Open Range Area

[joseywales]

Our club normally has 6 available bays, but we are being squeezed down to only 3 for our next match (owner has seeded 3 of the bays with grass & wants to give it a chance to take hold). We normally have 6 stages / 150+ round matches each month, we are the most expensive match in the area, and we would prefer to keep stages/rounds/quality as high as we normally do.

The range also hosts Cowboy Action matches. They don't use the shooting bays, but instead use a mock building/storefronts (movie set-like, no side or rear walls, just the front) for their matches. Behind these building/storefronts is about 75 yards of open grassland, then a densely wooded section of land.

I believe that the range owner owns a good bit of land behind the berms of the bays we use for USPSA, as well as the land behind the 'cowboy town'.

Having never seen the Cowboy action shooting on this range, I'm not sure how they place their targets to avoid/minimize bullets from traveling where they shouldn't go.

And having always shot matches only at ranges where the backstops/berm walls are in a U-shape, I'm reluctant to setup/conduct a stage in an area that has no backstop/berm wall.

Here are a few questions I need your help on...

Should we even consider using that area?

Besides knowing exactly what's behind and how far back the wooded area is, what other things do we need to consider/research before we venture into using this area behind the 'cowboy town' for a USPSA stage?

What things we can do from a setup perspective to limit the chances of bullets going where they shouldn't?

[AZ38super]

If it was me or my club I would not be shooting cowboy or anything else above an air rifle in the open area without the proper berms put in place first. And I don't care how much land they own beyond that point.

Live rounds into the wooded area is just asking for trouble. I would bet that area is not covered by the range insurance policy if something happens.

[Jman]

Well, not to sound short here but what kind of money is available? ANYTHING is possible for the right amount of dough. All I can imagine in the space your looking at are dug out pistol bays. Look at the pick. Our pistol bays are behind and below this "wall".

These poll walls are built on the berms excavated from the pistol bays. So, if all else fails a big bag of money and some borrowed earth moving equipment will do wonders.

By the way. The proximity of machine gun fire makes bay1/stage1 pretty interesting.

Jim

[BSeevers]

There are 4 rules to safe shooting and "Know your target and what's behind it" almost demands that you have a berm or maybe an ocean or desert but I still don't like that.

Edited April 17, 2007 by BSeevers

[mactiger]

Without an earthen backstop, I wouldn't even think about it. Shooting into those open woods is trouble waiting to happen.

Troy

[joseywales]

There are 4 rules to safe shooting and "Know your target and what's behind it" almost demands that you have a berm or maybe an ocean or desert but I still don't like that.

Without an earthen backstop, I wouldn't even think about it. Shooting into those open woods is trouble waiting to happen. Troy

I agree with both of you. At a few matches I had been to at other ranges, low targets were backed with sandboxes or hay bales, something to prevent bullet skipping I imagine. Thought that we might be able to do something like that. Yet even with small backstops behind every target, you never really know who's going to show up at a match, know their experience in gun handling under stress, etc. And there's just the ever present 'oops' factor that could bite anyone.

When our USPSA club first started last spring, we shared the range and date with an IDPA club. As I recall, they had a stage or two going on behind the 'cowboy town'...lots of low/near to the ground targets. Haven't seen one since then. The two clubs now have different range days, so we're no longer jockying for the 6 bays on the same day.

Safe/sensible move is to keep our stages/shooting off the cowboy range. Probably a better solution is to double up a few stages within each of the bays to keep the round/stage count at normal levels. Appreciate your thoughts.

[IronEqualizer]

What is preventing you from shooting from the grassy area toward the long backstop that is common to all 6 bays? You have no side berms but the length of the long one that covers all six bays should be good about middle ways and you should have nothing to worry about.

[joseywales]

What is preventing you from shooting from the grassy area toward the long backstop that is common to all 6 bays? You have no side berms but the length of the long one that covers all six bays should be good about middle ways and you should have nothing to worry about.

What's not drawn in the diagram is a small pond that sits directly behind the 6 bays.

[XRe]

I've been on that range.... My best advice would be to always err on the side of safety, and keep the action pistol stuff in the berms... The CAS guys shoot mouse fart loads, which aren't likely to travel very far, and won't penetrate much of anything (at least, that's the reasoning that gets used for shooting out in the open like that) - personally, it still gives me the heebee jeebees...