Building a Range

[rlsmith1]

Hoping to build a range this year and looking for some advice from those that have done it. I think I’ll be able to get to 1,000 but know for sure I’ll get to 600. I’m not going to be building a structure to shoot out if or anything, it’s really going h to be minimalistic. This will be on my land so direction of fire is decided but I have a couple questions.

Will be hanging steel, best way to limit ricochets from misses / partial hits? Dirt mound seems easiest but open to suggestions.

We also hunt on this ground, if I’m shooting once or twice a month, will it take away from my hunts in the fall? Mostly deer where I’m at and will be shooting suppressed over half the time.

Building this so I can get better at shooting at night. Anything you like to have on range for night shoots?

 

[stevenc23]

Recently built range on my property. Do a lot of shooting on paper at 100 and 450 so built heavy burns at those 2 yard lines.
After doing a fair amount of research I went with railroad ties with dirt fill to keep them intact. Here are some pics:

 

[hafejd30]

Depending what’s behind your target would determine if you’d really need dirt mounds. Soft dirt or sand will stop a bullet much easier even just flat ground. Likewise rock, hard clay, water etc won’t. Partial hits can be hard to catch anyways. Fire some tracers and you’ll see just how off course bullets can ricochet. Steel hanging at an angle help direct shrapnel and prolongs your target life as well

I shoot all the time on our families land. We hunt deer there as well. There’s many times I have to stop shooting while deer cross between me and target. Even shooting 300 yards. We’ve actually taken deer out with permits in that field and we’re actively steel shooting at the same time. After years of shooting it doesn’t faze them anymore. Have taken deer in this spot out to 1121 yards

 

[Sniperwannabee]

You don’t have to worry about ricochet with steel targets as long as your using lead bullets and angle them down. If you buy the hangar with the targets, they are already designed with the correct angle.

 

[Sniperwannabee]

Depending what’s behind your target would determine if you’d really need dirt mounds. Soft dirt or sand will stop a bullet much easier even just flat ground. Likewise rock, hard clay, water etc won’t. Partial hits can be hard to catch anyways. Fire some tracers and you’ll see just how off course bullets can ricochet. Steel hanging at an angle help direct shrapnel and prolongs your target life as well

I shoot all the time on our families land. We hunt deer there as well. There’s many times I have to stop shooting while deer cross between me and target. Even shooting 300 yards. We’ve actually taken deer out with permits in that field and we’re actively steel shooting at the same time. After years of shooting it doesn’t faze them anymore. Have taken deer in this spot out to 1121 yards
View attachment 7885464View attachment 7885465View attachment 7885466View attachment 7885470

Is that a Christmas tree farm?

 

[rlsmith1]

Thanks guys, hadn’t considered railroad ties but will look into that.

We’ve got black dirt here in IA so it’s hard to keep a mound together without grass on it.

Will be hanging steel at an angle for sure, some of the hangers I have are too steep so I’ll get creative on a mounting solution

 

[hafejd30]

Is that a Christmas tree farm?

Yes

 

[Sniperwannabee]

Yes

Living the good life…I always thought that would be a great way to make a living

 

[DFOOSKING]

I would be more concerned with having enough safe space BEYOND the range.

We once had a guy bitching at us for "shooting at him". We google map'd the distance from our back target to his property line....over 1.15 miles.

Pretty sure my 308Win's and smaller bullets won't hit the ground +1,000yds away, tumble/yaw and then travel another 1.15 miles afterward.

Also helped that when he showed up bitching....he saw with his own eyes that his farm was directly behind our garage which is front of the firing line between us and him. So we weren't even aiming in the direction of his farm.

I once saw a guy's personal range where he had his parents place like 350yds hard to the right of his target plates. Uh.....I think I'll pass on that.



Rounds can still truck quite a ways after impact make no mistake.

 

[Oldloser]

Had a range at a ranch. Ran five mags out of an AR every week. Targets every 50 yards out to 300 then about a half mile away on a hill was a hunting cabin. I went on the roof of the cabin one day and found a few spent bullets..

 

[wpeach1912]

I used to just build 2x4 frames and hang steel from them and leave them out in the fields at our farm. Only moved them when the cattle got switched because they’d use the stands as scratching posts. The land was pretty well out in the country with no neighbors and we had quite a bit of land. My one range had a 50ft bluff and woods behind it and the other was in a valley with woods and hill as back drop. Just mowed 3-4 pass wide with my brush hog to have a lane as the grass grew. Never noticed anything weird with Ricochets, but had no reason to be concerned about them either

 

[eastexsteve]

Hoping to build a range this year and looking for some advice from those that have done it. I think I’ll be able to get to 1,000 but know for sure I’ll get to 600. I’m not going to be building a structure to shoot out if or anything, it’s really going h to be minimalistic. This will be on my land so direction of fire is decided but I have a couple questions.

Will be hanging steel, best way to limit ricochets from misses / partial hits? Dirt mound seems easiest but open to suggestions.

We also hunt on this ground, if I’m shooting once or twice a month, will it take away from my hunts in the fall? Mostly deer where I’m at and will be shooting suppressed over half the time.

Building this so I can get better at shooting at night. Anything you like to have on range for night shoots?

I've got 880, and there is about a 3 degree downhill to 550. I have a 10 foot berm behind the 880 target, and nothing seems to make it past that due to the initial downhill. The way to check it out is get a 7.62 rifle with some tracer ammo. You will be surprised at how those bullet can bounce, but on my setup, they don't go far once they strike the grass-covered sandy clay ground. As far as animals go, I often have to cease fire to let the deer and hogs pass.

 

[fanninland]

…..As far as animals go, I often have to cease fire to let the deer and hogs pass.

Wait….what was that? Let hogs pass? Here in east TX no less? Say it isn’t so lol!

 

[eastexsteve]

Wait….what was that? Let hogs pass? Here in east TX no less? Say it isn’t so lol!

It comes to a question of how you want to spend your day. You have to do something with those dead hogs. You can't leave them lying in the middle of the rifle range. They start to get pretty rank after a few days in this heat.

 

[Mike Casselton]

It comes to a question of how you want to spend your day. You have to do something with those dead hogs. You can't leave them lying in the middle of the rifle range. They start to get pretty rank after a few days in this heat.

Buzzards gotta eat too.

Around here, the turkey vultures have them cleaned out in just a few hours.

 

[308pirate]

You have to do something with those dead hogs.

 

[Ranchhand]

I shoot a couple of times a month on some land that has had trees thinned for shooting. There are steel targets up all the time, painted regularly.
I have had deer and coyotes run across the firing area while I'm shooting. I also see deer easier when I'm hunting that area. I believe they become accustomed to the range and it's not a big deal.

 

[308pirate]

I would be more concerned with having enough safe space BEYOND the range.

We once had a guy bitching at us for "shooting at him". We google map'd the distance from our back target to his property line....over 1.15 miles.

Pretty sure my 308Win's and smaller bullets won't hit the ground +1,000yds away, tumble/yaw and then travel another 1.15 miles afterward.

Also helped that when he showed up bitching....he saw with his own eyes that his farm was directly behind our garage which is front of the firing line between us and him. So we weren't even aiming in the direction of his farm.

I once saw a guy's personal range where he had his parents place like 350yds hard to the right of his target plates. Uh.....I think I'll pass on that.



Rounds can still truck quite a ways after impact make no mistake.

What kind of ground is that, sheer rock?

 

[TheOtherAndrew]

My most important to least <800yd:
1 - size of buffer zones surrounding main target zones (1.5x for <90deg side to side, 3x for directly behind; 10x for multiple shooters)
2 - angle of bullet impact to corresponding ground (raise firing position and or lower target position, find a big hill, etc
3a - communication with surrounding landowners
3b - only use targets that deflect impacts downward - no sideways flaps, none that flip down on impact (depending on [1])
4 - tillage (pay a farmer to break up all land around your main target zones (depending on [1])
5a - avoid steel/mono bullets (depending on [1])...
5b - RR ties/haybails/sandbags etc. - limits your target variability; also doesn't cover big misses - comes back to how many shooters

*on tracers above...my first guess would be thats the tracer metal ejecting from the lead. if they were steel tracers different story. regardless, thats why Id say till the land once every 2-3 years depending on soil type...