Not sure where a thread like this belongs thought I'd start here. Looking for ideas on a home range. I know some of you have got to have a private set up at home. I live on about 16 acres geographically speaking it's shape should yield about 400 yards with a few obstacles. I have room for a short range besides. Just looking for tips and suggestions from anybody who has built a personal set up. Northeast Olympic Peninsula Washington state. I have construction equipment and have been building things out of dirt for the last 18 years. Just want some user insight on what to build. Should it turn out well use by Hider's in my AO would not be out of the question...
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Range Design
- Thread starter d8dk
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Re: Range Design
A lot of the design considerations will come down to what is surrounding your property...what is downrange?
My property is about like yours, 15.3 acres. From my fixed bench I put up 8ft berms (the limit with my loader) at 100 yds and 300 yds. From a portable bench set up in my driveway, I can get 400 yds. But I don't do that often as the noise is triple for the neighbors when I do that vs from the 300yd bench. Of course I let most of them come use the range so they don't care too much.
Behind the backstop is ~1.5 miles of clear, open fields. Not my property, but nothing to hit. I do not shoot when farmers are in the fields. I strive to make sure that despite that buffer, all of my rounds end up in the berms. I do NOT want anything leaving my personal property. When the state boy brought out an auto M16 we shot it in full auto only from close range at the bottom of the berm.
I've been building up a supply of old tires from the local auto shop...every couple weeks I swing by and load up the pickup. I plan to add about 4-5 ft of tires, two overlapping rows, to the top of my berms. This should make it virtually impossible for a round to leave my range.
I am building another range with the shooting position inside a climate-conditioned enclosure within my barn. One backstop at 30yds for pistol, one at 320 yds for rifle. Both backstops will be 8-9ft of double-row, overlapping tires filled with dirt.
If you have anything within a meaningful distance behind your range, you may need to go even more overboard.
A lot of the design considerations will come down to what is surrounding your property...what is downrange?
My property is about like yours, 15.3 acres. From my fixed bench I put up 8ft berms (the limit with my loader) at 100 yds and 300 yds. From a portable bench set up in my driveway, I can get 400 yds. But I don't do that often as the noise is triple for the neighbors when I do that vs from the 300yd bench. Of course I let most of them come use the range so they don't care too much.
Behind the backstop is ~1.5 miles of clear, open fields. Not my property, but nothing to hit. I do not shoot when farmers are in the fields. I strive to make sure that despite that buffer, all of my rounds end up in the berms. I do NOT want anything leaving my personal property. When the state boy brought out an auto M16 we shot it in full auto only from close range at the bottom of the berm.
I've been building up a supply of old tires from the local auto shop...every couple weeks I swing by and load up the pickup. I plan to add about 4-5 ft of tires, two overlapping rows, to the top of my berms. This should make it virtually impossible for a round to leave my range.
I am building another range with the shooting position inside a climate-conditioned enclosure within my barn. One backstop at 30yds for pistol, one at 320 yds for rifle. Both backstops will be 8-9ft of double-row, overlapping tires filled with dirt.
If you have anything within a meaningful distance behind your range, you may need to go even more overboard.
Re: Range Design
I helped build one this past summer
You need some of these
and one of these
So you can build your backstop 30ft high like this
as well as full length 10ft sideberms, then dig out the face 4ft deep and 10ft high and place 1/4" minus limestone to catch the bullets
I helped build one this past summer
You need some of these
and one of these
So you can build your backstop 30ft high like this
as well as full length 10ft sideberms, then dig out the face 4ft deep and 10ft high and place 1/4" minus limestone to catch the bullets
Re: Range Design
Uh yeah I guess that would work. Dang I am jealous.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PKR</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I helped build one this past summer
You need some of these
and one of these
So you can build your backstop 30ft high like this
as well as full length 10ft sideberms, then dig out the face 4ft deep and 10ft high and place 1/4" minus limestone to catch the bullets
</div></div>
Uh yeah I guess that would work. Dang I am jealous.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PKR</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I helped build one this past summer
You need some of these
and one of these
So you can build your backstop 30ft high like this
as well as full length 10ft sideberms, then dig out the face 4ft deep and 10ft high and place 1/4" minus limestone to catch the bullets
</div></div>
Re: Range Design
^^^^^^
You dont need all that heavy equipment. Your in the Pacific NW so you cant bee far from northern Idaho. Just open a McDonalds on the land and tell Shankster's Hefties is free all you can eat for the first week. Load the McRib with 10 parts portland cement to one part McRib. After a good gorge give them all the water they want. In the orning foll them out to where you need the berm and stack them up...voila
^^^^^^
You dont need all that heavy equipment. Your in the Pacific NW so you cant bee far from northern Idaho. Just open a McDonalds on the land and tell Shankster's Hefties is free all you can eat for the first week. Load the McRib with 10 parts portland cement to one part McRib. After a good gorge give them all the water they want. In the orning foll them out to where you need the berm and stack them up...voila
Re: Range Design
ATH,PKR
Good points, my place backs up to a few square miles of timber ranch all rising quickly to several hundred feet of elevation over mine. Unless they are cutting (once every 50 years or so) not much back there. That being said I WILL NOT let projectiles leave my boundaries. The berm construction how to is very helpful. Granted I don't have a stable of 200HP Deere tractors W/ scrapers but I do have a tough old Mack dump truck a pair of excavators and a dozer or two. Thinking about berm hieght, neighbors are close on two sides one is related and a non issue but the others are just good folks I'd hate to annoy. Any ideas on noise deflection? How high do berms need to be to deflect noise effectively from your experience? 30' isn't out of the question but does burn up a lot of material. Loved the pics by the way PKS, my kind of project. I'll post some when I get started moving dirt. I do it professionally so I have a real appreciation for what you had going on there. Thoughts, pics all a big help. Yea I'm not to far from N Idaho and I have spent time with plenty of good people there who enjoy their states view on NFA gear properly. I'd like to meet Shankster from what I've read we'd find plenty of common ground without using em for a berm...
ATH,PKR
Good points, my place backs up to a few square miles of timber ranch all rising quickly to several hundred feet of elevation over mine. Unless they are cutting (once every 50 years or so) not much back there. That being said I WILL NOT let projectiles leave my boundaries. The berm construction how to is very helpful. Granted I don't have a stable of 200HP Deere tractors W/ scrapers but I do have a tough old Mack dump truck a pair of excavators and a dozer or two. Thinking about berm hieght, neighbors are close on two sides one is related and a non issue but the others are just good folks I'd hate to annoy. Any ideas on noise deflection? How high do berms need to be to deflect noise effectively from your experience? 30' isn't out of the question but does burn up a lot of material. Loved the pics by the way PKS, my kind of project. I'll post some when I get started moving dirt. I do it professionally so I have a real appreciation for what you had going on there. Thoughts, pics all a big help. Yea I'm not to far from N Idaho and I have spent time with plenty of good people there who enjoy their states view on NFA gear properly. I'd like to meet Shankster from what I've read we'd find plenty of common ground without using em for a berm...
Re: Range Design
The effectiveness of a noise barrier of a given height will decrease with the distance from the point of shooting. A 6ft wall right next to your bench would likely be very effective; 50 yds away it's pretty useless.
For a good idea of what works, look at what they use along freeways. It is a pretty daunting task for a private person to do!
My neighbors 100 yds behind my shooting position say they often don't know when I am shooting if they are inside their houses. To my right there is an open field then freeway 300 yds away, so it doesn't matter. There are houses ~250 yds to the left of my range though. Only one has ever complained, but she was an unreasonable witch who came over and chewed out my wife (who politely told her that nothing would change and to go pound sand) instead of coming back and talking to me in a productive way. There is a double row of 25ft white pines between me and those houses; I've always meant to have someone shoot while I go stand over there and listen but never have. But one complaint by someone who is clearly unreasonable in 5 years, I'm no longer really concerned. (It probably hasn't hurt that multiple people in the neighborhood have a standing invitation to use my range upon request)
In the next year I am planning to build a climate-controlled shooting room in the back of my barn. Remember the part about a sound deflector's effectiveness being related to how close it is? For ~15ft past the shooting bench, I will have plywood covered with foam insulation on the side toward neighboring houses, as well as overhead. So the noise we be partially absorbed and also deflected either downrange or to the right and back onto my own property. I expect this to have a very significant effect on the noise level at those houses, which is part of the reason I'm relocating my shooting position (being tired of shooting in either nuclear heat or bitter cold the others).
I see no reason why you couldn't sink some treated 4X4s and build such a wall along your bench, unless local winds would be too hard on it. I have not actually build this yet so I can't definitively vouch for the results but it seems to me like it would help.
Frankly part of the noise issue will depend on exactly how much you use the range. I've not been shooting as much the past few years (young family), but I plan to start shooting more. People who tolerate a 40-50 rd range session once or twice a month may start complaining if it turns into once or twice a week. It always pays to take reasonable steps to be a good neighbor. The witch who complained about me shooting allows her nephews to shoot on her land, and once this summer while on a walk with my little kids on my property they sent .22 rounds whizzing close enough to us that I could hear the bullets (~30-50 yds). I'm sure you can imagine the conversation that followed in its full color. Their excuse was that they thought it was just open field back there (they put the target on our property line and shot through the rows of trees into an open field of which they did not have view -- deliberately putting rounds onto my property).
The effectiveness of a noise barrier of a given height will decrease with the distance from the point of shooting. A 6ft wall right next to your bench would likely be very effective; 50 yds away it's pretty useless.
For a good idea of what works, look at what they use along freeways. It is a pretty daunting task for a private person to do!
My neighbors 100 yds behind my shooting position say they often don't know when I am shooting if they are inside their houses. To my right there is an open field then freeway 300 yds away, so it doesn't matter. There are houses ~250 yds to the left of my range though. Only one has ever complained, but she was an unreasonable witch who came over and chewed out my wife (who politely told her that nothing would change and to go pound sand) instead of coming back and talking to me in a productive way. There is a double row of 25ft white pines between me and those houses; I've always meant to have someone shoot while I go stand over there and listen but never have. But one complaint by someone who is clearly unreasonable in 5 years, I'm no longer really concerned. (It probably hasn't hurt that multiple people in the neighborhood have a standing invitation to use my range upon request)
In the next year I am planning to build a climate-controlled shooting room in the back of my barn. Remember the part about a sound deflector's effectiveness being related to how close it is? For ~15ft past the shooting bench, I will have plywood covered with foam insulation on the side toward neighboring houses, as well as overhead. So the noise we be partially absorbed and also deflected either downrange or to the right and back onto my own property. I expect this to have a very significant effect on the noise level at those houses, which is part of the reason I'm relocating my shooting position (being tired of shooting in either nuclear heat or bitter cold the others).
I see no reason why you couldn't sink some treated 4X4s and build such a wall along your bench, unless local winds would be too hard on it. I have not actually build this yet so I can't definitively vouch for the results but it seems to me like it would help.
Frankly part of the noise issue will depend on exactly how much you use the range. I've not been shooting as much the past few years (young family), but I plan to start shooting more. People who tolerate a 40-50 rd range session once or twice a month may start complaining if it turns into once or twice a week. It always pays to take reasonable steps to be a good neighbor. The witch who complained about me shooting allows her nephews to shoot on her land, and once this summer while on a walk with my little kids on my property they sent .22 rounds whizzing close enough to us that I could hear the bullets (~30-50 yds). I'm sure you can imagine the conversation that followed in its full color. Their excuse was that they thought it was just open field back there (they put the target on our property line and shot through the rows of trees into an open field of which they did not have view -- deliberately putting rounds onto my property).
Re: Range Design
Back 15 or 20 years ago I got some plans from the NRA to help modernize the local FOP range. They have several "sets" of plans. I'm sure they have something that you may be able to use.
Good luck.
Back 15 or 20 years ago I got some plans from the NRA to help modernize the local FOP range. They have several "sets" of plans. I'm sure they have something that you may be able to use.
Good luck.
Re: Range Design
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: d8dk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">ATH,PKR
Good points, my place backs up to a few square miles of timber ranch all rising quickly to several hundred feet of elevation over mine. Unless they are cutting (once every 50 years or so) not much back there. That being said I WILL NOT let projectiles leave my boundaries. The berm construction how to is very helpful. Granted I don't have a stable of 200HP Deere tractors W/ scrapers but I do have a tough old Mack dump truck a pair of excavators and a dozer or two. Thinking about berm hieght, neighbors are close on two sides one is related and a non issue but the others are just good folks I'd hate to annoy. Any ideas on noise deflection? How high do berms need to be to deflect noise effectively from your experience? 30' isn't out of the question but does burn up a lot of material. Loved the pics by the way PKS, my kind of project. I'll post some when I get started moving dirt. I do it professionally so I have a real appreciation for what you had going on there.... </div></div>
I work for the Missouri Conservation Department we rebuilt that range this past summer. A JD 9560 Scraper Special is a hell of a nice machine to run, 560 net HP
Pulled double 18 yd pans with it. When it came time to pour 300+ yards of concrete for all of the walkways in July the fun ended.
All of the slopes are 2:1, The 1/4" minus limestone was new for us but it held up really well to the bullet impact. This range is one of the busiest unmanned ranges in the state and required refacing the old berms once a year. Now we can go in with a skid steer and slick them back up easy.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: d8dk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">ATH,PKR
Good points, my place backs up to a few square miles of timber ranch all rising quickly to several hundred feet of elevation over mine. Unless they are cutting (once every 50 years or so) not much back there. That being said I WILL NOT let projectiles leave my boundaries. The berm construction how to is very helpful. Granted I don't have a stable of 200HP Deere tractors W/ scrapers but I do have a tough old Mack dump truck a pair of excavators and a dozer or two. Thinking about berm hieght, neighbors are close on two sides one is related and a non issue but the others are just good folks I'd hate to annoy. Any ideas on noise deflection? How high do berms need to be to deflect noise effectively from your experience? 30' isn't out of the question but does burn up a lot of material. Loved the pics by the way PKS, my kind of project. I'll post some when I get started moving dirt. I do it professionally so I have a real appreciation for what you had going on there.... </div></div>
I work for the Missouri Conservation Department we rebuilt that range this past summer. A JD 9560 Scraper Special is a hell of a nice machine to run, 560 net HP
All of the slopes are 2:1, The 1/4" minus limestone was new for us but it held up really well to the bullet impact. This range is one of the busiest unmanned ranges in the state and required refacing the old berms once a year. Now we can go in with a skid steer and slick them back up easy.
Re: Range Design
ATH, More good points to consider. I have thought about dedicated noise deflectors and will probably incorporate something like you describe in the construction of my firing line cover. PKS, good to read that 2:1's are holding up. I have been concerned about going that steep as it is considered the maximum stable angle of repose for our soil types out here. Even a properly constructed fill berm (overbuilt and trimmed to shape) requires a good deal of vegetation to hold up to erosion. Are the berms you described constructed of crushed or faced with it? What kind of thickness if faced? Thanks guys.
ATH, More good points to consider. I have thought about dedicated noise deflectors and will probably incorporate something like you describe in the construction of my firing line cover. PKS, good to read that 2:1's are holding up. I have been concerned about going that steep as it is considered the maximum stable angle of repose for our soil types out here. Even a properly constructed fill berm (overbuilt and trimmed to shape) requires a good deal of vegetation to hold up to erosion. Are the berms you described constructed of crushed or faced with it? What kind of thickness if faced? Thanks guys.
Re: Range Design
Berms are native soil, built then faces cut to 2:1. Faces were then excavated 48" into berm and limestone was placed
Berms are native soil, built then faces cut to 2:1. Faces were then excavated 48" into berm and limestone was placed
