Outrageous Range/Gun Club!!!

[entropy]

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.

I thought we were members of the same club, till you mentioned falling plates-not allowed at ours.

 

[ontarget]

Just joined a club today. Range out to 400 yards, pistol ranges, 2 trap ranges, nice club house. My backyard range only gets me 125 yards and I wanted to go longer. It's only 10 min away, so I hope its as good as it looks.

 

[doubleh]

It takes me thirty minutes to get to the only range in the county and this county is larger than a few states in area. I have to pass through one town and into the outskirts of another or it would be about a twenty minute trip.

Year before last we lost our 300 and 400 yard ranges which were on private land due to the actions of a couple of idiots. The dues were raised to $50 a year to try to weed out some of these types.

There are 14 benches on concrete with a roof on the rifle range with three 25, two 50, three 100, and two 200 yard ranges with target boards that are 2' x 8' with separate backstops for the 25 and 50 yard ones and the 100 and 200 share one huge backstop. The 200 yard range also has several steel animals and a couple of gongs. There are 5 pistol bays with berms about 7' high to separate them and one of the portable steel carports at each. Each have two 2' x 8' target boards set at 25 yards. The cowboy shooters have a setup that requires you to be a member as does the run & gun club. There is also a very nice rimfire silhouette range with a big walled cover and chairs and tables to relax at as it's kind of a family type thing. They have feeds after matches every once in a while and a couple of raffles with some very nice prizes donated by local businesses. The membership fee is 20 bucks but they are always open to inviting non members in to shoot. If you are a safe shooter you will be invited to join. I plink there now and then but don't enter any matches. I pay the tariff to help them out although I have an open invite to shoot without joining anytime I wish.

I consider it to be a good deal and the fact that it's the only range within about 80 miles makes it better. There is no range officer, you are on your own. I've only encountered two groups over the many years I been a member that I considered unsafe. Both were shooting pistols on the rifle range which is perfectly acceptable if you use common sense which they weren't doing and they had young children with them. I quickly gathered up and moved to the pistol range is is quite a distance away from the rifle range.

There is no work required but they have one clean up day a year which you are free to attend or not. There are enough of us that pick up after the slobs that the place stays in pretty decent shape. My wife and I even repaired all the carports in the the pistol bays last summer because the wind had them loose and swaying back and forth with a lot of screws missing. One geezer like me stopped and thanked us for our work but didn't volunteer any help or money for the new screws..

 

[shafter]

I was about to give you a hard time for thinking 15 minutes is a long drive and then I realized you were joking. Good find.

 

[Riomouse911]

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

AMEN! The first time I went there a guy was shooting an AR. It was pretty loud indoors, and I think his buddies thought it was funny when folks concentrating on their shots in the nearby lanes jumped at the report when it was fired.

I've said that maybe Ill bring the .300 Weatherby and leave it in the case... but it'll be handy to help educate some folks what LOUD truly is at an indoor range ...

 

[Danoobie]

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

Now do they immerse RSOs in coffee, like a marinade, or do they plaster you with patches, or do you eat a half a can of coffee beans every hour or so,
or just how DO they get you guys so jacked up on caffeine?

 

[edwardware]

. . . just how DO they get you guys so jacked up on caffeine?

Har har. Not sure I can speak for most RSOs. . . I try to go shoot when there's no one else around. I'm more likely to make brief eye contact and nod once, unless you do something egregious.

 

[JTHunter]

The only outdoor range in this area is about 20 minutes away. The problem is that they are charging over $300 and they require some "sweat equity" as well.

 

[Danoobie]

Har har. Not sure I can speak for most RSOs. . . I try to go shoot when there's no one else around. I'm more likely to make brief eye contact and nod once, unless you do something egregious.

All I can say is, fellas, it's well worth it to get yourself set up with your own range, so you can shoot in peace.
Since then, I'd rather be mauled in the genitals by a rabid Badger, than return to a public range.

 

[NWPilgrim]

I greatly appreciate the range I drive 40 minutes to, costs $180/yr, has a half day orientation+100 question test+live fire quals (safety). And RSo who wonder about frequently. Didn't use to be so costly or formal, but the suburbs have grown up around it and one stray bullet could shut the facility down. 50-600 yard rifle ranges, 25-50 yd pistol, indoor rimfire, blackpowder, archery, skeet, clays, pistol 7 yd, action ranges for pistol and rifle steel. I think we are maxed out at 7,000 members with a 6-12 month wait list. The secretary is the only paid staff and the RSOs are friendly volunteers and all maintenance is volunteer (well kept). It's the primary range serving probably 400K residents and police forces. But I also enjoy driving up into the hills on State forest land and shooting at a gravel pit at pop cans, clay pigeons, and my own steel targets. For free, no RSO and usually no one else in the same spot. Nice to have choices.

 

[bassjam]

I shoot handguns and .22’s at my house out to 50 yards, but need something safer for rifles. There’s a range 1 mile from me as the crow flies, or about a 7 minute drive. Dues are $90/year after a $120 initiation fee and 8 hours of service, but there’s a 3 year wait list that I’m about 18 months into. Their rifle range goes out to 600 yards.

There’s another club about 2 miles from me that only goes out to 100 yards that I’ve considered joining in the short term, but they won’t give me any information unless I show up to one of their meetings. I really should find the time because they also have access to about a mile stretch of some of the best smallmouth fishing in the area.

 

[entropy]

I shoot handguns and .22’s at my house out to 50 yards, but need something safer for rifles. There’s a range 1 mile from me as the crow flies, or about a 7 minute drive. Dues are $90/year after a $120 initiation fee and 8 hours of service, but there’s a 3 year wait list that I’m about 18 months into. Their rifle range goes out to 600 yards.

There’s another club about 2 miles from me that only goes out to 100 yards that I’ve considered joining in the short term, but they won’t give me any information unless I show up to one of their meetings. I really should find the time because they also have access to about a mile stretch of some of the best smallmouth fishing in the area.

From your avatar, I don't know why you're even hesitating about that one.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I would like to have a range a little closer than 45 minutes with at least a 300 yd berm but I don't.

Maybe someday.

 

[bassjam]

From your avatar, I don't know why you're even hesitating about that one.

I actually regularly fish the stretch just downstream from them, but there's a particular lady that lives along there that always has some choice words when she see's me walking back to my truck along the road that I'd like to avoid in the future. Apparently owning 40 yards of property along that stream entitles her to ban anyone from fishing anywhere in her vicinity. I always know to stop fishing before I hit her place, buy she still drives down to meet me every single time and threatens to call the cops.

 

[bluejeans]

I still smile when I hear people say “ go to the range”. .. for years I didn’t know what that even meant until I visited my bro in law in California...

Here in the free world I empty my mag off the porch when I step out to take a leak on my wife’s plants... I don’t even know what I’d do if I couldn’t test handloads out the window...

 

[22250Rem]

I drive about 32 miles one way to get to my club. With only 2 traffic lights & no stop signs on the way down. If I go straight home there's one light & one stop sign. Costs me 200 bucks a year but they have over 400 acres with a rifle range, ( 50, 100, & 200 yd.), 8 or 9 separate pistol ranges. Trap, skeet, 5 stand, and two different sporting clays courses. Prices for trap, skeet, clays, etc. are very reasonable long as you're a member. Sometimes in the summer at the rifle range first thing in the morning there are occasional "trespassers" on the range. Caught this one with a Canon pocket digital just as I was getting ready to go hang some targets one morning last summer. (click on picture to enlarge and look to right of far target stands). Too bad I didn't have my DSLR camera with me that day or I could have gotten a much better shot....(also looked better thru a Leupold rifle scope on 10x ). ( Too bad it wasn't deer season)

 

[WestKentucky]

45 minutes east or 40 minutes south. 80 a year or 150 a year (rumor, not verified). Time away from the family is my big thing right now though since I'm mid-adoption and doing all I can to make some little people feel like they belong in my home. Circling back to the range will come later, there is no way to circle back to this time in life.

 

[2ifbyC]

INTJ mostly...I think.
/QUOTE]
I knew there was something witty and snarky I liked about you.

Personally, I do not like shooting only at paper. Here in AZ, there is still a lot of BLM land to shoot steel targets.

 

[JTHunter]

I actually regularly fish the stretch just downstream from them, but there's a particular lady that lives along there that always has some choice words when she see's me walking back to my truck along the road that I'd like to avoid in the future. Apparently owning 40 yards of property along that stream entitles her to ban anyone from fishing anywhere in her vicinity. I always know to stop fishing before I hit her place, buy she still drives down to meet me every single time and threatens to call the cops.

Have you ever considered offering to cook up some of those fresh fish for her?

 

[bassjam]

Have you ever considered offering to cook up some of those fresh fish for her?

I strictly catch and release when I fish for smallmouth. But that bridge is burned, last time I ran into her my wife was fishing with me and the woman ticked my wife off so much she called her the "C" word to her face! I've never heard my wife call any woman that before or since, even in private!