Air Venturi Quiet Pellet Trap, w/ Steel Backstop

I received mine damaged. The staple had split one of the wood panels.
So fail for quality control right off the bat.
One the plus side, it's massively overbuilt for pellet shooting.
One the down side it's therefore way too heavy and thick.
This leaves a ton of room for competition to offer a much better product.
The pellets are stopped in a fraction of their length by the putty.
If you shoot tight groups, they pellets end up piling on top of each other, making more noise and not getting trapped by the putty, as they should have.
So a slightly softer putty would absorb sound and energy better.
Ideally, instead of having one layer of putty, you would have 4 or 5 layers of plastic covered putty. That way you could rotate them as the top layer would get progressively damaged. You want it to be damaged, so the pellets don't fall off and don't make any noise when they hit.
This box does not collect the pellets, so they end up falling off and accumulating on the floor or wherever it stands, leaving you with a bit of mess to clean.
A better trap would collect the pellets for easier disposal.
Being a box with straight edges, if a pellet hits the edge, it bounces right back at you, as it's happened to me once. A better trap would have angled or bevelled edges, to prevent ricochets.
The box is very awkward to manipulate, because it's so heavy.
A handle on the side where slide the targets in would have made it easier to transport.
The only paper targets that fit this box are the 10m air rifle ones.
I shoot 10m air pistol, so I'm out of luck and I have to manually resize my targets to fit inside that box. Because there's nothing to clamp the target onto, it always end up moving, unless I fit an extra piece of cardboard behind it. Far from ideal.

Pros
It exists. Few traps even attempt to be silent traps.

Cons
Way too expensive for what it is. Low built quality.

It's a bit of a pain to set this up—the putty is a sticky mess, and needs to be unbagged and hand molded into the compartment. Also, it only includes three target sheets and one single cardboard backing, so you'll have to make more cardboard backings periodically, because they don't seem to sell them precut. That all said, once you get past the set up, and if you don't mind occasionally cutting the cardboard, it is otherwise excellent. I like the stained wood. It's sturdy and compact, but big enough. Quiet. Safe. Good price.

Pros
It's a handsome and practical unit, at a decent price, which works as advertised.

Cons
Setup and maintenance is a bit tedious at times, but still worth it i'd say.

I got my first surprise before I even opened the package - this thing is heavy! Haven't weighted it but I'm estimating 35 lbs. or so, a lot of it from the steel plate. Also pretty small; just barely big enought to slide the paper target in. The idea behind the design is that your pellet will penetrate the target and the piece of cardboard behind it and lodge itself in the dense clay-like material behind it. Should it make it through the clay there's a steel plate behind it to stop the pellet. I'm shooting at it from 10 meters with a Crosman 1377 pistol which undoubtably is pretty low velocity compared to some rifles, and I found that after getting through the cardboard the pellets are stopped immediately by the clay, with the end of the round still visible. Which means that when the clay gets full I can just flip it over and fill up the other side. Good, because the replacement clay is quite expensive. And what it doesn't say in the ad is that it takes two packages of the clay to fill the target box. I can't imagine what it would take to penetrate all the way through the 2 inches of clay and hit the steel plate; maybe a .22 pellet fired from 5 yards? At least in my case the steel plate was a waste of money. One other surprise; considering that the round is going into a thick bag of sound-absorbing clay, the impact is surprisingly noisy. I have a feeling that most of the noise is coming from the cardboard; when it wears out I may replace it with a piece of foam core board.

Pros
Does a great job of stopping pellets.

Cons
Heavy; replacement "clay" is expensive.

The backstop was placed inside the trap and during shipping it separated the back panel from the frame.

This is the best trap I've found so far, for in-door shooting. However, it's not perfect. I use a rear peep sight with a globe front sight, with inserts. The problem is that the wood frame is darkly stained, making it difficult to pickup a clear image of the outer edge of the insert. I've tried to offset this by putting masking tape over the wood. The masking tape is the same color as the target background & helps give a clearer sight picture. This still isn't a total solution to sighting problems, as the wooden frame protrudes approximately 1/2" out from the target. This is just enough to throw a substantial shadow over the columns of target bulls on the outer edge. I've got overhead & side lighting, but it still doesn't eliminate shadows. I am also concerned about lead dust problems when shooting in-doors. I think the ballistic putty may contribute to the problem. It's difficult to "dig" the pellets out of the putty after shooting each target, plus, it's impractical to do so. Therefore, pellets buildup in the putty while shooting several targets, & they impact into each other. As mangled as they become after about 3 targets, I can only imagine how much lead dust is thrown off. Would love to hear some suggested solutions to this. I know this sounds like a lot of dissatisfaction, but really, I'm overall, very pleased. Like I said to start this review, this is the best trap I've found so far.

Pros
Allows for practice in-doors, in one's home, using a full-sized, regulation, 10 meter competition target. I'm only shooting about 500 fps, but I can't imagine any existing pellet gun that could penetrate the ballistic putty. The steel backing plate is probably unnecessary to stop penetration, but it adds even more weight to make this a highly stable trap.

Cons
Difficult to clearly define sights when shooting targets on either edge. This is probably not a problem when open sights or optics.

I have used this a couple times now and love it. Its small so you better be a good shot already to use it. Otherwise you will miss it from 20-30 yards with a high powered air rifle. The ballistic putty is great and does its job to the max. Just wish it was a little bigger for the price. Make a 48 x 48 guys.

Pros
Takes a shot and wont blow out the back from 20-30 yards out. Easy to move around

Cons
Was not glued and stapled good enough in the corners. Had to fix mine right off the bat.

great for shooting in the house down the hall . . . I did put some aluminum angle iron on the exposed wood facing in case a flyer hits it which happened and worked well

Pros
very safe and functional

Cons
none

Not yet used, but is a strong and compact trap which I'm confident will fit my occasional needs.