Thursday, March 4, 2010

Where to shoot?

I'm having a hard time finding a range to suit my needs. I've been looking for a centerfire rifle range with 500+ yards available in Virginia somewhere, and so far I haven't found anything that fits.

Quantico has a 1,000 yard shooting range, but club membership seems to take years to get into, and you need a sponsor, and they only have days open to the public like once every 70 years or so. I don't mind paying dues to be in a private club, but most only have 100 yard ranges, with the most I've seen being 300 yards. I can do that here. Also, I can't drive more than a couple of hours because of family commitments, so it has to be reasonably close. Clubs require you to also work for your membership, which I don't mind, but again, I can't put in 20 hours if the club is five hours away. It's insane.

I found this website which is very useful: Where To Shoot.org. I found a 500 yard range that was perfect, until I found out through further research that it was only 150 yards. Bummer.

I have friends that have permission from local farmers to shoot 1000+ yards, but their schedules suck as bad as mine, and every time we try to get something together it falls apart. Too many layers to get access. I need either a public range, or a membership to a club.

Any thoughts?

If land in my AO wasn't running $200,000+ an acre, and I wasn't in debt up to my throat, I would buy up some property and make my own range.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

come to Iowa, not a short drive but cheaper than $200,000 an acre. We have 500 yards at Brownells, there's a 1000 yd range in nearby Pella and the guy from Pella may build a 1000 yd on the Brownells property. Ya have to take the NRA range safety officer course to be able to shoot on your own, but someone here would probably accompany you.
larry.weeks@brownells.com

Unknown said...

Thank you sir! Iowa sounds good to me, if only I could get out from under the house that I'm in. I've been running different ideas past my wife for awhile now for when we get out of the red. Somewhere in the Mid West is exactly where I want to go.

I hear there's still places to hunt out your way too!