Advice on building your own outdoor range

[mpofficer31a]

Hello All,

I've been shooting for ~30 years, on US military ranges, on public and private ranges and on undeveloped / ad hoc ranges on private land. I recently bought a piece of land, mostly wooded with gentle rolling hills, and I want my own range basically a few steps out the back door. This land has plenty of areas with natural hills as back-stops / berms to shoot into.

I'm planning to build a 100m range with a relatively narrow lane (don't want to clear too many trees). I'd like to build a shooting platform with overhead cover/roof, and potentially a 3' to 4' raised deck. I'm thinking of something that can hold 4-6 people with a few rifles/shotguns each.... probably 12' x 16' for the platform. I'm also trying to think of a way to collect brass from under the deck; maybe a roof type structure under the wood decking, with 3/4" space between deck planks, and a rain gutter to collect brass.

Has anyone done this? Thoughts? Advice?

 

[AirForceShooter]

The NRA has plans for building a range. You can find it on their website.
It may not be exactly what you want but it's a start

AFS

 

[Howland937]

I'd contemplated something similar and my thought for collecting brass was more along the lines of a funneled or pitched bottom that had an opening in the center. Ideally, my platform would be high enough to park a wheelbarrow under the opening. Or one of those lawnmower trailers. Thought I'd even try (dunno if it would work) some 3/8" square chicken wire to pre-sort some of the rimfire brass from the rest.

If your deck floor has a gap large enough for empties to fall through, inevitably a mag, scope turret cover, live ammo, etc...will be dropped and fall through. If your funneled part's edges are made to protrude past the front and rear of the platform by a few inches, brass can be swept over.

But that was all based on high volume shooting, whereas these days I mostly just shoot by myself.

 

[Ks5shooter]

I would use metal grate for the floor of the shooting platform with a brass collecting system underneath. You could leave the grates removable to collect brass as well.

 

[JJFitch]

Your platform should have slats to drain water. Underneath can have a tarp that can be pulled out to retreive the brass from underneath. Around the platform wood chips work well for trapping flying brass.

The bigger problem is reclaiming copper and lead before it becomes a water table problem!

Smiles,