Interesting things happening at my local range.

[15meter]

Spoiled.

The smaller club with the 300 yard range has a locked gate to get on the property. All members get a key to the gate. Once you have had a year as "probationary" member you turn into a "full" member, then you get a key to the club, storage buildings and trap houses.

All labor is volunteer, that's part of the reason for the key to the storage building. Got a couple hours to spare, cut the grass to get your work hours in. 20 hours are required of all members but lifetime members(after a year you can pay for some if not all of the work hours, we've got a couple of members that travel A LOT for work. I was one of those for years, when you wake up in the middle of the night and have to dig out your airline ticket to figure out what state your in, last thing you want to do when you get home is cut the club's grass.)

Now that I'm an old gray beard lifetime member who doesn't have to do ANY works hours, I bet this years total will be between 50 and 100 hours.

Or use your key to open the trap house and shoot some trap.

Or open up the club house and have a beer/pop/snack and just relax.

100% on the honor system and it has worked that way for the 30 years I've been a member and a lot further back than that.

Very minor shooting of stuff they aren't supposed to on the rifle range and the vast majority clean up after themselves.

Worst we've had in the last six months is a moron who runs a military shoot, the last one of the year that he runs, he brings out pumpkins and puts tannerite inside. He places the pumpkins about 8 feet in front of the back stop and blows pumpkin guts all over the back stop. He thinks it funny, is told don't do it again and does it again the next year. "Oh, I forgot".

No real damage, just looks awful and makes it miserable to hang targets for a couple of days.

I won't care about the pumpkin and tannerite, I like reactive targets as much as the next guy(maybe more) just move it 20 feet from the backstop.

Guess if that's the worse I have to deal with out there I can live with it.

Like I said, spoiled.

[tazman]

You must be close to a big city! We have our problems, but not like that!

Right on the edge of the Quad cities. Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, Rock Island.
Not even a mile out of town.

[Wild Bill 7]

I’m late to this discussion but our range has finally finished the five new bays for shooting. We have one 15, two 25, one 50, and one 300 yard ranges. Six hundred members and scheduled times for club matches. One thing about our range is it’s mostly empty during the week days. Since it’s hot down here afternoon time is best for shooting because most people think it’s too hot to shoot. I personally love it because you can practice and be alone at the same time. We have matches throughout the month and plenty of open bays to boot.

[BadgerShooter]

I shoot 3-Position 50 meter rimfire, 100 yard and 200 yard rimfire mini palma, high power, instruct rifle, pistol and shotgun self defense, shoot 3-gun (including those horrible black guns - fast and accurate by the way), super gee wiz magnums with brakes, flintlocks, Martini Henrys and everything in between. The idea that what I'M shooting is the only legitimate thing and everyone else is a horrible person and the root of all evil - (especially those black guns) is massively damaging to our sport. If we do not hang together, we will all hang separately. Realize that everyone at the range wants to be there as much as you do. Its something we all have in common - build on it!

[Minerat]

We just got word our range closes on December 31, 2022 after 40 years. The county is making us clean the surface so the can build a public range in it's place. They wanted the club to run it and accept all liability and pay insurance. Did not happen we ain't that dumb as there was no up side. The Forest service and neighboring county are behind it because the don't like open shooting on public land so our county offered our range as a site for a new one. Unfortunately they own the land we are on so we are out. Club is looking to buy a place but there are few suitable sites in a mountainous county for a range as the government found out. Oh well!

[15meter]

We just got word our range closes on December 31, 2022 after 40 years. The county is making us clean the surface so the can build a public range in it's place. They wanted the club to run it and accept all liability and pay insurance. Did not happen we ain't that dumb as there was no up side. The Forest service and neighboring county are behind it because the don't like open shooting on public land so our county offered our range as a site for a new one. Unfortunately they own the land we are on so we are out. Club is looking to buy a place but there are few suitable sites in a mountainous county for a range as the government found out. Oh well!

I would think it's easier there than southeast Michigan, almost dead flat here. From one end of the county elevation change is less than 50 feet, probably closer to 30 feet. Any range here entails serious dirt work for backstop and sound control.

And with Detroit to the north and Toledo to the south the big city is encroaching fast.

Saddest part of the expansion is driving down a road that had been a productive farm that has been chopped into 5 and 10 acre mini-estates.

Complete with "No large solar farms" "Save the farms for agriculture" signs.

And these buffoons don't see the hypocrisy in those signs in their front yard.

It was an interesting "discussion" with my little sister when I refused to chop up the last 70 acres of the family farm in 2020 into "rural estates". My mother passed away in 2020 and as executor it was my call on disposal of the real estate. She figured I had ripped her off because I sold it as farm ground.

The two farmers I sold the ground to intend to continue to farm it for the foreseeable future. My dad would be pleased that it will continue to be farmed.

And there's a reasonable chance that I'll never speak to baby sister again and that pleases me.

[BLAHUT]

I am fornicate the gun club I belong to has a dedicated .22 only, pistol or rifle, 100-meter range, the pins were pulled at 100 meters because of target arability, so now 50 yds, 50 meters, 100 yds. the 50 meter is electronic targets. this is an Olympic stile outdoor range, from a shoot house. gets a very lot of use, many 100 yd matches. a 300-meter shoot house, high power range has electronic targets for international matches and general use this is also a 200 yd range with the same electronic targets. 200 yd small bore matches are held on this range at least once a year or more. there is access to 400 yds from this 300 meter house on two points. bench rest is set up for, out to 200yds with access on two benches to 400 yds. there is a silaret range out to 200yds, there was talk about a 600 yd range? a 100 yd pistol range with 4 other bays for pistol, large trap and skeet ranges, archery with a walking curse. there was talk about putting in and Olympic stile ski and shoot range? biathlon course?
have held many national matches out there. many national Reckords have been set out at this range.
there was talk about setting up a 10-meter indoor air gun range?

[BLAHUT]

We just got word our range closes on December 31, 2022 after 40 years. The county is making us clean the surface so the can build a public range in it's place. They wanted the club to run it and accept all liability and pay insurance. Did not happen we ain't that dumb as there was no up side. The Forest service and neighboring county are behind it because the don't like open shooting on public land so our county offered our range as a site for a new one. Unfortunately they own the land we are on so we are out. Club is looking to buy a place but there are few suitable sites in a mountainous county for a range as the government found out. Oh well!

make it a public range and everything on it will be all shot to hell. seen that happen here.

[elmacgyver0]

Right on the edge of the Quad cities. Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, Rock Island.
Not even a mile out of town.

Milan Rifle Range?

[tazman]

Milan Rifle Range?

Yes. They just held the state rifle matches there a week or two ago.
They are currently doing some dirt work with heavy equipment, apparently, for another range. I don't know what they intend it for yet. No big announcement that I gave seen.

[BadgerShooter]

I am fornicate the gun club I belong to has a dedicated .22 only, pistol or rifle, 100-meter range, the pins were pulled at 100 meters because of target arability, so now 50 yds, 50 meters, 100 yds. the 50 meter is electronic targets. this is an Olympic stile outdoor range, from a shoot house. gets a very lot of use, many 100 yd matches. a 300-meter shoot house, high power range has electronic targets for international matches and general use this is also a 200 yd range with the same electronic targets. 200 yd small bore matches are held on this range at least once a year or more. there is access to 400 yds from this 300 meter house on two points. bench rest is set up for, out to 200yds with access on two benches to 400 yds. there is a silaret range out to 200yds, there was talk about a 600 yd range? a 100 yd pistol range with 4 other bays for pistol, large trap and skeet ranges, archery with a walking curse. there was talk about putting in and Olympic stile ski and shoot range? biathlon course?
have held many national matches out there. many national Reckords have been set out at this range.
there was talk about setting up a 10-meter indoor air gun range?

I had the opportunity to shoot the NRA Regional 50 Meter 3-Position Smallbore matches there. I always wanted to shoot the 300 meter Isu events there but havent made it yet. Super nice range!

[Minerat]

make it a public range and everything on it will be all shot to hell. seen that happen here.

Even better they are stripping to original ground and building a new range so the public can do that to all new expensive equipment.

[15meter]

make it a public range and everything on it will be all shot to hell. seen that happen here.

The state of Michigan has multiple large public ranges around the state. Vandalism is almost non-existent. They are only open when there is a range officer(s) on duty. The one closest to me usually has 2-3 DNR officers on duty. It is a clean well designed layout with pistol, 25, 50 and 100 yard ranges. Plus an archery range and a throw your own clay pigeons area.

Covered SOLID benches, concrete walk ways, clean bathrooms. Open 6 days a week year round plus they go to 7 days a week the month before deer season.

Rigidly controlled on safety, no rapid fire, don't think 50BMG is allowed but the DNR dudes will check out anything cool that shows up to shoot.

There are plans to build a new range ~10 miles due west of where I live. Can't wait for it, being a brass vulture, every time I go to Sharonville, I scrounge through the brass buckets looking for stuff I can use. Surprising the amount of 45-70, 32 Special, 35 Remington and a bunch of other less common once fired that end up in the scrap buckets. Can you say 30 Remington? 38-55?

And I already belong to 3 private clubs, Sharonville is less than 10 miles from the sporting clays club. The prospective new range will be less than 10 miles from the club I shoot rifle at and 20 miles from the skeet club. Personally don't NEED another range but more the better.

Unless our governor finds out about and and redirects the funds to a cannabis retail subsidy fund. Keep'em stoned, they won't complain about anything.

[shooterg]

Lot depends on how much dirt is being moved . Calculate yardage plus equipment/operator cost. We dropped over $60K just adding 2 Multi-Purpose bays 20 yards wide and 30 deep(mostly for Action and steel shooting with handguns). And that did not include the permitting. They are set up for 180 degree shoots(tall berms on 3 sides).

Our 50 yard range allows handguns and rimfires . You can shoot those on the 300 yard Rifle range but at a MINIMUM distance of 50 yards . We do have precision .22 events where shooting is at random distances/positions from 25 to 300 and we allow the .22 shooters to shoot in our 300 yard matches(in their own class) .