Indoor Range in Mayo Galway or nearby

rrpc

Gunter Mauser wrote: »

Will this become an ethical Question for the Green party and its
leader the minister?

Not really, because the Greens don't want you shooting deer at all, at all

btw Gunter Mauser, could you please make sure when you're quoting someone that you enclose the quoted bit with quoted bit [/quote]' so that we can see what you're saying and not mixing it up with the other person.

If you have two many 's or 's as well you get the same effect. One of each is plenty.

Please don't take this up wrong, I'm only trying to be helpful.

rrpc

Oldtree wrote: »

Ask a simple question...........:eek:

This clearly demands further thought. Should a 25 yard indoor range be built, maby along the lines of 5 to a detail, in south mayo, would there be enough interest to make it commercially viable (not necessarly profit making, just sustainable) from surrounding counties?

Running costs are usually pretty small. We run an electricity meter in Rathdrum so that we don't have huge bills and everyone is reponsible for the electricity they use.

We have to pay rates to the council which is a pretty big bill, and because we own a building there's public liability and fire insurance, but we've managed in some of the leaner years with only seven or eight members.

The two biggest expenditures in recent years have been the electronic targets and getting the range authorisation from the Gardai. Otherwise the place runs for under €3,000 a year.

Would this not descend into a question of the license?

For example, if I claim that I was 'zeroing' my FWB, then I am in the **** for applying for a licence under false pretences as I can only use the thing for target shooting, however if I was 'zeroing' my deer shooting rifle, which I applied for hunting reasons, than would I be somewhat in the clear as I was following the conditions of my license?

It wasn't me!

Deleted User wrote: »

Would this not descend into a question of the license?

For example, if I claim that I was 'zeroing' my FWB, then I am in the **** for applying for a licence under false pretences as I can only use the thing for target shooting, however if I was 'zeroing' my deer shooting rifle, which I applied for hunting reasons, than would I be somewhat in the clear as I was following the conditions of my license?

I may be entirely wrong, but I don't recall there being a target shooting section box to tick on the form. As far as I can remember, the only related box is related to killing protected animals, so vermin are outside the remit of that box. As a result, it seems to be that as long as I have the express permission of the landowner, it's perfectly fine to shoot vermin with a target rifle, so you could happily scope up the FWB and take it bunny busting if you wanted, without infringing the conditions of your licence. I might be wrong, and if so, someone tell be, because I have barbecued rabbit shaped plans for my Anschutz for the summer.

I've always had to talk with my local guards about what I wanted my guns for.

You must also prove that you are a member of a target shooting club to get a pistol. Now, it I was using my target rifle in a filed firing at a tin can, I must either be target shooting (and in breech of the new law) or in breech of my licence. However, if I am firing a hunting rifle used for deer shooting, with all appropriate paperwork on file at my local guarda station, then I am not target shooting and am zeroing...

Or have I gotten this wrong?

Sparks

The old Minister said that zeroing is not target shooting zara; but there's no legal definition of either. So you'd be done either way!

Oldtree

rrpc thats not a huge running cost! does the 3K include the rates, and fire and public liability insurance? how much is the authorisation?

can you give me the lowdown on the specs needed for a indoor range please?

Are there any grants (sporting or otherwise) to avail of to build one?

I find it hard to accept that it is ok to go hunting on lands and not be allowed to target practice on same lands.

rrpc

Oldtree wrote: »

rrpc thats not a huge running cost! does the 3K include the rates, and fire and public liability insurance? how much is the authorisation?

Yes. It covers all the things that we have to pay whether we shoot or not.

can you give me the lowdown on the specs needed for a indoor range please?

They're much the same as an outdoor No Danger Area range. The idea is to build it and spec it so that no round can leave the building. We had to put a baffle half way down ours and one vertical one at each side near the end, otherwise we would have had to steel plate the entire end wall, a good chunk of the wing walls and the ceiling!

It also depends on what calibre you'll be firing. Ours is for .22 standard velocity only, standing, kneeling and prone.

You'd have to give me plans of the building for me to properly work out the details. The height to the eaves would need to be known as well.

Are there any grants (sporting or otherwise) to avail of to build one?

Sports Capital Grants are available once a year. They'll only give you money if you already have the site. The general rule is you put up 30% they give you the rest. Next one will be around Feb 2009.

I find it hard to accept that it is ok to go hunting on lands and not be allowed to target practice on same lands.

Yes, it's not really fair and that's why it's important that both a definition of a range and target shooting are put into the act.

thehair

ladies and gentlemen i live in the west of ireland i got my .22 rinfire lisence
within two weeks
2 fao ask were are you going to shoot
ans outside my front door in the field across the road that great he said.
3 i do not own the field farmer said work away
4 i have full N.A.R.G.C. lisence
5 it is 300 yards long. 6 backdrop 30feet hight 100feet wide
6 if you think i am joking i will invite foxhunter243 to my house
foxhunder243 pm me and i will give you my home phone number
dinner is on me and then post a new thread no photo of were i shoot day and night and also any new moderater pm me for invite also bring
all the fullbore rifles and shoot all day nobody not even the fao will
come down there then you will know that i am no joking
i am waiting for p.m. steve

rrpc

thehair wrote: »

ladies and gentlemen i live in the west of ireland i got my .22 rinfire lisence
within two weeks
2 fao ask were are you going to shoot
ans outside my front door in the field across the road that great he said.
3 i do not own the field farmer said work away
4 i have full N.A.R.G.C. lisence
5 it is 300 yards long. 6 backdrop 30feet hight 100feet wide
6 if you think i am joking i will invite foxhunter243 to my house
foxhunder243 pm me and i will give you my home phone number
dinner is on me and then post a new thread no photo of were i shoot day and night and also any new moderater pm me for invite also bring
all the fullbore rifles and shoot all day nobody not even the fao will
come down there then you will know that i am no joking
i am waiting for p.m. steve

Steve, hate to burst your bubble there, but there are probably hundreds of people with exactly the same or even better setups than what you're talking about; Garda nods, winks and all

The question is whether it's legal or not, and with all due repect to the lads and ladies in blue, the law on firearms (as we well know here) is quite often a closed or at best a highly synopsised book to them.

So bang away, but the rest of us want a finite answer to this question and your setup is one of the many around the country that would like to hear the result.

thehair

rrpc wrote: »

Steve, hate to burst your bubble there, but there are probably hundreds of people with exactly the same or even better setups than what you're talking about; Garda nods, winks and all

The question is whether it's legal or not, and with all due repect to the lads and ladies in blue, the law on firearms (as we well know here) is quite often a closed or at best a highly synopsised book to them.

So bang away, but the rest of us want a finite answer to this question and your setup is one of the many around the country that would like to hear the result.

hi rrpc dont worry you did not burst me litter bubble;)
i am just open about were i shoot becaust there are people afraid
to shoot on land because of the law
the legal part of it . well a grey area again suprise suprise:) steve

Oldtree

thank you rrpc, will have a long think. The site is not a problem as we own a bit. I applied for my own planning for a house and did tech drawings and landscape drawings and got the permission.

can you describe more about the baffles please.

I would be keen to stick to .22

The hair, as with all thing you would not have insurance cover if you are not compliant with the law and if someone got hurt, they would take everything you have, as your own insurance would be invalid, so careful now.

rrpc

Oldtree, here's a diagram I prepared earlier that explains a baffle (hopefully).



The baffle closes off the safety angle for the shots that would otherwise not strike the butt stop. For an indoor range obviously it's the end wall that you don't want to miss and go out through the roof.

Side baffles are just the horizontal version and prevent you hitting the side walls and getting ricochets.

Oldtree

What is the exact degrees for safety angle, up, left, right and down?
Are the baffels steel?
Would a number of them staggered on the cieling/walls be sufficient for an indoor range? What about the floor?
I seem to remember a thick rubber sheet hanging in front of the steel backplate in the old range, with a trough beneath for the spent rounds. (and egg cartons on the walls to reduce sound!)
There was a ventilation system there too, and heating.
There was no seperation between detailees.

rrpc

Oldtree wrote: »

What is the exact degrees for safety angle, up, left, right and down?
Are the baffels steel?

For .22 rifle the safety angle is 7.05 degrees; in all directions. Essentially the horizontal angles only apply to the flank firing points (the ones at each end of the firing line). Again for .22 rifles the baffles are 3mm steel clad with 2" timber on 1" battens.

Would a number of them staggered on the cieling/walls be sufficient for an indoor range? What about the floor?

Placement is the key here. You can get away with one baffle on a 25 yard range if you put it in the right position. They can be vertical if they are 10m or more form the firing point, closer and they have to be angled at 25 degrees.

I seem to remember a thick rubber sheet hanging in front of the steel backplate in the old range, with a trough beneath for the spent rounds. (and egg cartons on the walls to reduce sound!)
There was a ventilation system there too, and heating.
There was no seperation between detailees.

The rubber is a backsplash curtain, the egg carton is a myth and doesn't really reduce sound. Ventilation should move 9 CuM of air a minute downrange and should be filtered to remove particulate.

Heating is optional

rrpc

Just one point to note here with regard to indoor ranges and the type of shooting you do. With target rifle at 25 yards, the 10 ring is 12.92mm in diameter. As an example, I was testing a newly developed bullet catcher system the other night and fired 120 shots at it. The catcher plate (the one that the bullets struck was 6mm steel at an angle of 30 degrees.

Another member had already fired about 120 shots, and my 120 were all 9.0 or better (100 were 9.5 or better) - that's an impact diameter of 17mm!

The mild steel 6mm plate pitted in the centre from the bullet strikes.

When the Garda ballistics section designed the range safety features, they insisted on 5mm steel on the back wall covered in 2" timber on 1" battens. Without any intermediate protection, we would have been through the timber, the 5mm steel and the concrete block wall (cavity block) within 6 months of re-opening. We placed 10mm steel plate in front of the timber and were through that 6 months ago. We then put telephone books in front of the steel and have had to change them twice since then.

Hence the bullet catcher prototype.

rrpc - the backstops in DURC have been set years ago and have not needed to be replaced.

You shoot through a plywood target holder (which does need to be replaced!) and into 1/4 inch angled steel (I think its 1/4). The bullet hits and slides down into the ground, there is minimal pitting on those plates.

Sandy22

rrpc wrote: »

For .22 rifle the safety angle is 7.05 degrees; in all directions. Essentially the horizontal angles only apply to the flank firing points (the ones at each end of the firing line). Again for .22 rifles the baffles are 3mm steel clad with 2" timber on 1" battens.

Do you by any chance have the corresponding parameters for fullbore, say for shooting conforming with the UK 4500j limit?

rrpc

Deleted User wrote: »

rrpc - the backstops in DURC have been set years ago and have not needed to be replaced.

You shoot through a plywood target holder (which does need to be replaced!) and into 1/4 inch angled steel (I think its 1/4). The bullet hits and slides down into the ground, there is minimal pitting on those plates.

That's what we used to have Zara, but remember that only 1/10th of the shots fired are hitting the same place and that depends on you clipping the target on in exactly the same place each time.

Our targets have over 7,000 rounds fired on each one, all within (roughly) 25mm diameter and the majority within 19mm diameter.

It's phenomenal the kind of damage that can create.

rrpc

Sandy22 wrote: »

Do you by any chance have the corresponding parameters for fullbore, say for shooting conforming with the UK 4500j limit?

Fullbore rifle angles in mils (AFAIK) are 40/40: vertical/horizontal.

That's single shot rifle/carbine

A mil is 17.778 degrees.

There is a further level specified in JSP403 for target shooting (supported) and that's 21.5 mils.

In general it's better to go for the larger angle to allow more flexibility in shooting.

Indoor is more complicated because you have Defence Zone, Backplate Zone and Bullet Catcher Zone.

The figures I quoted for indoors are extrapolated backwards fom the zone measurements which are in mils+mm.

IRLConor

Deleted User wrote: »

rrpc - the backstops in DURC have been set years ago and have not needed to be replaced.

You shoot through a plywood target holder (which does need to be replaced!) and into 1/4 inch angled steel (I think its 1/4). The bullet hits and slides down into the ground, there is minimal pitting on those plates.

Here's a rough cross section of the DURC backstop:



From left to right, the components are:

Plywood target holder.
Thick wooden boards.
Steel plate.
Foundations of Pearse Street.

rrpc: I'm surprised at how quick your steel is pitting. DURC's backstop has been there for quite a while (>8 years at least) and has only started showing signs of pitting over the last 6-12 months.

rrpc

IRLConor wrote: »

Here's a rough cross section of the DURC backstop:

rrpc: I'm surprised at how quick your steel is pitting. DURC's backstop has been there for quite a while (>8 years at least) and has only started showing signs of pitting over the last 6-12 months.

Don't be. As I said, we used to have the same system as yourselves. It was in place for 40 years, but the Gardai came along and changed it for a much 'safer' system.

But do the sums Conor, we're putting 10 times the amount of rounds at the same spot as you are, except that the spot is a smaller diameter. If you take the last year or so and take one target, it's received 7000 shots where yours may have got only 700 (on an individual diagram). There's a big difference there and it could be the equivalent of 10 years worth.

Now does it stack up?

fat-tony

IRLConor wrote: »

rrpc: I'm surprised at how quick your steel is pitting. DURC's backstop has been there for quite a while (>8 years at least) and has only started showing signs of pitting over the last 6-12 months.

I was the shooter who fired the first 120 rounds before rrpc. I have been doing a bit of investigation and I think that it's the type of steel (not just thickness) that is relevant. I believe that it's ordinary mild steel that we have in Rathdrum and that we need a specially hardened steel to reduce/eliminate the pitting. Myself and rrpc are in communication about this.

IRLConor

rrpc wrote: »

Don't be. As I said, we used to have the same system as yourselves. It was in place for 40 years, but the Gardai came along and changed it for a much 'safer' system.

But do the sums Conor, we're putting 10 times the amount of rounds at the same spot as you are, except that the spot is a smaller diameter. If you take the last year or so and take one target, it's received 7000 shots where yours may have got only 700 (on an individual diagram). There's a big difference there and it could be the equivalent of 10 years worth.

Now does it stack up?

I suppose it does.

Not quite 10:1 though, the pitting that we're seeing is behind the most-used targets on the sighting diagram to the left of the 10 bull cards. I reckon those see 80%+ of the rounds in the range.

rrpc

IRLConor wrote: »

I suppose it does.

Not quite 10:1 though, the pitting that we're seeing is behind the most-used targets on the sighting diagram to the left of the 10 bull cards. I reckon those see 80%+ of the rounds in the range.

Once you get pitting, strange things start happening. It may take a long time for the pitting to become a hole. Sometimes that becomes filled with lead and closes off the hole again.

What you can get and what we're trying to avoid, is irregular and unpredictable splashback patterns fromthe pits.

IRLConor

rrpc wrote: »

What you can get and what we're trying to avoid, is irregular and unpredictable splashback patterns from the pits.

Yeah, we're seeing some small bits of splashback (more splash-sideways really). We're replacing the wooden boards as an interim measure to catch most of it until we can get suitable steel.

MikeD

Well, most of the splashback we get in DURC usually comes from the lead building up below the plates. It generally needs to be cleaned out once a year, but the steel itself is still pretty good. The new boards will have a two panel thing going on, rather than a solid board, which should help reduce the splashback.

Sandy22

rrpc wrote: »

A mil is 17.778 degrees.

Is it possibly the other way round, or have I misunderstood? ("Mil" = milliradian, yes?)

But if that were true the angle would only be c.2.3degrees - why would it be so small compared to smallbore? Better shooters maybe?:p

rrpc

Sandy22 wrote: »

Is it possibly the other way round, or have I misunderstood? ("Mil" = milliradian, yes?)

But if that were true the angle would only be c.2.3degrees - why would it be so small compared to smallbore? Better shooters maybe?:p

No it's in comparison with indoor. Just a coincidence that indoor is mostly shot with smallbore

The angle is right, it's not that big until you extrapolate to butt stop height. I think at 300m it works out at about 13m.

Justin Conboy

Personally, I think, the biggest difference is the steel. I've shoot hundreds of 7.62mm rounds at falling plates, some mild steel and some hardened steel. The difference at 100 meters is like night and day. A 7.62mm at 100m will cut through 8mm mild steel like butter, straight through. The same rounds into 8mm hardened steel will not even cause pitting. (Technical point: the falling plates were at 90 degree angles and were standing up by gravity alone, about 12 inch X 8 inch with a 2inch base plate).
J