Shooting range build thread

Not sure where to post this, but I guess a shooting range is an accessory (although a big one). Mods, please move if this fits better somewhere else.

I have a cabin on 40 acres a few minutes from my house. It is about 5 miles from the Canadian border. Most of the land around me is timber, state or uninhabited private land. The land is on a hill side and steep in most spots (4wd needed year round). Near the cabin is a ravine that is exactly 105 yards long. You would have to shoot your rifle like you were trying to take down an airliner in order for a stray bullet to get out of there. While it is too short for any long range shooting, 100 yards is great for shotguns, pistols, rimfire and sighting in your hunting rifle. My neighbor has multiple fields where we can get over 1,000 yards, but it would be nice to have my own dedicated spot for most of the shooting that I do. Right now you need snow shoes to get to it, but this spring and summer I want to get it all set up.

My question is, how should I set it up? My initial thought is a covered shooting bench on the far end, so it would be 100 yards from the rifle to the target at the base of the mountain. What about mid range steel targets for rimfire and pistol? Or what about shotgun stations? I'd like to make it easy to chronograph at different distances as well. Any ideas from the group? What have you guys found to be useful and handy? If you could set up your own 100 yard range, how would you do it?

I keep mine simple. I drove in a stake, used a 100 ft fiberglass tape reel to measure 300 ft and put in another stake. ;-)

When I want to shoot I put a folding camp table and rests in my lawn tractor wagon and sit on a 5 gallon pail to shoot.

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Once a year I bush-hog the lane to keep the saplings and pricker-brush from growing up. I got fancy and bought a Caldwell Ultimate Target Stand - which works very well.


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Someday I may get fancy and make a treated lumber bench.

I wouldn't be in any big hurry to build a permanent range set up. Reason being that once you do, your sorta locked in with something you might later wish were different. A good time to shoot is when the wether is too bad to do anything else, so that means a roof.
It also means that things can get wet while your trying to get and keep everything under the roof, which could mean you don't do it.
We have 2 separate ranges at our camp, plus the mountain sides across the valley to shoot at.
We have a very good permanent bench on a concrete pad about 10' square within 50' of the camp door for our 100 yd range.
The whole setup is wrong, and wasent well thought out. The bench should have been closer, just outside the door and the porch roof extended to cover it. Also the permanent target frame is slightly uphill from the bench, enough so that using a chronagraph is very difficult. We do all our loading and load testing at the camp, so loading a few and just walking out the door to shoot them is a plus.
Mind you we do have a porch that covers the whole front and part of both sides of the camp, and much shooting has been done from that over the years.
But it could have been made much better as for the 100 yd range portion of it.
Hunters arriving when its raining, poses another problem as for checking their zero.
As for the long range shooting, so long as you can see the area you want to shoot at, you can often make it happen.
We own 17 acres, some of which is on the opposite side of a road which is downhill from the camp. We have no doubt cut at least 50 of (our own trees) along the opposite side of the road for several hundred feet in order to be able to shoot at rocks and other things on the sidehill across the wide valley, and it requires periotic maintenance to keep it. Same goes for many of the other locations we hunt/shoot from.
So again, take your time and evaluate all the possible options.

All good thoughts. To get to my future range, you either have to walk or have something with a really short wheelbase such as a Jeep, or a decent lift, to keep from getting high centered. Also, lockers help. You can get out without lockers, but you have to get a run at it. This is one reason I want a fairly permanent set up. Getting things in and out of there is a bit of a pain. I'd love to just drive down there in the Jeep and start shooting.

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Originally Posted by Frontier Gear

All good thoughts. To get to my future range, you either have to walk or have something with a really short wheelbase such as a Jeep, or a decent lift, to keep from getting high centered. Also, lockers help. You can get out without lockers, but you have to get a run at it. This is one reason I want a fairly permanent set up. Getting things in and out of there is a bit of a pain. I'd love to just drive down there in the Jeep and start shooting.

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Another good reason to give more thought to it.
I drove my Jeep Rubicon back to Florida this fall after having it in the garage at the PA camp for ten years.
It now belongs to a new owner.
I don't need it to shoot, and I don't need it to hunt in the places im now in condition to get to.

First and foremost would be a very heavy, very stable bench as far back as possible. Targets can be set up at any distance you wish and don't need the heft of the bench. Build target stands high enough that any bullet passing through strikes a backstop and doesn't skip off the ground. You'd probably be amazed how high and quickly a ricochet can go and jump over a monstrous backstop.
Good luck

Might consider a "portable" or temporary shooting bench. I made one with a Ryobi miter saw stand from HD for $100, and 2 pieces of 2'x4' 3/4" plywood. The stand comes with quick detach brackets so it breaks down quick & easy. Building a covered shooting spot sounds nice but if you have trouble getting to the spot with a light load, how long will it take to get the building materials out to the site for construction. Might be better off seeing if your neighbor is willing to allow you to do something on his property.

I've been using a portable table to date. My house and barn/shop are about 5 miles from the range, so I can do most of the work at home and then haul the stuff up in the trailer behind the Jeep. I have a little generator for working on site. You are right about ricochets. That is always something to keep in mind. This back stop is about 280 feet high and the closest house (besides my cabin) is about 1/2 mile away. So it's pretty safe, but that is always something to be aware of.

Getting there is half the fun. I just don't want to set up the table and targets every time.