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?

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 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

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.

I'd start by thinking of the possible uses people might make of the range:
sight in
accuracy testing
trajectory testing
technique practice
competition

Intermediate ranges
A big wide target at 25m would also be useful for people starting a sight in session.
A 50m butts or target frame half way down the 100 side would be very good, for those sighting in / testing .22RF.
I don't know, would a small target at 150m be useful for .17HMR and similar ?

Time between going forward to targets:
(The 5 minutes used at TECT is a bit short for me)
15 min sessions sound about right to me.
It's enough to fire a couple of 5 shot groups with some frigging around adjusting sights, torquing up and what not
or else long enough to do a slow group allowing the barrel to cool.
or enough to shoot a couple of positions practice.

We (NZDA BOP Branch) have just built a new 300m rifle range at the TECT All Terrain Park in Tauranga.

This range is a NO DANGER AREA, single firing point, cross baffle range, and as such all shots fired within the cone of fire must be captured by the range construction in such a way that there can be no ricochet induced. Shots fired with unacceptable firer deviation within a reasonable safety factor outside the cone of fire will still be trapped by the topography and not leave the range danger area.
*
The cone of fire is defined as that which will contain all but 1 shot in 1 million. For this range the cone of fire has been assessed as follows: for standing (off-hand) shooting — 40mils (cf. JSP403 for military shooting for which the cone of fire is 40mils); for kneeling or sitting — 20mils; for prone (no sling) — 15mils (cf. NRANZ cone of fire at 300yards of less than 3.5mils — sling supported)

Entrapment of projectiles is achieved by the use of double rows of plastic drums filled with shredded tyres which have been demonstrated to stop any complying projectile within less than the diameter of the drum.

Shots outside the cone of fire will be stopped by the natural topography, modified by earthworks as required, to ensure no ricochet will be induced.

There is no point outside the range danger area (defined by the boundary fence of the range) within line of sight of the firing point where a negligently fired shot could endanger people outside the range danger area.

What is critical to this ranges safe use is the control of shooter and rifle so we have very strict range standing orders that require the rifle to be on the shoulder, pointing at the target, before a round is chambered. We also require all shooters to attend three inductions before they can shoot on the range by themselves to drum these safety protocols in.

I can send you a long section showing the safety template if you like.

We have been operating since 2012 and the 200L plastic drums filled with shredded rubber have worked very well as the bullet catchers and we have only had to replace 5-6 of then to date. The pistol guys have tried these plastic drums but found they don’t handle the large calibre slow lead projectiles very well, but we have found them extremely durable with the smaller calibre high velocity centre fires.

Here is a link to our web page that has some construction photos.

Range - New Zealand Deerstalkers Association (Bay of Plenty Branch) Inc.

I must update this with some more recent photos as we have now closed in the firing line and have just lined the inside with acoustic sound absorbing material.

The firing structure is 26m long x 6m wide with 15 shooting positions at 1.6m centres, which works well.

We have fixed target lines at 25, 50, 100,100 and 300m. The target positions are at 1.2m centres, due to constraints with the original earthworks, which means the target sight lines at each position are not in line, which is a bit annoying. Long term we will extend the target lines to set the targets out at 1.6m centres to match the shooting positions.

We have 10 steel framed, conc filled, conc top shooting benches that weigh around 300kg each and a couple of pallet jacks to move then around. There are rock solid, but easily moved.

Were now looking at setting up a permanent installation at the 200m and 300m target lines for 6 of the Bulleye target cameras as these can be set up with solar power packs and wifi so that you can view your target on a smart phone or tablet.

Hope this info is of help

Cheers

Grant

Looking like a good set up. Any one know if there is a map with all the certified ranges on it?

Hey Guys,

I am Auckland based and and only recently got my A license. I bought a Mossberg 590 and am keen of shooting it but unfortunately I can not shoot it due to shorter barrel at my clay club (waitemata). I am very keen of breaking this gun into action but since I am new to New Zealand too (Dutchie) I do not really know my way around. Basically what I am looking for is a piece of land I can hire maybe with some other folks and do some shooting. Can some one offer me any help where to go? I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks.

PS I would like to shoot shotgun and rifle.

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.... )

Have a chat to these guys or pop up from where you are and have a look on any Tuesday evening. The benches are fro standing shooting and it is a full no escape range with open air over the range itself. The no escape is achieved with heavy Timber beams across the range at intervals so from the firing position they appear to overlap thus any projectile discharged from the firing line are kept within the range.

Home page
New Zealand Handloaders Association | Proudly established to promote amateur shooting for the recreation of its members and the general public.

The firing line
Rifle Range | New Zealand Handloaders Association

Google earth Note the bands across the range at intervals. The steel (twin) ones are girders hold the movable bullet traps at different distances, the grey are the heavy timber beams
https://www.google.com/maps/place/59...d7b41b!6m1!1e1



I am not saying you should copy what NZHA have done, but you should get some ideas as to what works and what can be done differently. They have a pretty good set up in my view.

Actually came up and had a great look around the pistol side,(and removed a bit of paint from their targets! And a big thanks to the guys for showing us around and explaining the history, issues, etc.... A great day and heaps of great info - and a good bunch of folk)

We run out of time to pop over the fence, so thanks for those links. I must say i didnt look at google maps for ideas, and that was a great set of photos..... And will remember that tip for future....

Originally Posted by timattalon

Have a chat to these guys or pop up from where you are and have a look on any Tuesday evening. The benches are fro standing shooting and it is a full no escape range with open air over the range itself. The no escape is achieved with heavy Timber beams across the range at intervals so from the firing position they appear to overlap thus any projectile discharged from the firing line are kept within the range.

Home page
New Zealand Handloaders Association | Proudly established to promote amateur shooting for the recreation of its members and the general public.

The firing line
Rifle Range | New Zealand Handloaders Association

Google earth Note the bands across the range at intervals. The steel (twin) ones are girders hold the movable bullet traps at different distances, the grey are the heavy timber beams
https://www.google.com/maps/place/59...d7b41b!6m1!1e1



I am not saying you should copy what NZHA have done, but you should get some ideas as to what works and what can be done differently. They have a pretty good set up in my view.