Outrageous Range/Gun Club!!!

[Wisco]

Add me to the list of people that are just astonished at the way rod and gun clubs operate and what they cost!

I mostly shoot at home now from 0 to 100 meters after building a good backstop, but wanted to shoot longer this week, so I went to renew my range membership after skipping it last year.

The drive to the range took me AT LEAST 15 minutes. Wish there was something closer!

Memberships are for sale at the gas station a mile from the range. What a hassle! Glad I knew that ahead of time and didn’t have to backtrack!

$20 for a year and they only take cash. Ugh! I had to pull out a twenty instead of swiping a card! I had to use my credit card at the bar after shooting instead of the $20...

There’s no background check, so just anyone can go shoot. I was the only one at the range. No felons came to shoot. Lucky! We need to keep those felons in line, even if they’re now being responsible and we can’t tell they’re prohibited by their looks/behavior/mannerisms/etc.

Unsupervised range. No overbearing range safety officer. I’m lucky I could even shoot without all the unsolicited advice RSOs like to put out! Lucky I didn’t shoot my eye out!

There’s no mandatory work hours. Ugh, again! Yet the range is fairly well kept.

No mandatory meetings. Bummer! Yet the range keeps working.

Range is open daily from dawn to dusk. A little too convenient!

25 yard pistol range. 300 yard rifle with target stands at 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300. There’s not a 25 yard target stand on the rifle side - so if you wanted to use a 25 for rifle zero, you’d have to walk a few feet to the pistol range! Crazy!

I hope all of you opened this thread to hear another bad experience and got my good experience instead...I’ve just heard so many not good stories lately I thought I’d share.

 

[plinky]

Lol. I thought you were actually complaining for a minute there.

My own club is similar except it is 5 minutes from home and costs $120(!) a year. Still the gas savings alone compared to the nearest public range is worth it, not to mention time. It's a 45 minute drive and only goes 100 yd.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Funny...
I appreciate a good sarcastic "rant".

 

[Robert]

My range is much the same. Well aside from the 45 min drive and the $84 renewal fee. But ours goes out to 600y.

 

[Starter52]

My club had an outdoor range six miles away. They charge THIRTY dollars a year! No RSO to tell me my shooting stance is all wrong (it was good enough to win the state championship in 1993). No mandatory meetings. Two pistol one rifle ranges.

And they have vending machines and lots of trash cans, plus the local PD shoots there and leaves all their brass behind.

 

[TomJ]

I pay $500 per year, including the work hour buy out and drive an hour. I'm happy to do so, as while we have options in the Chicago area we don't have that many that have open memberships. Ours was open for a while and just closed. New applicants are placed on a waitlist. We have range safety officers on the weekends, but they couldn't be nicer or more professional. The members are friendly and we have a slew of options, from 25 feet to 600 yards, 2 separate shotgun ranges as well as a separate archery range. I'd like to pay $20 to $30 per year, but use it often enough that it's worth the cost.

 

[hdwhit]

Wisco wrote:
I hope all of you opened this thread to hear another bad experience and got my good experience instead...

About the time I got to "Ugh! I had to pull out a twenty instead of swiping a card!", I knew it was satirical or else I was dealing with someone who couldn't cope with "first world problems".

 

[Sistema1927]

$145 a year for the club I belong to, and it is about a 20 minute drive.

600 yard max. Multiple shorter ranges, 100 yard zero tunnel, action pistol berms, dedicated shotgun range, and a couple of casual plinking ranges.

 

[edwardware]

I grin ear to ear paying $150 a year. . . and shoot better than 60 trips a year, up to 300 yards, and frequently completely alone.

600 yards would be nice, but it'll be years before I need that.

 

[Riomouse911]

I WISH I had your issues!

The club I would love to join is 52 miles from my door, which is a pretty long haul to shoot on a whim.

The one half way there is closed to new members, and is 300 a year when they do open up.

I'm stuck with the 70 mile run to BLM land, or the local indoor range (25 yds max, but rifles up to .300 mag are allowed)

Stay safe!

 

[plinky]

I (25 yds max, but rifles up to .300 mag are allowed)

Stay safe!

Boy, there's a picture for you! People have to love THAT guy.

 

[SSN Vet]

The best part of the Rod N Gun club I belong to is that it's 3 miles down the road.

When the trap range crew turns out on Saturdays, they all shoot off a volley at 9:00 a.m. (ranges open at 9 and closed at sunset) too tell the world their alive and well... and I can hear it from my house.

Every member acts as their own RSO, and the few club designated RSOs (seldom seen) try to be helpful. And the range is very safe... (club has had NRA consultants out on a couple of occasions).

95% really nice and polite people, and the others, just obnoxious from inexperience.

Dues are $60/year, but if you turn out on work days, you can get credit towards your dues.

Just set up for falling plates... lots of fun.

My only gripes... longest rifle range is only 200 yds, and they don't allow bowling pins, tannerite or other "creative" targets and they can cram 15 minutes of information into an 80 minute long meeting better than anyone I know.

 

[PaFrank]

Okay guys, having served on the board, and 2 terms as President of SE PA's largest gun club, let me throw a few topics out for discussion...

You know that Pittman-Robertson tax currently on all guns and ammo? 16% if memory serves me correctly.. Supposed to go for education and range facilities in each state. HA! In Pa, you get a gravel potholed parking lot and a pile of dirt. Zero contols. That is, IF you can even find one!! AND THEY COLLECTED ONE HUGE PILE OF CASH FROM US! WHERE DID IT GO??

But to my club.. its 65 Acres with 11 ranges, open 364 days a year from 9am till sunset. All range officers are volunteers. There are the equivalent of 3 full time employees (maybe 4 by now) and about 4,500 paying members. Dues are reasonable for what you get... I think its 75 for a senior and about 180 for an individual and 220 or so for a family, i forget exactly and am too lazy to go look it up.
Now when you add it all up, it seems like a lot, but after when I was Prez, and that was over 13 years ago, it cost close to $400,000 a year to operate the club. Think Utilities, salaries, taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc... There is only so much volunteers can do, and far fewer are willing as they were in yester-year. The cost today to run that club is likely closer to a half million bucks a year.

So like anything else, you get what you pay for.. so I suggest you do 2 things.......

Pester the living crap out of your congress-critters to get what Pitman-Robertson is supposed to deliver to the people that paid for it (That would be us)..

and if you belong to a private club, think about all that it costs to operate a class facility before you start complaining!

 

[Scooter22]

Place I belong to was established in the "20s" when it was a rural farming community. Now is a high dollar suburb with homes around us 500K up to 1mil. I joined when 14(1975). Covered 100yd and 25yd range. 1 trap range. Archery range with a 15 target walk through course. Nice clubhouse. About a 15 minute drive. Open 7/365 days unless something is going on. Might be 1 day a month and it's posted well in advance on the website. 65.00 a year but you get 10, dollar raffle tickets to send back in for prizes. Most weekdays you may find 1 or 2 other shooters but many times I've got the place to myself. Big pains are winter when it's cold and snowy. Warmer weather I might get my shoes muddy. Worst is shoeing the damn deer off the range. Not a bad place. Just waiting for the 4 feet of snow we got the last 2 weeks to melt. I'm NOT snow shoeing to the 100yd back stop in SPRING! Besides I put them away and have my waders out for Apr 1st trout opener. Oh and no RSOs so to speak. Being a small club 3-400 members last I heard we are pretty tight. Plus the local village PD uses it as a home range. Most officers are members so bad conduct is very rare. Just a nice small club.

 

[TTv2]

300/yr, new members must work 30 hours or pay 200, outdoor rifle range is 200 yards, 50 yard pistol next to it (which sucks when the rifle shooters take 15 mins to set up new targets) and an indoor range that's 16 yards. Oh, and a pistol pit area that I never use and a skeet/trap range I never use either.

25 mins away across the most horrible potholed and bumpy roads you can imagine and they have no bathrooms, not even an outhouse, at the rifle range. The bathroom in the clubhouse is nice though, but it's a long walk.

Not terrible, but there are some things I don't like about it. They seem more interested in paying for the clubhouse so they can rent out the meeting hall for weddings, the parking area isn't paved, so it's an ice rink in Winter. You can't shoot pistol chambered carbines like the Hi Point 9mm's at the pistol range because the velocity is "too much" yet you can shoot ..454 Casull going 2000 fps.

 

[OneFreeTexan]

My range is free, well no money,, except some,,,,about 12 hours of work per week, maybe more, totally private,,, I’m the only one that uses it...pistol and rifle...

 

[Panzerschwein]

Well if it was that bad, why did you even go??

 

[sota]

Add me to the list of people that are just astonished at the way rod and gun clubs operate and what they cost!

I mostly shoot at home now from 0 to 100 meters after building a good backstop, but wanted to shoot longer this week, so I went to renew my range membership after skipping it last year.

The drive to the range took me AT LEAST 15 minutes. Wish there was something closer!

Memberships are for sale at the gas station a mile from the range. What a hassle! Glad I knew that ahead of time and didn’t have to backtrack!

$20 for a year and they only take cash. Ugh! I had to pull out a twenty instead of swiping a card! I had to use my credit card at the bar after shooting instead of the $20...

There’s no background check, so just anyone can go shoot. I was the only one at the range. No felons came to shoot. Lucky! We need to keep those felons in line, even if they’re now being responsible and we can’t tell they’re prohibited by their looks/behavior/mannerisms/etc.

Unsupervised range. No overbearing range safety officer. I’m lucky I could even shoot without all the unsolicited advice RSOs like to put out! Lucky I didn’t shoot my eye out!

There’s no mandatory work hours. Ugh, again! Yet the range is fairly well kept.

No mandatory meetings. Bummer! Yet the range keeps working.

Range is open daily from dawn to dusk. A little too convenient!

25 yard pistol range. 300 yard rifle with target stands at 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300. There’s not a 25 yard target stand on the rifle side - so if you wanted to use a 25 for rifle zero, you’d have to walk a few feet to the pistol range! Crazy!

I hope all of you opened this thread to hear another bad experience and got my good experience instead...I’ve just heard so many not good stories lately I thought I’d share.

EFGA?

 

[Bfh_auto]

The sportsman's club my dad belongs to is the only free to the public range in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Members pay a yearly fee but get perks that are worth it.
Missouri has Ranges run by Conservation department. No fees and no ro's. Where I am isn't that lucky so I set up my own in the hay field.

 

[CapnMac]

Been debating a new operation, only about 75-80 minutes' drive west, with all sorts of prices. But, the only place in DFW that allows FMJ on the rifle line.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I hear ya.

I have to walk all the way to my back yard. There's no guns to rent so I always have to bring my own. No membership fee but I have have to cut the grass and maintain the targets/backstop. Also have to pick up all the brass, there's never anyone working.

The snack bars not bad though...

Oh well, such is life.

 

[Wisco]

EFGA?

INTJ mostly...I think.

All kidding aside, what’s EFGA?

 

[Scooter22]

I hear ya.

I have to walk all the way to my back yard. There's no guns to rent so I always have to bring my own. No membership fee but I have have to cut the grass and maintain the targets/backstop. Also have to pick up all the brass, there's never anyone working.

The snack bars not bad though...

Oh well, such is life.

I bet you have a private bathroom and full kitchen too.

 

[Mike OTDP]

My club has dues of $180/year, plus a work-or-pay requirement. 25 yard pistol range, 100 yard rifle range, both baffled. But it's safe and clean...and the only option in the area. Wait list for membership is 2 years.

 

[edwardware]

. . . they can cram 15 minutes of information into an 80 minute long meeting better than anyone I know.

Truth! The RSO 'training' I attended last month was a 60 minute read-through-the-rules wedged into 5 hours.