progress report on our private range project.

[dorminWS]

Somebody asked for pics and a report when i originally posted about this on a post I can't find on the forum. Turns out it is pretty hard to take a pic of a shooting range that looks like much. The attached pic I took from the shooter's end looking toward the berm where the targets will be. The pickup truck to the left of the berm is a 3/4 ton Chevy Silverado and it is a little bit in front of the berm (just for an idea of scale). We might wind up a few yards shy of a 200-yard range, but not a lot. The light-colored part of the soil on the left is the berm that is perpendicular to the darker-colored bank on the right side. We will be shooting into the right side of the berm next to the bank (which is darker because it is wetter) Behind the berm, even though it doesn't look it, is just another mountainside; fenced off with no roads. We will place our pistol range across the range about where you can see the two white sticks or posts in the edge of the trees on the left and be shooting into the bank. The shooter's area for the clay target throwers will also be in the general area of the pistol range crosses the rifle range - we plan to have at least one thrower up on top of the bank for a "high bird" shot. We've got 4-5 throwers. Will probably bury conduit and run permanent wires back to the shooter's station so we can leave the wires there and not have to mess with stringing them around and taking them back up. We've got all rocks covered about 4' deep with the sandy clay soil around here that makes such a good backstop.

It's rained so much the boys have been calling this project "Noah's Folly", but we've finally got it all pretty much done except for pouring 2-3 concrete pads for the Redstitch targets to set on and laying down $3,000 or so worth of rock so we won't HAVE to go 4-wheeling to burn a few rounds. Not sure I understand why them folks up in NOVA do it on purpose. I guess people tend to want what they can't have. Beyond that, we may build a shed or two and a shooter's bench or two eventually. Hard to maintain enthusiam for building a range when you can't get bullets, but we are endeavoring to persevere.

[gunderwood]

Nice. Looks like it's moving along.

[milspecnsn]

Eagerly looking forward to the end result...looking good!

[Hocktl]

Looks great. I wish I had a long range shooting area in my back yard.

[dorminWS]

Looks great. I wish I had a long range shooting area in my back yard.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So do I.

- It ain't in my back yard. It's on a friends farm at the edge of town. But then again, I have unrestricted access and there are definite advantages to using somebody else's land for a shooting range.

- It ain't long-range enough. I wish I had access to someplace where I could shoot up to a couple of thousand yards, so I could REALLY play with a .50BMG, a .338 Lapua, and a couple of .308s, including an M1A. As it is, the longest shot I've ever made was 850 yards, and I had to drive 200 miles one way to be able to shoot THAT far.

But even a relatively small amount of progress is still progress.

[dsbock]

I didn't see the original thread, so maybe these questions have already been answered.

We are planning to buy property in VA sometime next year. One of my preferences is to have a shooting range on my property. Other than normal safety precautions, are there any governmental hoops to jump through? At either the State or County level?

I'm looking forward to seeing the final project.

Thanks.

David

[dorminWS]

I didn't see the original thread, so maybe these questions have already been answered.

We are planning to buy property in VA sometime next year. One of my preferences is to have a shooting range on my property. Other than normal safety precautions, are there any governmental hoops to jump through? At either the State or County level?

I'm looking forward to seeing the final project.

Thanks.

David

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I couldn't find my OP either. But there is also at least one thread on this forum about requirements and restrictions on firing ranges. Best advice is ask around with local shooters first to locate any local-history land mines and find out who in the powers-that-be might be a sympathetic fellow shooter, then check with a zoning official or building inspector.

[vaeevictiss]

VA really needs done long ranges... Specifically central VA

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[dorminWS]

I'd be much obliged to have some input from y'all; particularly those of you that shoot competitively.

I'm planning to pour some pads for the targets this afternnon if I don't get rained out. It set me to thinking about something. As I said, we're going to lay the pistol range out at 90 degrees across the rifle range (difference is how much impact the targets will stand). So I'll have a "roadway" of gravel (to keep the mud down) running from one end of the rifle range to the other and one running across it at 90 degrees where the pistol range is.

I thought I might set some short marker posts along the pistol "roadway" and widen it out a little at the various distances from the targets that are "standard" distances for pistol shooting. I'm thinking at 7 yards,12 yards, 50 feet, 25 yards,and 40 yards. But I'm just a country boy who's spent his life shooting at game and varmints at whatever range they happened to poke their heads up, so I don't know how "shooting sportsmen" do things. Is there some magic number among competitive shooters?

[meak99]

Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying but....

I would keep all these pistol firing lines in one straight line and have the berms at various lengths - or make sure each firing line has significant distance in between to keep the angles sufficient from having someone at 25 yards have somone else just to their left shooting from 40 yards.

Other thing is, are you going to only have the rifle or pistol firing lines hot at any given time? I don't think you want cross-fire going on.

[meak99]

Also, isn't bullseye shot from 50 yards? Might want to extand out to that if you're taking your pistol out to 40 anyways.

[dorminWS]

It will just be our private range. We won't have to worry about what other parties will be doing because there won't be any. We won't be firing rifles and pistols simultaneously, and we won't be firing pistols from 2 distances at once. Guess I should have specified that. I don’t know what distance bullseye is shot at. I stopped at 40 yards because I'm not sure we'll have room to fire more than 40 yards. If we have room to fire 50 yards, I’m sure we will. But I would like to know about this "bullseye" business............

[Chasbo00]

The common yard lines for all types of pistol shooting I've seen are:
3 yards
5 yards
7 yards
10 yards
15 yards
20 yards
25 yards
50 yards

In bold are what I think are the most common ones.

Bullseye pistol is shot at 25 and 50 yards.

[meak99]

Copy all. Figured you'd thought of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullseye_( ... mpetition)

[dorminWS]

The common yard lines for all types of pistol shooting I've seen are:
3 yards
5 yards
7 yards
10 yards
15 yards
20 yards
25 yards
50 yards

In bold are what I think are the most common ones.

Bullseye pistol is shot at 25 and 50 yards.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thanks, Chasbo00. I was hoping you could help out.

[Snakester]

What a great Project...I'm really Impressed !

[dorminWS]

Finally got a little time between rains and when somebody wasn’t working to hit a lick or two at our range project.
#1 son had poured 3 pads on Friday, and we assembled and lagged down the two pistol targets – the dueling tree and the “hostage” target, and lagged them down to the pads. We have to bolt them to a concrete pad because there is only about 8”-12” of soil on top of solid sandstone and we can’t dig a posthole deep enough to hold a post. We set the “pig” out on the 3rd pad (to keep it out of the mud, which you can plainly see in that pic), but the “pig” has to wait for us to pour a pad at the rifle backstop. For now, it is sitting on the 3rd pad for pistol targets. That pad will eventually get a frame for paper targets bolted down to it. (something I can at least SEE from 50 yards away) You can see the target bases are not square to the concrete pads. That’s a direct result of advice I got on this forum. In order to be able to shoot a pistol at targets 50 yards away, we turned the pistol targets a few degrees off of perpendicular to the rifle range so we could get in a 50 yard pistol shot if we want to. But until we get our target frame up, we don’t have any targets to shoot at 50 yards away (not and hit, anyway). We turned the other pistol targets even though they aren’t 50-yard targets just so all the pistol shots will be on the same axis. You can see the one pic that I took from the 50-yards-away position of the pistol targets we installed (but I'll have to post it in another post because the limit, I have just learned, is 3 pics). Pretty long pistol shot at a 6” circle for my weak old eyes. You can also see the leftover coal on the ground. I was glad it was there – it kept down the mud. One more good use for an old strip bench. Still waiting for dry enough weather to put down some rock. I took two severe butt-chewings from SWMBO about the state of my brogans yesterday evening; one when I got home, and another this morning after she’d given them a shower to get the mud and coal dust off. But it was worth it. We also ordered a dueling tree target for rifles and a 6" gong target for the rifle backstop. We'll also build a box with railroad ties and fill it with dirt so we'll have something to tack paper targets up to for zeroing rifles.

Since we finally had those fancy targets, we couldn’t pass up a chance to throw a little lead at them (damn little, since we can’t replace what we shoot right now). The good news is that I still remember how to load and fire a pistol. The bad news is that I don’t remember ever shooting as poorly as I did yesterday. Guess I hadn’t fired a shot in 2-3 months. It showed. That’s all I want to say about it; except that I hope how soon the ammunition shortage is over.

[dorminWS]

Here's the 4th pic.

[Chasbo00]

Good target selection - I'm a huge steel fan.

[RWBlue01]

Very nice.