Thread: The future of Rifle Ranges.

Greetings All,
There has been a lot of chatter lately on the future of Rifle Ranges. Some range operators seem to be on the ball and some seem to be in denial. It will be illegal to shoot on a unregistered (there is an exception for ranges for which registration has been applied for) range from mid year. I thought I had a good understanding of what was required but in the interest of science I had a look at a couple of examples.
The danger area template for the .308 up to 8mm cartridges was plotted on an scaled photograph of a place of interest. It was very interesting, the 100 metre range was just a tiny patch in one corner. The danger area is 2.9km long and 900 metres wide at its widest and included one public road. Obviously there are very few ranges with this much land. The range manual also allows for reduced and no danger area ranges. This requires a tall and steep topographical feature (hill) to serve as a backstop. Next the template was applied to the area I occasionally use for sighting in at home. This rises steeply to the back of the site and the targets are placed in the floor of a gulley with a steep face at the end.
My concern is that, to my knowledge, there seems to be no effective effort to have a general centre fire range registered in Hawkes Bay. The crunch date, again from memory, is 23 June. How is it going in your area?
Regards Grandpamac.

That's a real shame no one over there especially NZDA aren't no to it.
Our branch here in Taranaki is going through the process of getting ours done it will be a reduced danger zone range.
We had around 20 guys go through there RO training course the weekend just gone, so hopefully we are all sorted.

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@25/08 IMP. The far north is getting the range sorted, coming along well I believe. RO training seems to be a bit of a mystery though. What course did your guys go through?
Your own or a national one? Cheers

Originally Posted by 25/08 IMP

That's a real shame no one over there especially NZDA aren't no to it.
Our branch here in Taranaki is going through the process of getting ours done it will be a reduced danger zone range.
We had around 20 guys go through there RO training course the weekend just gone, so hopefully we are all sorted.

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Greetings @25/08 IMP,
The Hawkes Bay NZDA Branches (Hastings and Napier) had a very well supported range shooting programme 40 years ago. This was on the decline by the time the Roy's Hill Range closed. It was started up again about 2009 but has been dormant since 2019 with only the interbranch Taruarau Shoot still going. I suspect it may take the closure of the existing ranges, other than Paki Paki which is a NRA range, to inject some urgency into the situation. The ones I feel for are the new hunters with nowhere they can legally sight in their rifles. Old fudds like myself have generally organised a place to shoot and I also shoot at both Paki Paki and Taupo. We will just have to wait and see I suspect'
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by RugerM77

@25/08 IMP. The far north is getting the range sorted, coming along well I believe. RO training seems to be a bit of a mystery though. What course did your guys go through?
Your own or a national one? Cheers

I did one at Taupo NZDA. I think that you need someone accredited for it. Check with NZDA.
GPM

Could you reduce your danger area on ranges by use of baffling the firing zone to reduce the cone of fire?

Obviously this would be expensive and right pain but otherwise it seems we have had an idealogy shift to ban shooting in NZ largely through making too expensive to maintain licenses and nowhere to shoot.

For the people who say "I just hunt" so will be fine, how these things work is the pick off one group, then they come for the next.

Originally Posted by RugerM77

@25/08 IMP. The far north is getting the range sorted, coming along well I believe. RO training seems to be a bit of a mystery though. What course did your guys go through?
Your own or a national one? Cheers

We did it with Mike Spray who works for NZDA

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request to NZDA sent. We'll see how that transpires. cheers

Originally Posted by jackson21

Could you reduce your danger area on ranges by use of baffling the firing zone to reduce the cone of fire?

Obviously this would be expensive and right pain but otherwise it seems we have had an idealogy shift to ban shooting in NZ largely through making too expensive to maintain licenses and nowhere to shoot.

For the people who say "I just hunt" so will be fine, how these things work is the pick off one group, then they come for the next.

You still need the bullet catcher and backstop which is prohibitive on flat ground. Have a read through the Range Manual that you can download on the Police site I think. One would hope that the ones who just hunt actually zero their rifles at some point although I wonder about this sometimes. There are plenty of clubs that are upgrading their ranges to comply and we all should join one of them. The main problem is that small groups are trying to do things independently rather than working in with others.
GPM

The biggest problem is you have to have a citified RO on the range every time someone wants to shoot.
Which is why we had so many do it so I can go to the range myself to check my rifle and shoot out to 700M.

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I may have missed it (or forgotten) - BUT has anybody being injured or killed on a rifle range, OR killed/injured by a stray bullet orginating from a rifle range.

IF NOT - then someone has clearly missed the basic cost-benefit analysis.

Originally Posted by jackson21

Could you reduce your danger area on ranges by use of baffling the firing zone to reduce the cone of fire?

Just did the RO course as well, Yes you can use baffles to reduce your cone of fire or ricochet angles to make a reduced or no danger zone range. Or a combination of baffles, terrain etc

All range templates rely on people placing targets at the correct place and shooting from the correct firing lines.
Some ranges can be approved for 308 up to 8mm, but 338 might be allowed at prone only as a means of reducing cone of fire.

I've recently inspected three private ranges down our way, two of which are full danger area with 8mm templates - advantage of having private land in mountainous areas.

As was mentioned above; read the NZ Police Range manual, its the bible we check against.

Originally Posted by Doghead

I may have missed it (or forgotten) - BUT has anybody being injured or killed on a rifle range, OR killed/injured by a stray bullet orginating from a rifle range.

IF NOT - then someone has clearly missed the basic cost-benefit analysis.

Hahahaha, @Doghead, logic or actual risk has almost nothing to do with any of this.

It is simply a massive new bureaucracy - very similar to WorkSafe...

Originally Posted by grandpamac

The danger area template for the .308 up to 8mmate are 400 cartridges was plotted on an scaled photograph of a place of interest. It was very interesting, the 100 metre range was just a tiny patch in one corner. The danger area is 2.9km long and 900 metres wide at its widest and included one public road.

GPC, the 900m width is just (soft) ground ricochet. If you include hard ricochet surfaces, that increases to over 1600m wide.

The blocks on the T6 template are 400x400m squares.