Home on the range?

[DA/SA Fan]

Sometime in my not too distant future I will be moving to a rural part of Missouri. I will be looking for the largest piece of property with a nice house that I can get. How many acres would you consider a minimum to have an informal pistol range on your property? Seems like my price range will get me anywhere from 20 to 60 acres but the 20 acre properties have the nicer houses for the most part. Would that be enough room?

[1-DAB]

interesting reading from your gov't:

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2...n_Criteria.pdf

see page 7, maximum range for various calibers.

for 40sw JHP: 2046 yards, about 1.16+ miles.

have any tall hills that would serve as a backstop?

[T. O'Heir]

20 to 60 acres isn't anywhere near big enough for an outdoor range. Not enough room for a fall zone.

[jmhyer]

It depends on what is down range. If it's uninhabited wood or open fields, then I wouldn't think there should be a problem...even if you don't own the property. I would, however suggest a sufficiently high berm. Just remember that you are responsible for projectiles on and off your property. This is what I would do. You must decide for yourself what is right for you.

[DA/SA Fan]

I realize that a bullet goes a long way. I would have a proper back stop. I was just wondering about people that DO shoot on their property. I know they don't have 2 mile square chunks of land!

[Frank Ettin]

There are some good resources available to help one design a safe shooting range:

• NRA Resources
  
  
• This paper (NSSF): "Design Criteria for Shooting Ranges"
  
  
• This paper published by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources: "Outdoor Shooting Ranges"
  
  
• DOE Range Design Criteria

[DA/SA Fan]

Thanks Frank. No matter what i end up needing to do I will do plenty of research before I open the back door and start shooting.

I think I saw Hickok45 say on one of his videos that maybe something as small as 5 acres would be enough land. I was hoping there was a larger number of people here on the forum that had actually shot hand guns on their property.

[chupps]

I have less than 20 acres, but the property is on a slope. I can stand on my back deck and shoot because everything goes into the side of a hill. The maximum target distance I am comfortable with is about 30 yards. A nice distance for handguns.

[DA/SA Fan]

That's what I'm looking for! How are your neighbors with it? any problems? did you talk to them ahead of time?

If I could add 20 acre properties to my searching when the time comes I would have a lot more choices.

[AK103K]

We live in a rural farming area and only have an acre, but I can shoot as much as I want in my yard, if I choose to. I normally choose not to, as I dont want that type of attention, and I have a really nice range, just 2 minutes down the road. I annoy those neighbors.

I do shoot in the yard on a pretty regular basis, with load testing, or critter shooting, etc, but I dont "practice" here. My nearest neighbor is about 300 yards away, and the next nearest over 500. With the way the mountains and valleys run, the sound travels a long way, and EVERYONE knows who is doing what. Just because its rural, dont assume people arent still whack jobs. If anything, its worse out here.

As much as people like to hunt around here, many, if not most, are not what I would call "shooters". I shoot more in one outing, than most probably shoot in 5 years or more.

There is one boy up the road who shoots what most here consider "a lot", on a biweekly basis at his place. A couple of boxes at best. Ive been in the local Quick Mart and had people ask me if I "heard all that shooting" up our valley, and "it sounds like a machine gun (it doesnt ) and what do you think they were doing"? Its obvious it draws attention. Something I would prefer not to do, especially as much as I shoot.

One advantage here is, there are a lot of small gun clubs, and they are usually deserted most of the time. They are also a lot less anal about how you shoot (as long as youre safe), than the ranges closer to the cities. I can do pretty much anything I want, and shoot anything I want.

[skizzums]

20 acres is plenty for a "home range", trust me, I know. as long as you take the proper precatiouns, you live in an area where it's legal and your neighbors aren't going to be a PITA. it took me and my stepdad less than a morning and afternoon to set up several pylons, about 8 feet from each other and used 2x4's to create a boxes and fill will heavy rock concrete. so we have to walls of concrete, about 6-8" thick and about 12' long. we know it's limitations, we only use it for pistols and PCC like levers and it also has a dirt wall behind it. it is also lower in angle form where we shoot, and we are always shooting at a downward angle and it's in a heavy forested area, with no neighbors behind him. all of the neighbors down there shoot and hunt, so it's not a big deal.

these seems like a lot of work, and isn't totally necessary depending on the lot you purchase. look at hikock45's place, pretty safe until you get to his 200 yard plus areas, then its only safe if you know there is nothing back there.

all of this depends on the fact that you are NOT going to have a flyer 100% and your not going to let idiots do mag dumps with their aks/ars. stay away from using tires as backstops, they are not 100%. dirt,rocks and concrete are your friend and more importantly the angle of your "range" relative to where you'll be shooting. and of course the laws.....down here in GA, the laws are so LAX it's almost scary, but we don't hear about accidents, so I guess it works. but if you have 20 acres that backs up to someone's house, then you have your work cut out for you

[Mobuck]

If the 20 acres is 220 yards wide and 440 yards long, you could have room for 300 yards(or 400 if really lucky).

[Snyper]

20 to 60 acres isn't anywhere near big enough for an outdoor range. Not enough room for a fall zone.

I've asked several times before and you've never replied, but do you realloy shoot or hunt at all?

[SVTCobra306]

Wish I could help more, I do shoot at the farm, but it's more than 1 square mile surrounding the area we use, I don't have any significant input for what the "minimum" would be, although you will want to research a little bit. The more you "improve" your personal range, the more attention it is likely to garner from the DNR and EPA, and that can be very cost prohibitive.

[DaleA]

Your idea of talking is a good one.

Talk to the local police/sheriff - see what they are going to enforce.

Talk to your neighbors. Nothing beats having a good relationship with your neighbors. See if they'll call the cops every time they hear a gunshot or come over with their hardware to join in on the fun.

Good luck. I'm envious.

P.S. Seem some folk want you to own enough land so that a round fired in any direction at max range would still land on your property but this is unreasonable. Other folk have given you links to better information.

[Sparks1957]

20 to 60 acres isn't anywhere near big enough for an outdoor range. Not enough room for a fall zone

Do you have any idea how big 60 acres is?

The range I frequent most here in VT is about 15 acres, and with the proper berms in place, etc, it poses no threat to the neighbors.

[Skans]

20 to 60 acres isn't anywhere near big enough for an outdoor range. Not enough room for a fall zone

I shoot on my 8 acres in N. Georgia. The 8 acres is in the mountains and my backstop is a big hill. It just depends on how your land is configured. FWIW, everyone there shoots guns on their land. On any given Saturday, you can hear at least one, if not multiple guns being fired off in the distance. It's sort of like when one dog starts barking, all the dogs feel the need to bark. A gun being fired just reminds me - "Oh, I could be doing some target practice!". As for neighbors - regular gun shots being fired by all the property owners keeps anti-gunners far far away!!! Scares them back to Asheville NC where folks paint pictures instead of shooting guns.

[DA/SA Fan]

Yeah. I kinda figured that 20 acres would be doable. A friend of mine used to have a 20 acre farm in PA where we shot everything from hand guns to M-14's. But that was 40 years ago! Just wanted to check if "rural" had changed much before I started looking for something that might or might not be possible.

[1-DAB]

in theory, i could shoot on parts of my land. county ordinance restricts firing a gun within 150 yards of an occupied dwelling (house) without permission of the other landowner. nearest house is 142 yards from my front door per Google Earth. i still feel safer driving an hour to an established outdoor range with plenty of space down range.

[BigMikey76]

My mom and step-dad live on 7.5 acres, and we shoot there all the time. The property slopes, pretty drastically in some places, so we just make sure we are shooting into the side of the steepest hill. As long as there is a sufficient backstop and the local LEOs and neighbors are OK with it, there should be no problem.

[Flapjack23]

My ex-in-laws built a range on their 20 acres. I have shot there many many times. When they dug a pond they used some of the dirt to build a pretty sizeable hill to shoot into. They have never (to my knowledge) recieved a complaint and never had an issue with the dirt backstop. I have shot a max of 175 yards with my .300 WM and many different pistols at much closer distances.

[2ndsojourn]

My brother lives on 3 acres out in farm country about 40 miles west of Philadelphia. About 20 yards from his side porch is an embankment up to over 100 acres of tilled farmland. We shoot right off his covered porch into the embankment. Hearing distant gunshots out there is quite common. Like said above, it depends on the topography of your property.

[Deja vu]

I shoot all the time on my land. I have about 60 Acres. But my land backs up to BLM land. There is a very large hill about 1/2 a mile away that you would have to be trying to shoot over to clear it.

I dont have a berm, just the Hill (what you down south call a mountain) before me my father shot here. I still have yet to see another human any where near where we shoot other than in a vehicle driving by.

I also shoot at my house but only while hunting. I dont like to scare the deer away.

p.s. closest neighbors are a few miles away.

[BigMikey76]

I also shoot at my house but only while hunting

What caliber do you use to hunt a house?

[Skans]

What caliber do you use to hunt a house?

Why, .50BMG of course! It'll blow the roof clean off of a house.