With warmer weather right around the corner (I think), I'm looking forward to hitting the range more often. I have a few new rifles that I need to zero and test for accuracy, but mainly I just want to get out there and shoot some old favorites. Paper targets work fine for those first two tasks, but I want variety and a touch of realism when I'm plinking or brushing up skills.
Champion DuraSeal targets are both fun to shoot and durable. They're made of a flexible, self-sealing material that can take hundreds of shots from just about any rifle or handgun. They come in a bunch of sizes and shapes, including animal profiles like prairie dogs and crows. Some mount to an aluminum stand and are counter-weighted so they will spin or wobble to indicate a hit.
Impacts on the DuraSeal targets, even from bullets fired from magnum centerfire cartridges, close up and resemble nothing more than a poke from a pencil point. I have a couple prairie dog versions that have been subjected to hundreds of .223 Rem. bullets from various and assorted ARs. They don't look much different than the day I removed them from their packaging.
When the DuraSeal targets first came out, American Hunter contributor Richard Mann and I blasted one with a .50 BMG from a distance of 25 yards. We expected total destruction. Nope. We could hardly notice the hole made by the 750-grain bullet. Jacketed-hollow-point handgun bullets take out a small core of material on the front side of the target, but you can probably still expect your ammo budget to run out before the DuraSeal material gives up. Luckily the animals these targets resemble aren't nearly as tough.
