I also live in upper upper Montgomery County... right on the border of Howard and Frederick. My good friend and I shoot .22 and .270 at targets... but the catch is that the land behind his house is 700-odd acres that belond to his great-aunt. So we're more or less in the clear.
However, I was told this weekend by a local gun store employee that Montgomery County forbids firing of calibers larger than .240 except when hunting or at regulated target facilities (Isaak Walton League and the like). No idea at all if this is true.
A big part of the problem is that they're developing like crazy up here, and what was once tons and tons of uninterrupted land is now encroached by wealthy gun-hating citizens who love nothing more than to call the police every ten minutes if they hear a distant pop in the woods.
Once a group of us came back from target shooting with a .22 and a 410 shotgun, to find a cop swinging into the driveway. He had received a complaint from someone about the noise ("like fireworks" was the exact quote), and warned us to keep it 200 yards from any structure. Not a problem, there...
Since we're deep in the woods we've generally not worried, but lately we even had one guy venture down into the woods on a small county trail that threads it's way through the acreage... and although he wasn't exactly complaining, he made it known he wasn't jumping for joy either. He tried a lot of prodding questions ("I thought this land belonged to....?" and "Do you guys have targets set up, or ....?) but I think he was more worried that we'd be throwing strays towards his neighborhood than anything else. Unfortunately, he didn't know the laws either.
I've looked all over the net, but I still can't find any info regarding stuff like this. If you own the land, it's sizeable, and it's "an informal target shoot" as the law reads, it looks ok...? Don't hold me to it...
