Gun club costs and usage

ouch. My private club is a beautiful outdoor range with traps, covered rifle stations from 200 to 800 yds with steels in place at each, a covered 100 yd sighting range, and a huge covered 50 yd pistol range, nestled between a dairy farm and a lake. Best place I've ever shot. $45/year. $600 sounds insane.

oh Chicagoland. I'm sorry.

Man sign up for $45 a year. I haven't done an outdoor range yet, my usual range is a small 6 lane indoor setup and they want $600 a year. The closet outdoor range that I've never gone to, is $120 a year plus $100 for first time.

Just renewed with my outdoor range at a little over $100 a year for returning members. Kebly's in N. Lawrence Ohio which is very nice. Indoor ranges locally (Cleveland, Ohio Suburbs) are typically in the $350 and up price range.

Ron

I just paid $207 to renew the wife and I for for the next year at the indoor range we go to.

The two I belong to are $15/year. I can shoot in my yard too. My habits would be drastically different if range costs were that high for me.

So $600.00 a year or $30.00 per day are your stated options. At $30.00 per day it would take 20 visits to break even. In my view that is 4 visits short of just twice each month for the year. Then being in the location you are at just how many trips would you expect to make to an outdoor range during January and February?

Sure I see some folks at the range weekly or even bi-weekly so for them it pays for itself. Now I work at one 3-4 days every week and I can't seem to find the time to shoot twice a month so there is no way I could see myself paying $600.00 per year.

I have to wonder what they spent money on if they were closed. . . If I was you I'd suspend for $50 and see.

I pay $200 a year, but I shoot at least weekly and lead sales from the pistol berm more than pay the dues.

If I read it right it is $600 first year, then $300. My club does something similar. I pay $200/year. I can pay $5/visit for the rifle/pistol range, or just add $25 to the yearly fee and have unlimited rifle/pistol range use, I do the latter. We charge another $200 initiation fee for 1st time members so $400 for the 1st year, then $200 thereafter.

I mostly use the rifle range, but there are other activities for the family including a lake for fishing, a campground, a clubhouse for social gatherings as well as sporting clays, skeet, and 5 stand. I'll shoot the sporting clays course a few times each year.

I can deer hunt a small area around the club during archery season or turkey seasons with a shotgun. No rifle hunting for deer on club property. They do have an additional 1000 acres nearby leased for big game hunting, but that is a separate thing. They have very limited spots and it could take a few years to get in, I've never tried.

While $200 seems high just for a rifle range I think it is worth it with everything else included. It is about 25 miles from home, but I'm not aware of anything better within 50 miles. In fact we have several guys that drive 50-60 miles from the northern suburbs of Atlanta that claim we have the best spot in N. GA. These guys ride together and come at least twice a month and make a day of it. They always come at the same time I do and It seems we meet at least once a month.

There is an indoor range 10 minutes away. He charges $5/hour, but if no one is waiting for a lane doesn't keep up with the time. He also does $5 transfers which is nice, but I just don't like to shoot indoors. I'll go there a few times a year if I just want to shoot pistols. But as often as I'm at the rifle range I shoot my pistols some while waiting for rifle barrels to cool.

NuclearMeltdown said:

The two I belong to are $15/year. I can shoot in my yard too. My habits would be drastically different if range costs were that high for me.

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Way to go Nuclear! I need to complain about the high cost of my club...... $20 per year

I belong to a large outdoor club, range dues are only $100 per yr plus one work day or an extra $75 if you don't want to do it.
We have a lighted 500yd range with gong sets at 400, 300, 200 & 100 yds. with 8 separate lighted pistol bays from 100yd down to 30yd.
I just happen to slip in on a deal of a lifetime membership for $700 before they closed that option three years ago.
I can shoot just about any time I want to between 6:00 am to about 10:00 pm. without any Range Nazis. LOL

Unless you get some pretty fancy bennies, that's really, really steep. I see your location is in the Chicago area, so that explains most of it. If you're in the north or NW burbs, you might want to consider driving a little further across the state line and find a range in Wisconsin you can join. The three public outdoor ranges I'm a member of are $30 - $40 a year each. The indoor range I'm a member of is $276 a year after a one-time registration fee of $175. All enable me to shoot as often as I want for no further charges. The indoor range gives a retail product discount of 5% on everything except firearms. Fees won't be that cheap right across the border, but they'll be a whole lot cheaper than in your gun-unfriendly zone.

Clubs around here (outdoor) charge ~$350 per year for the higher tier memberships. One has private outdoor shooting areas with berms between each so no worries about getting swept or waiting to go change targets. The second is a new County facility (your tax dollars at work) with pistol range with steel reactive targets and the rifle range uses one of those Euro target systems where you shoot at the target and using sound technology, it determines where the shots went and displays them on a monitor at the shooting bench. The pistol goes to 25, the rifle is 50 and 100.

Ouch! I’m a lifetime member at our range paid $1,000 quite a while back. Distance out to 600 yards, pistol pits , metal silhouette, and 5 minutes from home.

If it were $600 a year I would just shoot on BLM.

In your situation I would suspend; if they have already closed down due to the China flu then there’s a pretty good chance it’ll happen again.

The club I belong to is private and its 60 a year , its small and not fancy at all , but its indoors and nice during the winters , and every member has 24hr access.

I pay $45 monthly. I was using it weekly, but now every other week due to ammo availability. My club is extensive- all types of apparatus, training aids, and the ability to shoot out to 1,000 yards. Steel on every range. No covid closures. Also little use outside of mil/LE due to ammo shortage.

Hi...
Yearly range dues vary a lot depending on the amenities and location.
I would hope for $600/year that this is a fairly nice well maintained multi discipline range.
I belong to to gun clubs...I paid a $100 initiation fee at one of the clubs several decades ago plus $20 yearly dues. That cost structure remains in effect today. The waiting list to join is several years long. I have now transitioned to a life time membership with zero yearly dues although I do make s yearly cash contribution to the club.
The second club I joined a few years ago. The initiation was $100 plus $50 yearly dues.
I intend to find another club to join after the first of the year if I can find one with more facilities such as minimum 300yd range, dedicated handgun and shotgun ranges.

I like having multiple options for my shooting excursions.

$20 a year. Two outdoor ranges. Low taxes and enough timber to support the club.

Ours just went up from $75 to $100 a year, and we are contemplating capping the membership soon. It is hard to find a place to shoot near the Twin Cities that isn't private membership, high fees, (like the OP's) and mandatory work duties. We are just across the river in WI, and the majority of our members are Minnesotans. (not that there's anything wrong with that....) If you put in 10 hours or more of work during the year, the next years membership drops to $25, yet so few do it. There is a core group of about 15-20 members, of almost 700, that do. Yes, I am one of them. I help with the Trap league and coach the high school Trap team, both way more than 10 hours a year. One thing I will not do is work the public sight-in the weekend right before deer season, even if it dropped it to $0!

milemaker 13, I'd look into that $50 option to keep your membership active. The other option is driving further south, there are plenty of good gun clubs in the 'real' Illinois.

FL-NC said:

I pay $45 monthly. I was using it weekly, but now every other week due to ammo availability. My club is extensive- all types of apparatus, training aids, and the ability to shoot out to 1,000 yards. Steel on every range. No covid closures. Also little use outside of mil/LE due to ammo shortage.

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Sounds like Southern Tactical in Holt, FL