Michigan shooting range shutdown.

[kmw1954]

As an employee of a Public, DNR owned, outdoor shooting range here in SE Wisconsin I read this story with much interest. Only I find that there was a lot of information that was left out , intentionally or unintentionally.

Stuff like the location , design layout, proximity to residential areas, any berms, controlled shooting lanes. Is the area managed or staffed. or just an open area left to free range.

The DNR owned state land that the range I work at is in the Kettle Moraine State Forest where there are also hiking and horse trails. Yet this area is highly controlled and extremely safe. All ranges have berms on three sides, steel bullet catchers above each berm at the end of each range to retain ricochets. Then at the front of each range going downrange are bullet baffles to prevent shooting up and over the berms.

Remember this range I work at is not in a 1k acre wide open unpopulated area. We are just miles from a couple of small towns and about 10-15 miles from two small cities.

Hope Michigan resolves this and is able to reopen the area.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-shooting-range-temporarily-closes-105200924.html

 

[eyeshot]

Sounds like the range has more than its share of idiot shooters. Based on the article. Hopefully, they will find a way to cull them out.

 

[Old Dog]

The story has such a paucity of credible information it's really hard to gauge whether or not there's a real problem there. ONE home near a range struck by bullets? Evidence that the shots were actually fired from the range?

We have one range in my area that was shut down by a zealous county prosecutor after extremely sketchy accounts that bullets fired from the range landed in a nearby housing development. One resident actually displayed a complete cartridge, not just the bullet, stating it'd been found in her yard.

Right now (and no pun intended), shooting ranges are squarely in the cross-hairs of liberal local governments with the ultimate aim of having them all shut down completely. The liberal "NIMBY" syndrome.

Always another side to these sort of stories.

 

[bersaguy]

Taking a look at the DNR range on Google maps, there is exactly one residential home about 2¼ miles downrange of the berm. No bullet baffles over the range, and it doesn't appear to be much of a facility other than a few shooting benches up off the side of the road. Being a Michigan DNR range, I wouldn't expect that it would be staffed. So, yeah, I suppose there is the opportunity for ridiculousness to happen there. A 556 round would be able to make the trip from the firing line to that house, but you'd have to have the barrel elevated to about 40°, so you'd have to be trying