Thread: Shooting ranges

I'm involved with the set up/design of a new shooting (pistol and rifle - no clay/skeet) range, and am trying to capture all the design type things that allow for the most amount of users to benefit from it. Ie not being dictated by any one organisation or club, the area will be independant of any one club.

So what do people want in a shooting range/complex?

We are restricted to a no escape 100 and 200m rifle range, and no further than 200m. But what little details make for a good area to shoot in? Ie T or U shaped benchs, etc.....

Also any running type things as well. Ie 15mins shooting then can go forward, etc...

Ohh where abouts ?

Personally, T shaped benches, feels nicer to sit at. Storage for gear, power is handy - shooters seem to have shit loads of gear for ranges these days

Over head cover from the firing line.

For pistol, couple of plate racks and moveables are nice. Is it for IPSC, or Cowboy/NRA/ISSF ? Napier club has a nice permanent cowboy range set up with board walk and doors/windows, which still works nice for IPSC.

Heaps of steel

If possible, separate the 100 and 200 yds ranges, so the 100yds guys don't have to wait for 1 guy to go patch at 200yds.

Overhead cover that extends BEYOND the firing point, think angled rain...

Make sure your benches work for lefties, and that the stools are height adjustable

? Decent rests/bags for hire. The amount of guys I see on the local Deerstalkers range shooting off of very poor rests and basically wasting their time is pretty high.

So the big things so far are –
- 1x 100m range 12m wide, with a 30x30 by 6.5m butt (so can be used for pistol and police), the outside wing wall end is in the middle of the open end of the butt, if that makes sense) 3.5m earth wing walls. Inside wall is shared with 200m
- 1x 200m range 30m Wide (full 3.5m earth wing walls)
- The 100 and 200 are separate ranges, sharing a wing wall to divide them, but will share a common firing line building, so can be shot independent
- Good point on the overhang for rain. We will have one as it will be part of the no escape calcs (armour plated), but will keep the rain in mind aswell. Haven’t got to the detailed building and baffle design yet…..
- 9x pistol bays. Full dirt berms 5m high. Back to back and a mix of 10m wide x 20m deep and 20mx20m, with one 20m wide and 35’ish deep range. One of the 10m ones will have a covered shed type firing line for wet weather hard soft barstards….. and closest to the car park….
- Site will have onsite wifi network and swipe cards to get in – no pay no working card. Wifi for competition scoring and looking at porn while waiting to shoot
- Moving the dirt in to create the butts, wings and pistol area should start in 4 weeks or so (only about 18,000 m3)
- Primary will be IPSC and cowboy. Not to sure on the permanent targets/props yet.
- Lots of steel!!! (and white paint in the maintenance budget!)
- All of the above is sort of stage one. Stage 2 will be a indoor small bore range and hopefully combined use clubhouse. Need to do some more design/numbers on this.
Location South Canterbury……

Some big questions that I have and would love photos, info etc….. are
- Baffle designs. Anyone have some good drawings that I could modify???
- Targets for rifle. Electronic? Who’s got what and what’s the pros and cons?
- Wings/berms. Has anyone put a geo fabric over the tops to slow erosion until the plants/grass takes hold?
- Firing line building. Any other design thoughts? (Taken on board comments about power, benches, over hang, stools,) Anyone care to share dimensions of theirs? And anything that works really well or not?
- Indoor small bore. Anybody built a new one recently? Ideas, good plans, etc…..

Cant share plans yet due to legal stuff, but will put some up as soon as I can.

What exactly do you mean by no escape?

Sounds like a bit of thought has gone in to it, nice work.

Rifle targets - are you running competition shooting only, or is it available for paid members to rock in and shoot. If so, don't worry about targets. Shooters would want their own for plinking or sighting, competition - well there's so many types should leave it to comp organisers to fulfill I reckon and the cost is zero. Target frames would be an ongoing cost, so many shooters couldn't hit the floor if they tried to shoot, but somehow are able to put a bullet in a small target frame with ease !

Don't forget there's simple/cheap options for CCTV these days, letting it run 24/7 and protecting the investment. APC have been talking about it because Steve W is mightily pissed off some shooters are setting up steel/targets in a dangerous manner (probably through ignorance rather than willfully).

Indoor small bore - ventilation and ceiling height are the biggest challenges. Howick in Auckland has a good indoor setup with concrete, Waitakere not so as it's an older wooden shed/building so people can't shoot standing up while in the upper bays, which negates any 4P shooters...

Baffles, there's loads of video on YT from Russia IPSC, most of their stuff is shot indoors, might help ?

One other thing, loads of picnic type benches everywhere, just so people have the chance to sit down somewhere at some stage.

If totally covered in mounds consider fume extraction a must for when shooting centre fire. The East Anakie rifle range at Geelong as an example is one of the most modern around with full electronics, single point shooting (shooter stay put) no matter the range, air con/fume extraction. Electronic targets are the way to go otherwise walls need to be built beside the individual ranges to allow people to go forward without closing the whole complex. Again, electronic targets a must. Enclosed tunnel would be nice.

Originally Posted by Tommy

What exactly do you mean by no escape?

No projectile can have the possibility of leaving the range area. Basically if your at the firing point, you cant see blue sky, via a combination of roof height of firing line, target backstop height, wing wall berms from target to firing line and crossing 'baffles' or horizontal beams across the range at various heights and distances between firing line and target (This bit for ours still needs to be worked out - a bit of a pain, as easy to do with heaps of baffles - but bloody expensive per each. Hopefully some bright idea will come from some where, to reduce the amount.... )

Originally Posted by zimmer

If totally covered in mounds consider fume extraction a must for when shooting centre fire. The East Anakie rifle range at Geelong as an example is one of the most modern around with full electronics, single point shooting (shooter stay put) no matter the range, air con/fume extraction. Electronic targets are the way to go otherwise walls need to be built beside the individual ranges to allow people to go forward without closing the whole complex. Again, electronic targets a must. Enclosed tunnel would be nice.

I like a lot of that!!!
How do they get on with brakes and big cals?

Originally Posted by Kscott

Sounds like a bit of thought has gone in to it, nice work.

Rifle targets - are you running competition shooting only, or is it available for paid members to rock in and shoot. If so, don't worry about targets. Shooters would want their own for plinking or sighting, competition - well there's so many types should leave it to comp organisers to fulfill I reckon and the cost is zero. Target frames would be an ongoing cost, so many shooters couldn't hit the floor if they tried to shoot, but somehow are able to put a bullet in a small target frame with ease !

Don't forget there's simple/cheap options for CCTV these days, letting it run 24/7 and protecting the investment. APC have been talking about it because Steve W is mightily pissed off some shooters are setting up steel/targets in a dangerous manner (probably through ignorance rather than willfully).

Indoor small bore - ventilation and ceiling height are the biggest challenges. Howick in Auckland has a good indoor setup with concrete, Waitakere not so as it's an older wooden shed/building so people can't shoot standing up while in the upper bays, which negates any 4P shooters...

Baffles, there's loads of video on YT from Russia IPSC, most of their stuff is shot indoors, might help ?

One other thing, loads of picnic type benches everywhere, just so people have the chance to sit down somewhere at some stage.

Yes on the CTV - there are some real idiots around, but hopefully a bit of a deterrent, and if not, hopefully we can identify them

The indoor range is just a block on the plan at the moment - basically to much to do by to few people, and the money side as well. So sort of in phase 2 for that. All due to your points mentioned really.

Thanks for the tip on the Russian stuff, will have a poke around and see if we can convert the tech to out side open air baffles.

Also a good reminder for the tables - something that has not been mentioned.

Originally Posted by Beaker

No projectile can have the possibility of leaving the range area. Basically if your at the firing point, you cant see blue sky, via a combination of roof height of firing line, target backstop height, wing wall berms from target to firing line and crossing 'baffles' or horizontal beams across the range at various heights and distances between firing line and target (This bit for ours still needs to be worked out - a bit of a pain, as easy to do with heaps of baffles - but bloody expensive per each. Hopefully some bright idea will come from some where, to reduce the amount.... )

Oh god that's what I thought it must mean but would be a major pain in the arse and the wallet to achieve, esp when there's a 200m range involved. Will be very interested to see this complete, very impressed

I'm not a huge fan of covered ranges, the percussion off of tin roofs puts me off. Also I do all my shooting prone if given a chioice as this is how i like to sight in my rifles, so the option to lie down and not have to use a bench would be great.

Kj

Re indoor building vs fumes - if you want a building with common access to 100 and 200 ranges I would recommend on building with two doors to the outside which holds two ranges
Exterior style shooting area stops fume extraction problems. Inside your nice warm social area (that you build later) you have soundproof doors to both ranges. Range officer can lock the doors from the range side so no-one can go into the bays when shooters are forward. Social people can do social things without gunfire noise.
This is how we do it at Wgtn Pistol Club so pm me if you wanna come take a look if you are up this way or I can send some pics through
The range shooting bays are covered from rain and the back wall is the clubhouse - you could do the same with a short corridor to the clubhouse later if you want.This would cut down noise even more and give two independently lockable doors if wanted - a bit fancy though
Also I worked on the Police range at Training College in Porirua which is fully enclosed and they designed it so that the airflow moved from the shooter's end of the building to the target end in a "plug flow"* fashion so as to blow fumes downrange from the shooters and made all shooters use frangible rounds to avoid ricochets - not workable for civilians IMO

Re baffles the problem is getting heavy steel beams long enough, cheap enough.
Vertical steel posts or hardwood power poles holding up tanalised retaining wall T&G timber about 1500 high with 6mm plate steel tek-screwed to the back of each baffle. The expensive bit is steel beams running above each baffle with threaded rods through the guts to pick up the inevitable sag in the guts - balance the beams on top then weld some "keeper" legs down from each end to hold them onto the top of each pole
Poles need sacrificial 200x50s pref in double layers on their fronts so that their legs don't get shot out. If you need baffles to go really wide without spending $$$ on steel, perhaps your forward baffle could have a leg down for support say 10-15m forward of the shooting bays and have a wall out towards that support - our walls are open-topped wooden posts faced with timber and filled with peametal - pour more peametal in from time to time - they work ok
Presumably you guys are sourcing farm building barn rafters and whatnot secondhand?

A design note - once your overhead baffles are in place you can't move the point of shooting forward later without big $$

As for ground baffles we have two types that work well - 100x100 posts with facing boards each side and filled with peametal
and
sandbags with soil sprinkled over and ivy growing over and holding together

Both types are in a"finger" type array where they come out from each side at around knee high and overlap so that the shooter patching their target walks forward in a zigzag fashion if that makes sense

A note that may help - the wooden ground baffles can be just sitting on the ground with steel rods driven through to hold them up. This means that if you need to get a digger or something large through then you can lever the baffle up with a few people and crowbars, the peametal falls out so you can then drag it out of the way and get access then drag it back, hammer in new rods to prop it up and re-fill with peametal - just an idea
Ideally you'll have full access to the target ends but the portability factor can help when doing overhead baffle maintenance

Cheers


*fluid dynamics

Originally Posted by Tommy

Oh god that's what I thought it must mean but would be a major pain in the arse and the wallet to achieve, esp when there's a 200m range involved. Will be very interested to see this complete, very impressed

Very much a big yes to pain in arse and wallet!
Still, its only a pain, as trying to sort the best option, ie trying to be cheap, but pass cert and leave options open.

Will be posting some pics etc when i can.