El Cheapo Archery Butt made with Recycled Cardboard Boxes.

El Cheapo Archery Butt made with Recycled Cardboard Boxes.

You've got all of your archery gear but now where to shoot? If you can safely shoot in your own backyard* then just go out and buy some archery butts. Well, no, because archery butts are very expensive for what they are and that's just a big block of high density foam rubber. Yes, they will not damage your 100 buck competition arrows but they might just damage the wallet unnecessarily. 

Better to collect some old corrugated cardboard boxes and hence recycle them for a better purpose and make some home made archery butts. But what is that? Your are saying there is no way they will stop my arrows on my 70 lb (no closer than 8m shooting otherwise they will go through this butt design)  draw weight bow! You must be crazy! Nope I'm not crazy I'll show you how.

You will need about a 1ft thick of folded boxes, the size will depend upon the ultimate size of your target but I would suggest at least 1 yard tall/1 metre tall. Put them all into a box that will just take them as shown above. Now as far as stopping power goes, you will need to collect some "shop brochures" made with dense high quality paper which amounts to about 3/4"thick when stacked upon one another. You can also use glossy magazines, using high quality paper which amount to the same thickness. One inch thick maximum should be fine.

Centre the magazines/brochures upon one cardboard box with gaffer tape or similar, then the trick is to replace this behind about several inches of cardboard as shown above. That way your arrows will stick in the butt but not too far in. One inch thick of glossy magazines will be able to stop or at least prevent the passing of a high speed arrow and of course there will be more cardboard behind this modified piece.

Top view

You can also use "sticky tape" if no gaffer tape but gaffer tape will be better or duct tape.

Now I covered the entire box/butt with a synthetic hessian bag, this is to help hold the thing together after you have blasted it constantly with arrows all day, every day for a week LOL!

Hey presto, your recycled archery butt and you can make these for next to nothing, maybe even from recycled cardboard from around your home!

Ready to transport to my "range" and just waiting on a target to be placed upon it. Happy shooting!

I shot with these for years and one range, where  I was a member at, used these extensively around the range in the bush, cheap to make, totally (with exception of the bag) 100% biodegradable, easy to extract field point from.

BTW, it is important NOT to compress the cardboard boxes too much.

*Disclaimer, never shoot in a suburban environment, or a public park etc. Never shoot where if one misses the target, the arrow will remain in flight to cause injury or death.

Check carefully the quality of the cardboard you use and do a test to make doubly sure it will indeed stop your arrows from passing through at close range.