I finally got around to building our shot trap today. Went to Lowes and picked up the rubber backed carpet runner (36"x36"), a 2x10, and some 2x4's. Stopped by the metal fab shop and got a piece of 22 gauge sheetmetal (39"x36"). Got home and threw it all together. It turned out pretty good so far. I've got to seal up all the seams in the trough and am thinking about lining the trough with magnetic sheets to maybe keep some from jumping out. I've got one of those magnets on a metal pole that roofers use to pick up tacks that I'm gonna use to get any stragglers. Gonna set it on a 10x10 tarp to be able to gather the little rascals up. Here's a few pics

Brilliant, don't be mad if I reconstruct your invention. That's awesome man!

Nice. How much you got in it?

I wish that I could take credit for the idea but I saw one on Gobbler Nation and copied it. It was easy to build and should be able to recover 75%-90% of the TSS shot. Makes sighting in and trying different chokes a lot more fun!

I've got about $85 in it. The rubber backed carpet runner is about $4.75/LF so it was about $56 of the total cost. If you know somebody that works for Cintas or any of the cleaning companies you can get a deal on the mats that they use in service stations. I've read where people use old carpet too.

Looks nice.

Built one Saturday after seeing the topic explored last week on the forum. Don't have but about 20 bucks in mine so far... waiting on the rubber/carpet. I've got a neighbor that works for Cintas and I'm hoping he'll come through. Also got to install a collector at the bottom to catch the shot.

This may be a dumb question, but does TSS deform at all during the shot or going through these shot traps? I know it is extremely hard so I'm guessing not

I've picked shot up after going through tin and couldn't see any deformation. But I've heard someone report that it does deform sometimes....

The only thing that I have heard is that occasionally some will split after hitting the tin. I can't imagine it going through 4 sheets of that carpet runner and still having enough energy to split. I also can't imagine that the carpet would deform it either.

I have had it split but not deform. And only had maybe 10 pellets split. So few it doesn't make it relevant. I just load the split ones back in with the rest.