Mikey,
Drop me an Email at guy.meredith@astragate.com when you are in the area if you want directions to any of the ranges.
I have visited or shot at the ranges in San Leandro, Richmond, Milpitas, Castro Valley, Baypoint/Concord and Livermore. All except Richmond are within about 25 miles of my home in San Ramon (east of Oakland).
I am a member if USI/Diablo Rod and Gun club/Diablo Action Pistol Club at the Baypoint/Concord location and a member at Chabot in Castro Valley where I work one day a month as Range Safety Officer.
The San Leandro range is the least interesting, nestled between auto junk yards.
Livermore has an okay shotgun facility, but rifle and pistol seem to be very low on the priority with minimal facilities.
Richmond has a nice and safely built action pistol range and hosts some good shooters. They sponser some of the more challenging matches and the fun Bay Bridge Charity Classic for Toys for Tots (third largest donor in the Bay Area last year behind two major corporations). However their public target range is even less impressive than San Leandro. Okay club house with kitchen and cocktail lounge.
Milpitas is Target Masters, an indoor range and the only one with rental handguns. They also sell guns and did have an amazing selection and price until a recent management change. Still some of the best prices around.
(The store that Duncan mentions is Traders. Has an unwarrented reputation as their prices are outrageous and make me uncomfortable with the large number of gang bangers that hang around.)
Chabot in Castro Valley is by far one of the most beautiful in terms of location, situated in a clearing in an euctalyptus forest in the park. They have about 90 seats in the public rifle and pistol ranges which go from 7 yards to 100 yards. They have two special purpose ranges used for PPC, IPSC style action pistol, IDPA, junior rifle, plinking, black powder, cowboy, International, Bullseye, etc. Also shotgun ranges. The 200 yard range is for club member use only. Check
http://www.chabotgunclub.com/ for schedules.
The only drawback to the Chabot ranges for IPSC/IDPA is that the ranges are not divided into bays, so the squads need to coordinate firing periods and target check periods. I saw the IDPA people breaking 180, which does not suit me.
The USI range at Baypoint/Concord hosts three clubs from the area. They have a clubhouse second only to Richmond (no cocktails), a large shotgun facility, a public rifle/pistol range almost as large as Chabot and a action pistol range with 5 bays.
The IPSC style action pistol here is run by the Diablo Action Pistol club and by far allows for more action pistol time than the others. Not sure about winter schedule, but Thursday nights, 1st and 3rd Saturdays are open for practice if an RO is available the rest of the year. Practice match is the second Sunday and the monthly match is the fourth Saturday.