Oh, some don'ts. The guys back home cleared a bunch of timber and ran a 600 yard range due east. The sun comes up in the east and blinds you until nearly 10a.m. Except for late summer, the sun goes over just a little south of the range so the large timber leaves shadows on the targets. Makes them kind of hard to see on sunny days. In late afternoon, the sun is at your back and shines off the back of your scope. Makes it kinda hard to see.
One of the ranges is on the runoff area of a small hill. No one did anything to control the runoff after the timber was moved. We winters make lots of mud and washes or erodes away part of the range. No fun walking down range to put up targets while wearing knee high rubber boots and sticking in the mud.
Someone made some nice metal targets. Swing good if you hit them. They are on a stand about 4' high. Only problem is the birm behind is 3' high. If you miss, you cannot see where. Very frustrating.
One one short distance pistol range, they cover an area out to about 25 yards with red cinders. Looks nice, gets hot in summer and kills the grass and weeds, but....it floats in winter during high water. If you set up targets like bowling pins to shoot you throw cinders all over the place. Not a good backstop.
My cousin made a really nice range for 5 stand, skeet, etc. Works really great. He has a high hill behind to catch the clays and shot. Unfortunately part of this hill is shale. Rock. You cannot shoot a rifle or pistol in this area as it could hit a piece of shale and richochet over the hill. He tried to bring in a cat to move it. Wont move. Would have to dynamite to remove the slope and take away chances of richochet.
Our current range is nicely layed out, great cover, excellent lights, etc. We have nice grass that is mowed and even in wet W WA, we don't get too muddy. Unfortunately the grass and lawn is sooo nice, the deer, bird, bunnys etc like it also. We have to watch out for wildlife when shooting and have had to stop matches due to wildlife on the range. A nice fence or some natural deterant would be nice.
They just made a couple of concrete benches at the range. They sure are nice for shooting, but you cannot move them. That makes it difficult if weather coming at you and you would like to reposition to get out of the wind and rain.
A range up north of us has a nice layout, unfortunately, out to 200 yards it is very steep uphill and downhill. Very rough climb in wet weather due to being slippery. Also no place for spectators. Even the wife wants to come watch once in a while and throw a little lead down range. If you don't make if comfortable for the fairer sex, you will hear about it. Especially if the only spot for relief is the third tree on the left.
Steve
