Safe shooting distance on own property

[FTA84]

I was wondering if anyone shoots at their home and/or property that they own knows what a safe shooting distance is for a 'one person range'.

I (and many others) shoot at a lake owned by my fiancee's uncle. They have been shooting there for many many years. He has a large mound of earth set-up in front of a lake. From aerial photos it appears that there are some equipment sheds across the lake, about 3/4 of a mile away. These sheds (and the land near them) belong to someone else.

My new house in OH is out in the country and sits against a densely wooded area. The woods are about 0.65 mile thick with some houses behind it. I believe my new neighbors shoot in their back yards. If I put up an earthen wall would it be safe to shoot there? I would not want to be shooting into someone's back yard.

I understand that a .22 can travel 2 to 3 miles but I was wondering what kind of set-ups (if any) that others had.

P.S. I would only be shooting handguns and at the lake they shoot just about everything.

 

[aspade]

10 feet behind your earth berm backstop is safe, so long as you always hit it. A miss over the top is going to go well over 0.65 miles with any centerfire rifle. A 22 or pistol bullet may or may not depending on the angle of departure. Therefore, make damn sure you hit the backstop. If you can arrange a firing position to shoot downwards from a rise, natural or otherwise, that will increase your safe firing angles considerably.

A 308 class rifle with boat tailed bullets will shoot a thousand yards with a half a degree of elevation - IOW aiming just 3" above the bore at 10 yards. 2.5 degrees of elevation - 7.5" high at 10 yards - will carry two thousand yards.

 

[never_retreat]

I shoot at my house in the back yard, but i always shoot down from the 2nd floor deck. Nothing relay behind me on the same level for a mile or 2. I'm sort of elevated shooting away from the mountain. If i can manage to put one out of here through all the trees it will touch down in Pa somewhere. Look out below

 

[M2 Carbine]

The responsibility is yours to insure that a bullet doesn't leave your property.

I have two home ranges that I've been shooting on since 1967. Back then there wasn't much behind my ranges but now there are houses. When someone new shoots at my place, I don't care how good a shot they claim to be, they first shoot close to the target.

A few days ago I had a new backstop bulldozed up that will stop anything I'll shoot but I still have to be careful that no bullet misses the berm.

 

[Gunpacker]

"Safe shooting distance" is a poor choice of words for most shooting ranges. Very few shots will be fired where no consideration needs to be taken of people being within range of your firearm. One needs to be more concerned with "safe shooting direction, backstops, and elevation of fired shots.
No range that I know of is isolated far enough by distance from people as to be a "safe distance."
There are laws governing distance from neighbors, highways, etc for shooting. That doesn't make it safe to shoot toward those things from the specified distance. It does mean that you are less likely to cause a disturbance to neighbors. The law usually recognizes that you can shoot on your own property within limits, but expects you to do what is safe. Otherwise, you could be liable for damages, negligence, or reckless endangerment.

 

[TallPine]

I have a hill about 50 feet high right behind me house. There's a little coulee running up into it that forms a natural "bowl" with hills on three sides. It works fine for pistol or rimfire, but not really enough range (about 50 yds) to do much with CF rifles.

I checked this out before I bought the property, as that was one of my 3 or 4 main objectives.

 

[Tharg]

we've got an area out here that the "berm" (natural" is probably about 12' compared to where we are shooting from. When we go to her brothers house - his is about 8' tall. I find the earth can take just about anything and i'd have to be shooting pretty wild to go over it. There is also a pond w/ a good 10 acres of woods behind it that i don't worry about much either, downward angle of shot means even a "skipping stone" effect would land it in a tree.

 

[CCW]

my buddy and i took his back hoe and dug a 15x25 foot pit that gets level as u get away from it .. ill post pics next weekend when were shootn again ..

 

[Im283]

I had posted a description but thought it would be better to post pics so I just went out and took some

First is 20 feet, then 40 feet, 100 ft and then from on the driveway shooting down at about 200 feet or so. Hard to see in the last pic but there is a tunnel through the trees to the target stand.

This is in my woods in front of the house. The path you see is actually the remains of an old logging road for me it is a quad/golf cart path.

 

[bhk]

The above answers are great. My berm is smaller than most of those described, but a bullet has never missed it. Why? Because most of the time I am the only one using it. On rare occassions when another family member or friend shoots here, I make sure they can hit the paper target at the desired distance of the day. With handguns, sometimes that means I have them shoot pretty darn close.

Also, of particular importance, be sure no one puts plinking targets (cans, empty shotshells, etc.) on the ground between the shooter and the berm. These bullets will surely bounce up over the berm and go quite a distance. Twenty-twos and handgun bullets are particularly bad about this. One time I even witnessed 9mm bullets going over an 60 ft. quarry cliff when the shooter (a careless friend) was shooting at shotshells about 20 yards in front of him on the ground. I was standing a distance from him and good clearly hear the bullets passing through the trees on the top of the cliff. I yelled - he stopped!

 

[Im283]

Use some sort of frame similar to what I have. I have seen others use similar deals and it really helps with keeping lead where it needs to be.

You could use fence post with an 8 foot 2x4 on top of it. Just an idea

 

[deadin]

i'd have to be shooting pretty wild to go over it.

Go to most any indoor range and take a good look at the ceiling or overhead baffles.

 

[bdhawk]

my berm is about 60 ft. long, 12 ft. deep, and about 6ft. high. it used to be higher but the texas wind stole a foot or so over the years.

i even went and had a visit with the sheriff and got his blessing before i built my range.

also have archery and a tomahawk target.

 

[Lonestar49]

Good job M2 Carbine

...

That will do fine.. Ok, move the M12A Abrams Tank there..


LS

 

[Greybeard]

At the right (or wrong) angle, even .22 rimfire bullets can travel up to a mile and a half. .308s and such about twice that.

And the taller the berm the better. One reason that many outdoor ranges prohibit FMJ rifle rounds is, if they hit well short of the target, they can easily "skip" the berm and still go a loooong way.

 

[JerryM]

We have a range that the berms are about12 feet high. I am not sure of that exactly, but that is evidently safe enough. In spite of that some may shoot over the top. There are no houses or structure anywhere near so it is safe.

If I were going to build a range I would have a berm at least 10 feet high, and 12 would be better. It does not take many bullets whining overhead to cause objections by neighbors.

Regards,
Jerry

 

[FTA84]

I want to put the berm is at the bottom of a hill which falls about 8 ft over 25 yds (which is a downward angle of 4.13 degrees). The forest continues on level with the bottom of the hill. Does anyone have recommendations about thickness?