Up graded my pellet trap to .22LR rated.

I have been thinking about trying to up grade my rubber mulch pellet trap to take .22LR for a while now.
Finally got around to trying it today.

My plastic tote filled with rubber mulch (see my review "Best Pellet Trap Ever" in the Technical Reviews forum) has been amazing, stopping every pellet and slug I have sent its way, from .177cal pellets with 4.4FPE to big slugs with 55FPE.

But there is a slight difference between my biggest .22 slugs with 55FPE and a subsonic .22LR with 101FPE, not to mention the screaming fast CCI Stinger with 191FPE!!! Would my little pellet trap handle them?

I de-constructed the pellet trap, scooping all the rubber mulch out. I must have shot 2 thousand pellets into that trap and it was interesting to see how they have faired, and also how deep into the mulch they have penetrated.
I was finding .22 and .25cal pellets all most all the way down to the bottom (the bottom becomes the back when its standing on its end as a pellet trap). I'm not sure if these were shot there all the way through the mulch, or if they have settled down to the bottom every time I pack the trap away and lay it down on its back/bottom.

I then cut a piece of wood to fit into the bottom of the tote, which was 45mm thick. That should stop a .22LR, right?
Filled it up with rubber again and started testing.
If the bullets passed through the 45mm wooden linner in the tote, they probably not going to stop against the plastic, so I put my steel plate .22LR rated pellet trap behind the pellet trap, just incase....

Started with Winchester sub sonics, 40gr hollow point at 1065fps for 101FPE.
Shot the first shot and nearly went deaf in my little concrete basement!
Its been so long since I've shot any kind of powder burner I completely forgot about ear protection! Got to love air rifles.
Right, ear muffs on, then went to check the back of the plastic tote to see if we had a pass through... hopefully NOT!
No pass through. The wood must have stopped it. Another 4 subsonic shots and still no holes in the tote. Yay.

I was feeling a bit more confident now, so next I decided to try the stingers, 32gr hollow point at 1640fps for 191FPE.
First shot and go and check... no pass through. Great. Next 4 and still no holes in the tote. Excellent.
I was pretty sure there would be 10 .22LR bullets sitting in the 45mm wooden liner, but I wanted to see for my self, so again I scooped out all the rubber mulch from the plastic tote.
Much to my surprise, at about 13cm down (deep) I actually found 3 of the 5 subsonic bullets, slightly mushroomed.
And at about 20cm down, just above the wooden linner, I found 3 of the 5 stinger bullets, all beautifully mushroomed!
Only one of the stingers actually made it to the wood, and it was just a little kiss, just a slight dent in the wood.

I'm very impressed.
My rubber mulch pellet trap is now officially .22LR rated!

That's good. Where do you get the mulch from? I must build myself a decent trap. I just use bits of wood with stickers on them.

Amazing how that worked out being so close. Thanks, I'll do a search.

I just used what they had, the pieces are between 5mm and 10mm.
They sometimes do a bigger pieces mulch which they call the “firearms” mulch, but there is not much of a demand for it and they didn’t have any when I was there so I just took what they had. Works fine for what I need it to do.