Some friends and I have made a number of steel targets over the last year or so. We started by cutting some out of generic 1/2" (ASTM A36?) plate, and shot them at 100-300 yds with a variety of rifles - AR 15, M14, Garand, Mosin-Nagat, Mauser, Lee-Enfield, etc.. And found that common ball ammo made big craters in the plates.
Then I asked here about target quality steel awhile back, and found mention of some type of steel that has been used sucessfully by others in the past (not the 500 brinnell stuff, but better than generic steel), but when my buddy called his supplier (and some others - he works at a fabrication shop, so he has regular suppliers for steel), they didnt have any.
Then my buddy decided to try having the plates heat treated - his company was having some parts hardened (unsure of the exact procedure - whether they were carburized or simply heated and quenched) to make them more wear resistant, and he simply included a couple of 6" diameter 1/2" thick plates since it didnt cost extra. We shot at these at 200 and 300 yds and they look much better than the non- hardened plates did. There are still craters, but they are very small - the targets ought to last much longer before they are swiss cheese and dangerous to handle due to a large number of sharp edges.
Our current problem is the lack of a good place to shoot such targets.
