Anyone ever see Range built on water

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I am always thinking of something different. I don't know if anyone has done this yet, but wouldn't a shooting range on a lake or large body of still water be interesting. I know bullets ricochet, so perhaps there might have to be a certain distance to make it safe, but you could actually have floating targets on wood or Styrofoam bases that moved with the current.
There would have to be some kind of backstop, or miles of water in back of the targets, but it sure would be interesting.
Maybe a privately owned lake, it would be a nice change. The targets could even be motorized to run a set pattern, with the motorized part under water, or on lines.
Maybe in the Glades? I am sure there are a bunch of laws against doing it on public land. Even a boat ride out a few miles where sportsmen could shoot 1000 yards at floating buoys.
 
NO bullets will ricochet or skip off of water and will go every where!! There will be people fishing and boating - skiing so that is not good!!
 
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Camp Perry?

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Not dangerous if the planning is sound. Determine max range of the projectile, fence off the water at that point, plus, oh, 300 yards. Done. Same thing the Army does on dry land.

Sam beat me to it, but I think there are (were) some ranges in New Jersy and England that used the ocean for an impact area.
 
I think there would be a problem with the EPA as well with lead and other metal fragments contaminating the water habitat.
 
The Coast Guard Recruit Training Center in Cape May, New Jersey used a large area of the ocean, which was marked off by buoys, as a back up for their range. Both the Coast Guard and the National Guard used the ranges for training. Back years ago they were firing M-1 rifles and allowing the rounds to fall into the ocean. I'm not sure if this is still being done today.
 
On the Gulf of Mexico, Matagorda Island, the Army had a range in WWII that shot out over the water and was used I think up into the 70s. You can still find .50 cal cases in the sand. It was also a bombing range.

BTW there are runways there that are sometimes used by druggies to make emergency landings.
 
An issue along these lines surfaced up here on Lake Erie several years ago... The story can be viewed here. The original story taken from the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper.

I also want to remember a similar story but aligned with Camp Perry but heck if I can find it anywhere.

Ron
 
The body of water would have to be privately owned and have no access to others so that human activity behind the target area would be a non-issue. Most private citizens do not have the power and authority like the military to buoy off and prevent access to large bodies of water that have access to the general public. Now a small body of water(private pond) with mountains or large hills behind it that would stop any and all ricochets could be safe, again if the area behind the body of water, being used as the backstop, was privately owned and no access to others was available. Anything man-made would be too small and anytime the public has free and easy access to the backstop area, you would be risking their safety.
 
My son is a BM1 in the Coast Guard; he's coxswain on a 32' Port Security boat.
Before deploying to Guantanamo Bay this summer his unit trained at Camp Lejeune, and as part of the Tactical Coxswain Course they went out off the NC coast and did live fire exercises and training with the boat's M2 Browning and M240B machine guns. So I guess Lejeune must operate a pretty extensive open water range.

Tinpig
 
Sam beat me to it, but I think there are (were) some ranges in New Jersy and England that used the ocean for an impact area.
Click to expand...

The impact area of the rifle range at Fort MacArthur, CA was the Pacific Ocean. When the range was active warning bouys were set out around the impact area. It was also patrolled by sheriff's deputies and MPs in boats.
 
On Lake Murray SC, Bomb Island was named for it use as a practice target during WWII. There was a nearby traffic circle mistaken for that island during night practice. The locals shrugged and said: "We're at war. Mistakes are made."
 
Just 'cause we're really off topic anyway: Go to Google Earth and look up Bloodsworth Island in the Chesapeake Bay.

Scroll in and count the "chicken pox." Wonder how all those perfectly round ponds and sink holes came to be in a deserted marshy island? It's been a bombing/strafing practice range for decades. Quite entertaining to sit out in Hooper's Straits and watch the show while the fish are biting!
 
:D
Tinpig said:
My son is a BM1 in the Coast Guard; he's coxswain on a 32' Port Security boat.
Before deploying to Guantanamo Bay this summer his unit trained at Camp Lejeune, and as part of the Tactical Coxswain Course they went out off the NC coast and did live fire exercises and training with the boat's M2 Browning and M240B machine guns. So I guess Lejeune must operate a pretty extensive open water range.

Tinpig
Click to expand...
Yep, Camp Lejeune uses the Atlantic for an impact area and they also use helo's from New River to do range sweeps before they go hot. CH-53E VS. Boston Whaler, no contest! :D
 
For some reason I pictured a football size field with smooth water. I think shooting out into the ocean is different than what I pictured. I know that when I was real young I learned quickly how a bb or bullet could turn or come right back at you when shot into water. That is why I say it is dangerous.
 
The Coast Guard was about to start live fire machine gun practice on Lake Superior maybe 4-5 years ago until the Congressman from Northern MN got wind of it and created a HUGE stink about how the Coast Guard was going to pollute Lake Superior with all the lead contamination. Needless to say Coast Guard never got to do live fire drills there.

I also know that the police firing range in a Duluth, MN is next to a very minor creek. We were shooting clay pigeons with bird shot in a rifle range for some drills to get comfortable with a tactical shotgun. The range officer was a paranoid about shooting shot over the berm for fear the shot would land in the creek and one of the many environmentalists would freak out when someone found lead shot in a creek and shut the range down. There was only woods behind the berm it was a rather remote area.

So I don't see that happening in my neck of the woods.
Also without a backstop wouldn't you need 3-4 miles of water closed off down range?
 
Just 'cause we're really off topic anyway: Go to Google Earth and look up Bloodsworth Island in the Chesapeake Bay.


And the Hannibal Target in the middle of the bay, wjich is am ship deliberatly grounded in about 20 feet of water in the middle of the bay.

We don't bomb Bloodsworth any longer, or drop live on Hannibal (I fly at Pax River).

The Sea Girt range, which is now NJSP but was a site of the National Matches long before Camp Perry has the impact area in the ocean as well.


Willie

.
 
Ahhh, when did they stop at Bloodsworth? I remember A10s distinctly from as late as the late 1990s. Been a while since I've gotten to go down there.
 
Vern beat me to it. But when I was in basic at Ft Ord, the ranges had a berm, then Pacific Ocean. This was back in 1964. No idea what it might be now. Actually, with all the base closures, I don’t even know if Ft Ord is there any more.
 
Of all places I remember in the 1960s, the skeet range in Chicago was on the park lake front shooting out over Lake Michigan.

I can only imagine how the antis would freak out today about such.
 
The logistics of retrieving and maintaining targets out on the water make it unlikely anyone will do this.
Many ranges around the world have, however made use of the water as a danger area or impact area. The Castlemartin tank gunnery ranges in Wales here come to mind as well as the Hythe and Lydden Spout ranges on the English south-east coast. Fishing boats sailing into the danger zone are a problem, they know full well you dare not go on when they go in there.
 
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