DIY Target Stand

Adapted from a project found at Survival Defense Lab

So when you're learning to shoot, it's important to have something to shoot at. And as your mother probably taught you, your brother's don't count, so today's article is on how to build your own target stand. This isn't a money saving plan (even though it is super cheap), as professionally made ones are usually pretty affordable, and this isn't a "my stand will increase your tacticalness by over 9000 because of it's features" plan either, as there are a lot of different approaches that work. This is the stand that fits my needs and I wanted to share the plans with you.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

You'll need 6 pieces of wood measuring the following lengths:

• 2 x 24" pieces
• 2 x 36" pieces
• 1 x 40" piece
• 1 x 60" piece.

The lengths are arbitrary and can be adjusted to fit your needs. In the future I'll probably use a 72" piece instead of the 60". Also, these are all cut from 1x3 furring strips. This is because that's what I had available from another project, but you could use 2x4's or any other size strip, just keep weight in mind if you plan to transport it (which is what I'll be doing... a lot...).

You'll also need at least 8 screws, a way to screw the screws in, and a way to cut the wood from the original strips. For those crunching the numbers, this project used 3 x 8' long furring strips that were $1.87 or so each. So we're around $6 for wood and maybe a couple bucks for the screws. So this is a < $10 stand.

Step 2: Start Screwing

Take the 2 24" strips mark their center line and screw them onto the 60" strip so it looks something like the last two pictures.

Step 3: Make It Stand!

One thing you'll notice is there are some rough cuts and poorly drawn lines. That's because this is a quick and dirty project. It's not for some museum or woodworking competition. If you want to be more exact feel free, but don't feel compelled to be perfect with everything on this project. After all you're going to be shooting at this thing.

Speaking of poorly drawn lines, mark the center of the 36" strips then place them onto the ends of the 24" strips and screw them down. The stand should now look like the image.

Step 4: Put on the Top

For the last build step, screw the 40" strip across the top of the 60" strip to make a "T" shape as seen in the image.

Yes the positioning of the American Flag in the background was intentional

Step 5: You're Finished!

You're officially done! That was pretty easy and should only take half an hour or so depending on what tools you have and the quality of wood you're using. To put it to use I bought some jumbo clothespins from the Dollar Tree. I then used those clothespins to clamp a piece of foam core to the stand.

I designed this stand to hold two targets and to accommodate more than one type of target. The only thing I'll do to this one that's not shown here is to add a bottom cross bar to clamp the bottom of the foam core to. That one will also twist out of the way to let the stand work with hanging targets. It could also be used to setup a 4 target stand instead of just the two.

Well there you have it. Like I said I designed it to fit my needs. Some stands are squares instead of t's and some are just straight posts. The key is to do what works for you; so, hopefully my plans have given you some inspiration to go out and build your own. Be sure to tweak it to fit your needs.

Find more projects and other great information at Survival Defense Lab.