Part of every Spring for me is buying and moving truckloads of dirt for my wife's garden. We get it in 35 pound bags. As I was unloading them it crossed my mind to wonder if there was any reason these could not be used to "sandbag" a firing position instead of the traditional burlap bags of sand. I imagine these would not be as re-usable as burlap and they may be more fragile but they would work until they deteriorate.
Thoughts?
I've wondered that myself, but never really thought much about it afterwards.
Now I'm kind of wondering just how well they'd stop various calibers. I'd figure they'd stop most handgun rounds, but maybe not some rifle rounds.
This might be a fun little experiment.
The bags themselves should work just fine if you fill them with sand or other dense dirt, but if the soil that they are filled with when you by them is anythng like the stuff I by over here it's way to fluffy to be really effective in stopping bullets..
What about 40lb bags of morter mix? Not concrete just morter so there no big pebbles in it.
I used the plastic 1 cu ft bags of sand for that purpose. They wok fine. Just spend a little extra time selecting the bags without holes to prevent tearing.
Thanks for the great input!
@Dabser
I think you're on the right track with the deteriorate thing, plastic set out in the sun gets weakened. This happened to my next door neighbor who put out some small ones by her side garage door to keep rain water from going in her garage. when the rainy season ended she moved them to the side. then next year she tried to move them back but the bags all ripped. I think they were 15-20 lb bags.
But burlap does too over time.
Buying dirt in plastic bags is sort of expensive for a bunch of dirt. We can get burlap bags free here during hurricane season. and usually they have piles of dirt at the 'handout points' that you can fill when you pickup.
But i've seen these other 'bags' that are made of some sort of vinyl/acrylic reinforced with webbing. Now buying a bunch of those to reuse might be cost effective over time.
(https://image.pushauction.com/0/0/29bbcf96-6c1b-4bc9-9752-78eade56d0ed/15223fac-79bb-4a87-8803-5cad01bc479e.jpg)
@Rednex The thing about the sandbags is that it 'absorbs' bullets. Any bag of concrete or mortar will turn into a rock after a while. Rocks smash up bullets and break up in the process sending fragments of lead and rock everywhere. It's also more expensive than a plastic bag of dirt.