If you owned land for one bay...

[Patrick Scott]

My family owns a 5 acre field that is a 45 sec. drive from my house. The family has used this field for shooting for as long as I can remember. I was given the ok to make permanent changes if I wanted to. I plan on just using a portion of the field to set up one permanent bay for private USPSA practice use. I am looking for suggestions on the size of the bay and what props/targets(and number) would you feel essential to such an undertaking. Also keeping in mind a way to secure(mostly from weather) all the equipment on site.

Some quick brainstorming got me things like this:

25yd X 25Yd bay with the ability for 50yd shots. If I can tuck it into the field the way I want I should be able make a 100yd lane for sighting rifles.

20 wood H target stands w/sticks of varied height

I have steel plate collection that keeps growing

One swinger and DT should be enough

Maybe 2ea PP and USP

2 Bianchi barricades

Handful of barrels

Texas Star

Plate rack

4 start boxes

Something for fault lines

Snow fence

Suggestions?

Im not going to go out and buy all at once, just some ideas to get the wheels turning.

[Aglifter]

On our place, I have a plate rack set up, and regular target stands, with an assortment of stick heights.

I also have some rubber stall mats to use for prone, reload practice, etc.

I like my Tac-Man targets, but they have nothing to do w shooting.

I went to Lowes and got some cheap buckets, cut holes in the bottom, and stapled fiberglass screening inside, which I use to hold various calibers of spent cases.

The next stage is to get a bulldozer out to expand the berm some more, and cut into the one caliche berm, to spread that out as a base.

I've planted native grass to try to act as some cover for the berms, once they are finished, I will have to put down some kind of mat, impregnated with grass seed.

A swinger or a star would be an excellent idea, but its down on the list for me.

[Aglifter]

I will be putting one of those garden sheds in mine to hold my targets, etc

[Avezorak]

Sounds good. Start boxes can be made easily with some 1/2" PVC and 90's. Cheap and light.

[Graham Smith]

If you want something you can leave out and not have to worry about, have a look at TacStrike targets. These are a reduced size IPSC steel. Reactive targets are great for training because you get instant feed back on every shot.

Get some mesh and some 2x4's and build some walls. These can sit outside without any problems.

Get some 1x2's a build a couple start boxes.

Get some stakes and some caution tape to lay out shooting areas.

Shoot.

You can do a lot of training with only a few steel targets and a backstop berm.

[Bigpops]

Dont get me wrong, having a bunch of stuff on your own range is a bunch of fun. I love my plate rack and the Texas Star but we have learned that 3 of these javascript: openWin('catalog/create_15_sil.html') from nevcotargets gives us the best practice of all.

Though I will add that shooting paper IPSC targets are a must from time to time.

[Bigpops]

Sorry, I screwed up the link. Nevco sells a "create a target" and we chose the 15 inch silhouette plates.

[Reshoot]

I have two stages set up, which gives me a good variety.

Stage 1 is simply El Pres

Stage 2 consists of:

5 pepper poppers

7 mini pepper poppers

3 plate, plate rack

1 clam shell

1 disapearing swinger

4 metric targets

Of course, it didn't happen overight. Took two years!

[Joe4d]

what about footing ? ideally something that makes brass easy to pick up. but not real muddy. Crush and run perhaps ?

[Aglifter]

Well, I have caliche, because I had to dig into some for one berm - crusher waste would be good, if you can get it- maybe w some pea gravel over top...

[Aglifter]

I'm very fond of my buckets, btw. I just pick my brass up while thinking, etc, and if you don't let it get to a problem state, it's not too bad.

Mine was beginning to get a bit treacherous, but I convinced some new shooters to pick brass while I was working with one of them, and my range got cleaned up.

[Chills1994]

at PASA Park (where they hold the Single Stack Nat's and in the past a few other Nat's events as well) they have a gravel there so small that if you make a mesh screen box (aka hardware cloth) that you can scoop up both the brass and the pea gravel, dump it into the mesh box/frame, give it a few shakes and the gravel drops right through, whereas the brass stays above in the box.

I think it was 3/8ths by 3/8ths hardware cloth that I used. The frame was made out of 1 by 4's.

[Graham Smith]

they have a gravel there so small that if you make a mesh screen box (aka hardware cloth) that you can scoop up both the brass and the pea gravel, dump it into the mesh box/frame, give it a few shakes and the gravel drops right through, whereas the brass stays above in the box.

I've seen the same setup. You can frame in an area with pressure treated wood and lay landscaping fabric and get pea gravel to fill.