" The one advantage I have is that I have "some" access to metal scrap. I work at a Ford Dealership so theres always metal scrap laying around."
This part is huge considering metal prices these days. I built one portable 10" x 10" swinger several years ago. I sourced the 1/2" X 10" x 10" metal plate from a local industrial metal fab shop. I think they charged me around $50 for it. For the frame, I used scraps that I got from a local ATV dealer a long time ago. Manufacturers used to pack ATV's in disposable metal crates that utilized a lot of 1 1/4" square tubing steel and various other useful bits. They'd give that stuff away back then, and I hauled off several 16' trailer loads of it to use for deer stands and various other projects. Now they've switched to using reusable metal crates, so the gravy days are pretty much gone for me. I still have one ace in the hole, though, in the form of a tractor and implement dealer that also uses disposable metal crates. But theirs tend to be much larger, heavier, more complicated, and rarer due to the much lower volume that the tractor dealer sells compared to the ATV dealer. But now and again I pick up some goodies from him too. If you think I'm cheap for picking through scraps like this, get online and price 1 1/2" heavy gauge square tubing. Or better still, go down to a big box hardware store and pick up a 4' piece off the rack. I was shocked when I first found out how much money they were throwing away. They gave me literally thousands of dollars' worth of the stuff. And they were happy to do it. Amazing, to a poor boy like me.
Looks kinda rough because it hasn't been used for several years. About a year after I built it, our range installed plates at every berm from 300-600 yds, so I haven't used it since.
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