harris]

Plumber's Putty and Duct Seal are two totally different compounds. The Plumber's Putty is soft and easy to work, Duct Seal (also called ballistic putty)is quite heavy/dense and much harder to shape. Plumber's Putty does not work very well for a target trap as you need many inches for it to be effective. I tried it and shot the back of my trap out. Duct seal is pretty expensive and you need several pounds to fill one small trap.

I opted for rubber mulch from the local big box store. It is cheap and light. One .3 c.f. bag filled both my traps and work very effectively.

Very True^^^^^ Duct seal is much more dense than Plumbers putty. Its heavy too. I'd say my trap weighs about 25- 30 lbs.... The duct seal came in individual packages about 1.5 in wide x 1 in thick x 8 inches long. I used 17 or 18 sticks in my trap and total cost was a bit over $25 just for the Duct Seal.

I bet there are a Lot of good/cheap materials that COULD be used for Backstop material.....Old phone books comes to mind,,,,,they are FREE .....I thought about Modeling Clay from the Art Store,,,,,,but it was more $ than the Duct seal.....We will all have different Needs and different budgets, so whatever works for YOU is good....

[sandpiper]

I opted for rubber mulch from the local big box store. It is cheap and light. One .3 c.f. bag filled both my traps and work very effectively.

How did you keep the rubber mulch in place?

[breakfastchef]

How did you keep the rubber mulch in place?

Cardboard and a few stiff wire rods. I use duct tape for quick patches if holes get too large. I suppose I replace the cardboard every month.

[sandpiper]

Cardboard and a few stiff wire rods. I use duct tape for quick patches if holes get too large. I suppose I replace the cardboard every month.

That looks like a great economical idea as long as the pellets dig in and don't bounce out. I have this 3M spray adhesive at work that we use to adhere weatherstrips and stuff. That would keep it in place without the cardboard.

Our search for the best pellet grabber at a low cost still seems to be the duct seal but I'm liking low cost of rubber mulch. I thought of using spray expanding insulation but don't know how long it would hold up.

[JEBert]

I thought of using spray expanding insulation but don't know how long it would hold up.

Compare the spray expanding foam (Great Stuff is what Lowe's has here) to Styrofoam.  I used it to repair the shot=out center of my styrofoam archery target and it stops the arrows the same as the styrofoam did.
Cheers,
Jerry