No shooting today. I went to check out the new indoor range, arriving just after they opened. It is undeniably a beautiful range, state of the art. Each lane has a touch pad to control the target hanger. Not only can you set it for exact ranges, but you can program it to do specific movement, I.E. turn the target sideways, go out to twenty yards, expose target for ten seconds, turn side ways, move in to fifteen yards, expose target, then charge shooter.
Cool, huh?
It also exchanges the entire volume of air in the range through filters every 90 seconds, and the bullets that hit the backstop apparently go into a decelerator and drop onto a conveyor system to a central collector.
They let you shoot almost everything. No black powder, no 50 cal rifles, or 500 S&W pistols. In short nothing bigger than .44 mag for handguns. The range can handle them, but the hearing of the other shooters cannot. If you shoot shotgun, it's limited to buck shot or slug.
The deal breaker for me was the rule "No hand loads, reloads. Factory ammo only."
I'm not sure when I last bought a box of factory ammo, outside of .22 LR. Most of what I shoot is 40-60 bucks a box in this area. I can roll my own for a lot less, and none of the other ranges care.
On top of which the new range costs $20 for an hour of shooting for non-members, or $20-$30 a month for a single membership, and $10 more to add a spouse. And the cheaper price only lets you shoot free Mon-Thurs. If you want to shot on Fri-Sun, it's an additional $10.
So, I'll stick with Prescott Sportsman's Club, the outdoor range, which is like $90 a year for my wife and I, and has no additional charges for shooting. I'm going to try and go out there tomorrow, though they were closed today due to fire restrictions and high wind. If the wind is down tomorrow, they'll be open.
