As we move into winter – it really will come sooner than we want it to – the range is in very good shape. Over the summer we made some really nice improvements by cleaning up brush, keeping the ditch cleared off and just in the last month or so finishing some dirt moving work on the High Power and Pistol Bay ranges.
As we move into winter there a few things we need to keep in mind to keep the range as nice as it is now:
Loose ammunition and cases: Housekeeping under the covered firing points has improved greatly over the last year or so. We don’t see the piles of .22 rimfire cases like we once did and folks have really improved in picking up steel cases that can’t be reloaded. Just a reminder – police up your brass (or steel) and if you don’t want it, put it in one of the buckets marked “BRASS”. The brass mice seem to get rid of it.
And, before you leave – take one last look around. We have found several live rounds laying around the porch lately; several .22 rimfires, some .223 that look like they got mischambered and thrown out and some dinged up .308 rounds. Leaving live rounds laying around isn’t a good idea- there is no telling where they might end up and cause mischief.
Sandbags: We try to keep a number of sandbags on the covered firing points for folks to use. But, we are seeing an issue with how people use them. We get the bags free from the Allen County Highway Department – we just have to fill them with sand and lug them out to the range. But, since they are free – they’re not a really high quality bag – they are intended to be biodegradable.
Folks tend to misuse them two ways. If you support a rifle with a quad rail on the bag, the notches on the bottom of the rail tear the bag open and all the stuffing spills out. It ruins the bag, makes a mess on the bench and gets grit in your rifle. The other misuse is that shooters rest the muzzle of the rifle on the bag and the muzzle blast tears the bag or burns a hole in the fabric. To help eliminate these problems, we have put several carpet squares on the bench up next to the house. If you want to rest a quad rail or muzzle on a sandbag, put a carpet square under the rifle – please.
One last request. When you finish with a bag, put it back up on a bench. If you leave it on the deck, it gets wet, freezes and becomes either a soggy sack of wet sand or an ice block; neither is a good place to rest a gun.
Trash: This is a strange request. We have trash cans at both covered firing points with liners in them. There is no trash pickup service at the range – trash gets hauled off by people who notice that the cans are full or overflowing. The request – use the cans as little as possible. The greatest volume of trash stuffed in the cans is shot-up targets and target backing cardboard and plastic. If you bring out targets, faces or backers and shoot them up – please take them back home to your trash.
Yeah, some trash will accumulate. When it does, there are new trash can liners inside the door to the clubhouse, just under the light switch. Feel free to pull the full liner out of the can, put in a fresh liner and take the full liner home to your trash.
THANK YOU FOR KEEPING OUR RANGE SO NICE!