MasterOfDisaster
Active Member
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.
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.