Range Addition

[mercracing]

Hey guys, I am currently a member of a local range thats longest distance is 300m. When I was there Saturday, the discussion turned to longer(then we have) range shooting. It turns out the club owns enough land to build a 600m range. I was thinking of coming up with a proposal to get the ball rolling at the next meeting. I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts or questions I can be prepared to answer. This is what I have so far.

How many lanes would this be?
I was thinking 10. My question with this is, IF we wanted to host a match of some kind can you shoot in relays of 10? Or is that not really worth it and we would need more?

How do shooters get from the firing line to the targets?
We would use either a golf cart or a gator driven by a select few people to ferry the people.

How much extra would we charge to use the longer range.
Currently we charge 10/day, 35/year or 50/year(family) the year is a full year from when you buy your membership. I would think 25-35 extra? Once paid you would get a punch or a stamp on your existing membership card.

Can anyone shoot at 600 or is it a select few?
There would need to be some kind of marksmanship requirement for someone to shoot at 600. A proficiency test at 200 or 300m I would think. Names of those who have paid/passed the test would go into a log in case someone forgot or lost their card.

How many spotting scopes would be needed?
If there were 10 lanes I would say 2. More if more lanes were made.

What kind of benches would be needed.
This I don't know. I don't know if our current benches would work or not.

Please help me out in a kind way with what I am missing.

 

[Kogapsp]

First of all you need to position the range in the right direction. I have fired on west facing targets and North facing prefer You will also need to build target pulling pits and where targets can be pulled and marked. I would start with 5 stations first and then work up from there. Safety is the main concern when it comes to building pit areas. Do not put them in near pistol zones unless you are willing to shut them down during matches. Flag poles and number signs are also a must. Good impact area are a must and also to make it easier to see if a shot when through your target you are pulling. there are lots of designs and the ones I like the best are the toggle design with counter weights. No oil needed for rails. Might as well put a 200 ,300, 400, 500 yard marked stations for site in ranges. A cargo container is the best to to keep all your target frames and also targets in when you are done. Keep the combos safe to members only. build vertical rack slots for 200, 300 and 600 yard frames. Just a start if you have any questions please free to email me.

 

[mercracing]

As the range is now, you shoot to the North. I hadnt really liked the idea of pits(cost wise) but now that you mentioned it, I suppose they are needed for matches. If things go how they are planed in my head, the 600m and pistol are at opposite ends of the range. Thanks for the thoughts on flags and signs, I had not thought of that. When you say "Might as well put a 200, 300, 400, 500, yard marked stations" Do you mean just a sign marking the distance?

 

[Kogapsp]

Slightly raised firing lines so if it rains you are not laying in water it ir rains. We have a covered 600 yard cemented area for the pre-madonna bench rest shooters and for load testing.

 

[rjacobs]

Steel targets.

Building a pit and all the associated target hangers and what not is $$$$$$$$. I would guess closing in on 100k to have a proper pit poured out of concrete with drainage, target hangers, berm behind it and in front, etc...

Hell just to build a berm at 600 for steel targets would probably cost $30k in dirt work if not more. Im thinking at least 15-20' high berm(others I am sure have more experience with berms for LR shooting than me and my 20' tall thought is probably overkill), 7-10 yards per shooting lane, so if you want 10 lanes you are talking 70-100 yards wide. Berms are usually 2x as wide as tall depending on grade. Thats a SHIT LOAD of dirt especially if you have to have dirt brought in.

When I was looking at building a 35 yard x 30 yard x 12 foot tall berm pistol range on some land it was going to be almost 5k in dirt work and all that was was pushing dirt that was already there and forming the berm. Not a hard job and was quoted as 2.5-3 days. One range I shoot at that goes to 300 yards has a probably 30' tall berm behind the targets which IMO is a little over kill, but probably not by much and I think they added 10 foot to it a few years ago because a home owner like a mile behind the range was complaining of finding stray bullets on his property(the range was suspect of it, but they built the added anyway to keep the guy happy).

If you wanted to run a LR comp with paper targets you could build some target stands that you would setup in place of the steel on a temp basis.

With steel you NEVER have to go down range except at the end of the day to throw a quick blast of paint on the targets to keep them from rusting.

at 600 I would put 12x12(2 MOA) targets. Shouldnt cost more than maybe 40-50 a piece for 1/2" AR500 then another 40-50 for a mounting setup.

To go down range 600 yards to change paper targets would be at least 10 minutes of cold range, and depending on the layout you might have to take other ranges cold as well to go change targets. And doing this ever 30-60 minutes would get old for every other shooter out there NOT shooting on the 600 yard range.

At 600 you have almost zero chance of having any issues with ricochet's off the steel too.

Its all going to come down to money and how much your range wants to spend. Anything is possible with enough money.

 

[mercracing]

I like the idea of slightly elevated firing positions. We have the a lot of dirt already that could be moved. We have some small equipment that could move it. I was thinking steel targets as well but one of the guys I was talking to said paper is the way to go. If people are shooting that far, they would like to see the fruits of their efforts. I can see it both ways. We would probably have to close it in the winter due to snow height. As it is now, there is a cease fire about every 15-25 minutes that lasts about 5 minutes so people can go check/post/remove targets. As far as cost, I am trying to find a happy medium.

 

[rjacobs]

small equipment such as a bobcat? Not big enough AT ALL. My buddy who was going to do my dirt work(which again was a much smaller project IMO than what you are proposing) was going to bring out a hi-lift and said he would actually want something bigger, but we couldnt get it out there very easily. Hi-lift requires no permitting, but as soon as you go bigger you have to have permits to move on the highways. Bobcat is way to small to move the amount of dirt you are talking about IMO. The added time to attempt to use a bob cat=money. Having a big piece of equipment brought in for a week vs. using a bobcat for a month+ could end up being the same cost. I think a bobcat bucket can hold 1-3 yards. a 20 foot tall x 40 foot deep x 100 yard wide berm needs around 7200 cubic yards of dirt for your berm. Thats a LOT of dirt. Once you start calculating berm size for the area you have, you will then understand why a bobcat that can move 1-3 yards of dirt at a time doesnt work so well.

I still wouldn't discount steel and having some paper target boards that people could put out if they really wanted them. You can actually measure groups pretty decently on steel IMO. Maybe not as good as paper, but pretty well.

For every day usage steel would be a better choice IMO, but you have to let your range guys decide since its you all and not me that would be shooting on it. I have a steel target at almost 500 yards and its a pain in the ass going down to paint it at the end of the day, but from my shooting position to the target is not really a smooth road.

First thing I would do would be to map out and measure the area you want to build in and figure out your berm dimensions. The dirt moving is going to be your biggest cost. If you build a pit, thats a shit load of money too to do it right. Then the target hangers, etc...

 

[rjacobs]

Sorry not trying to piss on your parade, just trying to lay out some potential real costs. Planning something it always sounds good, but when its time to plunk down the money(in some cases a lot of it) the plans a lot of the time get put aside due to that. That was my experience just trying to get a pistol pit built and that was only 5k.

If you are thinking an extra $35 a year to have access to this 600 yard range that might cost 50k+ to construct, thats a lot of time to get paid back for the investment.

 

[mercracing]

No no, I am thankful for the thoughts. Thats why I am doing this, maybe its not even worth it money wise to do. Just looking at all ideas.

 

[Kogapsp]

The real time and effort is building the pit areas yes lots of concrete. Start with 5 stations first to keep the costs down we had lots of donated member time. Even members with an excavation businesses like we had reduced costs.It can be done with a reasonable cost in materials. Other way is lane video camera systems per target if paper is used. New 3 megapixel cameras cost me around 450 each can be networked per station fiber runs back to the 600 yard line. Using fiber inverters up to 9000 feet on multi mode or a wireless solution as well depends on your budget.

 

[mercracing]

How did you mount the cameras? I like the sound of that!!


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[mercracing]

For you guys who have been to a 600m shoot, how many lanes did they have?


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[rjacobs]

Local range to me that has a 600 yard pit has 20 positions.

What I will say is if you are going to do the work, make it as wide as the piece of land will allow. If you are going to do some work, might as well not half ass it. Well maybe if the piece of land is 1000 yards wide, might be overkill to have 100 stations. I would say at least 10 stations which should be able to be fit into a 70 to 100 yard wide area. I think 7-10 yards wide per station is plenty if not overkill. a 600 yard NRA paper target is 5'x5' as a size comparison.

 

[Speedgoat]

As far as dirt work goes I don't know about where you're at and what type of materials are in your ground, but I've hauled a whole lot of clay, that I know was given for free to people for berms, etc. Anywheres from 2-3 loads all the way to one dump site we have now that's probably going to take 2-3 years to fill up. Granted clay isn't the best backfill, but a guy could probably get away sacrificing quality for quantity in this case. We've built a few berms here lately, that if it was my place I'd feel perfectly comfortable shooting into. Around here, all the fancy houses tend to get built up on hills, which means hauling off a TON of clay, usually digging down an extra couple of feet and importing good pit run for the footers and or basement slab to sit on.

Get in touch with your local dirt excavation companies, everything from mom and pop to bigger outfits, chances are good at some point they'll be looking to get rid off dirt at some time. If you get into a good situation, and play your cards right, you could probably get them to come in with a Cat and shape the berm for you as an arrangement for having a dump site.

Only problem I could see is that if this range is to be an extension of your current one, coordination would be a issue, as far as having to shut down the range while trucks come in and dump off. Not sure how busy your range is but there is definitely ways around this, having a volunteer with time on their hands there to coordinate material drop off and shooting, etc. You could have one contractor try to coordinate with others in the area and try to slam a whole lot of material in in 2-3 weeks or so, and still have your normal range open during weekends, assuming that that is when you are most busy. I've seen berms like your talking about from starting stripping the topsoil, to being shaped and dressing the topsoil back over top in 3-4 weeks, and if not for a couple rain storms and being busy on other jobs probably closer to 3.