A pitch about outdoor ranges and clean-up

U

USNRet93

New member
Just a general rant...we are lucky enough to have 2 uncontrolled, outdoor ranges here around the people's republic of Boulder. One, Boulder county, in Roosevelt National Forest, above Lyons, is tremendous..about 6-7 'stations', very safe, great place to shoot BUT..I went up there yesterday to shoot my new Ruger 1022(great rifle, BTW..got the takedown/stainless..great fun)..but the first 'station was TRASHED...empty beer can cardboard cases, ton of empty beer cans(shoot and drink-bad, another thread)..trash everywhere..yup, I shot and always take some garbage bags, picked this crap up.

NOT saying I am the model citizen but these ranges could be closed in a heatrbeat if the Forest Service decides they are trashed..happened north of Boulder, in Left hand Canyon so......if you are lucky to have an uncontrolled range near you, that is self policing, safety and trash wise..be safe and pick yer trash up(and don't drink and shoot-bad, IMHO, also illegal, yes?)..

Rant off.....
 
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Our town owns a range, just outside the city limits. Same thing, people trash it up and do stupid. People have been shooting over the berm, and probably some are ricochets. City decided to close the range due to the liability. do not blame them. They are talking about reopening it at limited times and with range officers, of course, then it will cost to shoot there.

People(as a collective) are stupid.

David
 
I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about drink and shoot or who is leaving trash. Beer cans kept showing up at one of our local public ranges and someone put up a deer camera to get it sorted. Turns out teenagers were going to the range at night to drink and leaving trash everywhere on Friday nights.

On Saturday morning shooters would roll in and see the beer cans and take advantage of free instant feedback targets. Several calls to the park rangers remedied that.

IF legal I would do the same thing there.
 
Trade-Offs

Just a general rant...
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I share your feelings and it's a rant that goes no where. I just came from one such range and the trash sure takes some of the fun, out of it. I also belong to two private ranges and you have to pick the right time as it get pretty crowded.
My public rang in question will get closed, next year and turned into a private range. …… :rolleyes:

Be Safe !!!
 
MTT TL said:
I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about drink and shoot or who is leaving trash. Beer cans kept showing up at one of our local public ranges and someone put up a deer camera to get it sorted. Turns out teenagers were going to the range at night to drink and leaving trash everywhere on Friday nights.

On Saturday morning shooters would roll in and see the beer cans and take advantage of free instant feedback targets. Several calls to the park rangers remedied that.

IF legal I would do the same thing there.
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A lot of the empty cans were painted orange with a blown apart paint can...plus, as remote as this range is...about 30 miles from anywhere, really doubt it was kids doin’ a ‘woodsy’.
 
You should see some of the National Forests (recreational shooting is allowed), it’s really shameful. I’ve attempted to clean some of these sites but there’s only so much trash you can fit in a Jeep.
 
Round here: You forgot to throw in about signs being shot up. That range looks like the city dump. Some of the supports for the range baffles have also been shot up on the pistol range.
 
Shucks people,,,
I belong to a private members only range/club,,,
We can't even get our own members to police their own targets/trash.

And we have a big dumpster only 100 feet from the dang firing line.

Aarond

.
 
I'm pretty sure that the first guys that landed on the moon found empty soda bottles and beer cans. I don't think there's a place left in the universe that's devoid of mans trash.

I've been to some remote places in this country, and I've found garbage in every one of them.
 
CD1 said:
I'm pretty sure that the first guys that landed on the moon found empty soda bottles and beer cans. I don't think there's a place left in the universe that's devoid of mans trash.

I've been to some remote places in this country, and I've found garbage in every one of them.
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No doubt and they(the trash makers)are the first to scream, whine and kick their feet when the range is closed..

I know this isn't a 'bump stock' thread but about a week ago a guy was blasting away with a bump stock...it would be easy for a Ranger to not only arrest the guy, seize all his guns but also close the range..stupid games=stupid prizes.
 
USNRet93 said:
A lot of the empty cans were painted orange with a blown apart paint can...plus, as remote as this range is...about 30 miles from anywhere, really doubt it was kids doin’ a ‘woodsy’.
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You might be surprised.

The town I live in used to be rural, a farming community. That was 50 or 60 years ago, when I was a child and my parents evicted the cows from one of my grandfather's fields to build a house. The town is now definitely a suburb. Directly across the street from me is about 300 acres of town-owned open space that includes three open fields that used to be used for corn production. The town now leases the fields to a local guy who cuts them once or twice a year for the hay.

One night a couple of years ago I was working in my basement and I heard loud music. I went upstairs, opened the front door, and the music seemed to be coming from across the street. There are two fields across there, one fronting on the road and a larger one behind the first one, with a line of trees separating them. It's also slightly uphill, so you can't see anything in the back field from the street.

As I was watching, a car came along, slowed down, did a u-turn in the neighbor's driveway, then drove up the woods road that leads to the rear field. A few minutes later, along came another car, and then another. There aren't supposed to be any vehicles in those fields, and the guy who leases them is the nephew of one of my high school track team mates, so I called the cops, they came, and they kicked everybody out.

The next weekend, I heard music again. Same thing. There must have been twenty or thirty cars back there, and as many as a hundred kids. I called the cops, the cops came. This time, instead of just asking people to leave, they made arrests, and they called wreckers and had some of the vehicles impounded. Most of the kids didn't come from my town; they came from two or three towns a half hour away, and they traveled to my town (and my street) because they thought the location was remote enough that nobody would see them. And, if they hadn't been so loud, they would have been right.

And they left a mess. They had a huge fire ring back there -- right next to the woods. The field was littered with beer cans, cardboard cases from beer containers, bottles, and broken bottles. I spent an afternoon up there during the week and filled up two or three 33-gallon trash bags with their discards.

The town has now erected a gate, with a lock, at the road that gives access to the fields.
 
Shucks people,,,
I belong to a private members only range/club,,,
We can't even get our own members to police their own targets/trash.

And we have a big dumpster only 100 feet from the dang firing line.
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Yep.
I buy a yearly membership for the local range.
Locked, gated, not open to the public.

Constant trash, destruction, and abuse of the facilities.

Among other examples...
Last year, someone took it upon themselves to cut down six of the eight supports for the roof over one of the firing positions ... with 12 ga slugs. It happened on a Saturday (when there are always competitions going on at other parts of this small range 'complex'!), with at least 40-60 rounds being fired to get the job done, and no one had any information about it, or any clue who might have done it.
:rolleyes:

Also last year...
New target stands were erected on several of the ranges. Within six weeks, three of them had been intentionally (or ignorantly) cut down by a person, or persons, shooting groups into the uprights about 12" above the ground.

Just a few weeks ago...
Someone dragged a freshly-pumped Port-a-John onto the 50 yard range and ventilated it.

No respect.
 
Some of the messes I’ve seen are truly sad.

It’s one of those things that give gun owners a bad image. If gun owners haven’t realized by now that we have an image problem, I feel that we never will.

I’m actually confused as to why recreational shooting is still allowed on public land because of the huge messes left by shooters.

I’m appalled at road sign shooting as well, incredibly stupid and negligent.

If I was not a gun owner I’d want guns banned just because of the filth and carelessness of what I’ve encountered in the forest and the shooting of signs... that’s without even considering gun violence.
We have an image problem, and we aren’t attempting any improvements... because “Molon Labe” I guess,
 
Undisciplined slob shooters are ruining unsupervised firing ranges all over the country.

Many years ago i built a very nice firing range on property we owned at the time. Like a trusting blissninnie i allowed folks to shoot there unsupervised. Soon there was trash and beer cans all over the place despite nearby trash containers.

Then a neighbors cow was killed while local law enforcement was using the range; no one saw anything.

i paid for the cow, picked up the trash and beer cans, destroyed the range with a dozer and changed the lock on the gate. People called, whining about having "no place to shoot". You would have thought i had violated their basic civil rights.
 
Yes, it was noted that after Glen Beck's Rally for America a few years ago they left the Mall in D.C. spotless while the opposition made a mess.
And some of us complain about the homeless, etc....
 
Stories like this are just plain disheartening/discouraging.

Reminds me of the old joke that scientists have discovered the missing link between primitive man and civilized man, it's us.
 
Uncontrolled public ranges are scary. I went to one owned by the Iowa DNR a couple years ago just for the fun of it. I was messy, but not overly so. What got me was shortly after I got there, someone yelled for a safe line to change targets. Ok, now's my chance to set out my target. I turned to walk back to the line, and at least 50% of the people at the benches were handling their rifles. Next target change, same thing, but this time there was a guy dry firing a M1911 about two benches right of me. Needless to say, I snapped. I mean really snapped. My emotions over ruled rational thought. I packed up my gear and got outa Dodge. Never again.
 
Exact situation at a range I shoot at south of you near Deckers USNRet93. Great place that is apparently used by similar, all about me, lazy, self serving people.
 
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