Buying Land/Building a Range

West/South-West Rutherford County has high "horse property" prices. Lake Lure proper has very high "near a lake retirement home" prices. N-NE-E Rutherford County still has some larger plots of land and non-TIEC prices. I'd look there for property.

We bought 125 acres in southern Rutherford Co last year for under $500k total cash with a 10 day close. We have our current 106 acre established horse farm (hay fields, fenced pastures, several turnouts, 19 stall barn, lighted riding arena with jumps, paved 1/4 mile driveway, mid-'70s home, 1 mile of river and road frontage) near the TIEC-owned golf course listed for this side of two million. The larger 100 acre raw tracts are going listed $600k up in TIEC affected zone.

@amnesia @wvsig Us RoCo guys need to hit up the Tryon Gun Club one day. I've got a gift card I need to spend. lol.
CHRIS
 
West/South-West Rutherford County has high "horse property" prices. Lake Lure proper has very high "near a lake retirement home" prices. N-NE-E Rutherford County still has some larger plots of land and non-TIEC prices. I'd look there for property.

We bought 125 acres in southern Rutherford Co last year for under $500k total cash with a 10 day close. We have our current 106 acre established horse farm (hay fields, fenced pastures, several turnouts, 19 stall barn, lighted riding arena with jumps, paved 1/4 mile driveway, mid-'70s home, 1 mile of river and road frontage) near the TIEC-owned golf course listed for this side of two million. The larger 100 acre raw tracts are going listed $600k up in TIEC affected zone.

@amnesia @wvsig Us RoCo guys need to hit up the Tryon Gun Club one day. I've got a gift card I need to spend. lol.
CHRIS

So that is your property across from Cleghorn? LOL
 
We found 2 lots that we are interested in seeing. Both are 200+ acres in the $650-$700k price range.

This one is in Polkville in Rutherford County. I have not researched the noise ordinance for Rutherford County.
https://m.landwatch.com/details?id=333321037

This one is in Millers Creek in Wilkes County. I’m no lawyer but the county noise ordinance makes it seem safe for shooting. Definitely would still want to make sure it wouldn’t be a nuisance to the neighbors though.
https://m.landwatch.com/details?id=332573870

Wilkes Co. Noise Ordinance (Pg. 4 talks about firearms)
https://www.wilkescounty.net/DocumentCenter/View/132/Wilkes-Noise-Ordinance-PDF?bidId=

The Noise Ordinance references the Sport Shooting Range Act of 1997. Here is the link for that.
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByArticle/Chapter_14/Article_53C.html

Generally going north of Charlotte is more appealing to me. We have family in Conover, Sherrill’s Ford and Winston-Salem. I grew up fishing in an around the Sparta, NC area. Family has 50+/- acres in Dugspur, VA as well as a cabin in West Jefferson. Also, I graduated from App St. so being close to Boone is a plus.

The benefit of going West is being close to Asheville and closer to the incredible fly fishing in the far western part of the state.
 
My wife and I have been looking to acquire some land within a 1-2 hour drive of Charlotte. Her motivation is to one day own horses and be able to ride them around the property. Mine is to have somewhere to hunt and play with all my toys...guns, atvs, drones etc. I have a lot of questions and I'm hoping some of the older dogs in here can embark some wisdom on this young grasshoppa.

Couple of things to take into consideration:

1. If we decide to go North or West and >1.5-2 hours out, that will land us in Alleghany (North) or Rutherford (West) county, which will be more of a hilly/mountainous terrain...which I'd actually prefer. Any land <1.5 hours (excluding the Brushy Mts and South Mountain) in those directions, as well as any land East or South is going to be primarily flat. Which ultimately I'm OK with too, but I'd miss those cooler mountain temps.

2. How many acres is enough? My mindset is I would rather go further out for more acreage. My wife is the opposite, she'd rather stay closer for less acreage. I've set the floor at 50 acres, so she knows nothing less than that will do. My preference however is to be between 100-150 and the more the better. Also to answer this question, you need to know #3....

3. Types of shooting; I want to be able to safely set up a range for pistol and rifle move-and-shoot/defensive shooting as well as have a rifle range for my long gun. In a perfect world, I'd have enough land with the right topography, line of sight and backstop to shoot 1,000 yards. I honestly don't know how realistic that is, so, I'd just like to get a general idea of roughly how many acres = x distance of a shot. I know that's going to be really tough because the plot, topography and surroundings are always going to be different.

4. Lastly, safety is my primary concern. That said, these are all the questions I have related to the shooting range itself:

-What would be a sufficient berm for shooting up to .308 and .45 auto ball ammunition? Is it worth it to create a 4 wall, completely enclosed berm so that I can shoot in all directions? What type of material is recommended for creating a berm? I've seen everything from fill dirt, railroad ties, old tires as well as others and all kinds of combinations of back stops. Height/Width/Depth?

-Types of targets? I love the ringing of steel, but how closely can you safely shoot steel? Am I better to have multiple types...paper, cardboard and steel?

-I'd like to have some interactive targets on my range. Are there any automated systems out there that can move targets? I've seen ones like these that are manually controlled by another person, and I have also seen offerings from this company https://www.actiontarget.com/ that look like they are what I would want, but I'm sure are expensive and it looks like a lot of their moving target offerings are for limited to LE/Mil only.


This should be enough info to get the conversation started.


If you’re in the mountains, you don’t really need a berm. I shoot only pistol against the back of a mountain so I don’t use one. If I built a berm, it would need several truckloads of topsoil, gravel, and old car tires in the periphery and back. I’d want to minimize chances of ricochet or passage through.

If you’re looking for a 1000 yard range, you will need clear demarcation that someone can be going into the line of Fire.

I don’t know how realistic it is to do so. You have to check what the adjacent zones are designated. If there is residential it could harm your prospects.

I have also had the prospect of buying land. I’d say at least 100 acres.

Realistically, though, I’d like something within an hour. Otherwise, what’s really the point? How often would you use it, apart from hunting. Anything an hour and a half is 3 hours out of your day, not counting setup, shooting, take down. Setup can take 20 minutes, honestly and same for takedown, unless you left stuff out there. But putting targets up, setting up a bench takes me a minimum of 15 minutes with my personal backyard range. So at the minimum you’re out 3 hours and 30 minutes not counting shooting.

You could have a locked structure, a UTV out there to minimize transport, but it takes time to still bring it back there.

I belong to a club with just a 250-300 yard range.

It’s a 26 minute drive, 20 minute setup, 20 minute takedown, not including talking if someone is out there. I have spent 8 hours out there with 10 guns. With covid, I don’t feel like interacting with anyone.

I’ve just been shooting in my backyard. It takes me 10-15 minutes to set up a rifle. It only takes 5-10 minutes if I am shooting a pistol since all I have to do is load magazines and shoot at my target gallery that sits outside.




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West/South-West Rutherford County has high "horse property" prices. Lake Lure proper has very high "near a lake retirement home" prices. N-NE-E Rutherford County still has some larger plots of land and non-TIEC prices. I'd look there for property.

We bought 125 acres in southern Rutherford Co last year for under $500k total cash with a 10 day close. We have our current 106 acre established horse farm (hay fields, fenced pastures, several turnouts, 19 stall barn, lighted riding arena with jumps, paved 1/4 mile driveway, mid-'70s home, 1 mile of river and road frontage) near the TIEC-owned golf course listed for this side of two million. The larger 100 acre raw tracts are going listed $600k up in TIEC affected zone.

@amnesia @wvsig Us RoCo guys need to hit up the Tryon Gun Club one day. I've got a gift card I need to spend. lol.
CHRIS

We are on our way to look at this as I type this. Thoughts? https://m.landwatch.com/north-carolina/rutherford-county/land-for-sale/?id=337227930

Seems like this would be in the TIEC affected area? Also may drive by that Polkville property from an earlier post which is East RoCo.
 
Nice area on Union Road. The whole county is pretty "country" but that is still out of the three main cities. The houses to the east of it are built on the backside and near the hospital. Not sure if that is city limits or not?

Polkville is far far away on the TIEC scale. 20+ minute drives to town for Walmart trips. That's where I wanted to go but it would have been a long drive to drop my son off at school every morning. Very country up there. We bought 125 acres on the south side of the county to build our retirement home in the near future. The larger plots of land aren't as plentiful as before.

CHRIS
 
Nice area on Union Road. The whole county is pretty "country" but that is still out of the three main cities. The houses to the east of it are built on the backside and near the hospital. Not sure if that is city limits or not?

Polkville is far far away on the TIEC scale. 20+ minute drives to town for Walmart trips. That's where I wanted to go but it would have been a long drive to drop my son off at school every morning. Very country up there. We bought 125 acres on the south side of the county to build our retirement home in the near future. The larger plots of land aren't as plentiful as before.

CHRIS

Just drove the clearing on it. Nice field, but through the woods is a subdivision. Not crazy about that. Here is a snapshot of Google earth.

Headed down to this TIEC to see what all the hype is about.
 

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Nice area on Union Road. The whole county is pretty "country" but that is still out of the three main cities. The houses to the east of it are built on the backside and near the hospital. Not sure if that is city limits or not?

Polkville is far far away on the TIEC scale. 20+ minute drives to town for Walmart trips. That's where I wanted to go but it would have been a long drive to drop my son off at school every morning. Very country up there. We bought 125 acres on the south side of the county to build our retirement home in the near future. The larger plots of land aren't as plentiful as before.

CHRIS
Is that your property right next to the highway with the massive sign that says 156 acres for sale?
 
Cops / Sheriffs will come anyhow regardless. It's happened twice to me already. Last time they looked at the range and said "nice setup, carry on" then proceeded to talk guns with us for a half hour. It's just part and parcel that someone somewhere will complain

for sure. Used to have land is hot on. First time I pulled out the 12ga I got cops called on me, ha.

I started to leave a radio at my front door so if they came again and I didn’t see them they could contact me without me unknowingly wielding loaded weapons near police.
 
Is that your property right next to the highway with the massive sign that says 156 acres for sale?
Not ours. It’s called the buffalo farm around here. I think the guy was asking $9 mil a while back. He wants the equestrian center to buy it for expansion later on. My brother in law has a couple hundred acres directly behind the buffalo farm. He’s keeping it as forestry land indefinitely. Tax value of land in that area is ridiculous!

CHRIS
 
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