Home on the range

I used to have a shooting range right across the street from my house. Very convenient and safe too. That is until a developer put in a road and sold house lots. A house was built directly behind my shooting range. It was a fair ways off, but in the interest of safety the range was discontinued.

Dad had a hunting camp off in the woods with a nice little range. Too bad he sold the camp when he moved to Florida. So much for that.

For a while I used to shoot about a mile down the road in an abandoned wood yard. The land company allowed people to shoot there. That is until the area was turned into ATV parking.

Local clubs manage shooting ranges, but they charge money. There are some old sand pits where free shooting is allowed, so that's been an option for me.

However, a buddy of mine of who lives in Maine found a range roughly halfway between his place and mine in New Hampshire. It's a free private range that's open to the public. Sunday I drove on over to meet him at the range for some shooting. I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoy target shooting.

Later some other folks joined us at the range. It's always nice to look at other people's guns and to show off one's own. One thing that's changed is that now I have people compliment me on my ammunition. Years ago I stocked up as I suspected prices to go up in the future. It's now the future. There's some types of ammunition that are still very hard to get -at any price.

Sadly, when we got the range it was a mess. There were old broken target stands and piles of junk all over the place. Four large trash barrels were available for trash, but hadn't been used. Those of us at the range that day pitched in and cleaned it up. It only takes a few thoughtless people to ruin a good thing for everyone else. Nice free shooting ranges are hard to come by. I'd hate to see this one closed to the public.

-Sixbears