South Deerfield, MA

Anyone on the board live there or nearby? How do you like it? What type of area is it? How is cost of living? Is South Deerfield, MA the place to be or are the surrounding areas better to live in? Any towns to avoid? Tips?

i live in the town next to it. Hawgleg44 lives right next door as well. Deerfield is a nice area. the range i belong to is in Deerfield. you have a mix of farmers, and yuppies. cost of living is much better than eastern MA. but still relatively high. very close to VT and NH. the area is pretty quiet. a lot of hippies. but also a lot of true New Englanders.

what do plan on doing here?

I have an uncle up there. Its a ton of farm land there and your close to yankee candle. If your heading out that way to check out property go check out Bub's BBQ on 116 or goten for Japanese.

I used to live there before i moved to Amherst, before i moved to NH (2 moves ago).
The village of So Deerfield is very nice. Quiet. A few bars and one excellent pizza place, if its still there. Its centrally located so nothing is very far away.
I noticed mostly Polish farmers when i lived there. A bit north of town you get into Bement and Deerfield Academy territory, so that's a little different.
Good fishing in the river, good hunting out by Harkness road.

I used to belong to that shooting club but have let my membership sadly expire. It really is a nice place. I even met Hawgleg44 in person there one day so i can attest to the fact that he is a real person, not just an AI program.
I'd second the question of why? Are you gonna' move up (down) there? Job brings you there?

Yes, I am a real person!

I spent quite a bit of time in S. Deerfield when i was growing up. My mother grew up there and a lot of my relatives still live there. Deerfield actually has two gun clubs.

One is the larger Franklin County Sportsmen's Club. 100 and 200 yard rifle ranges, 3 outdoor 25 yard pistol ranges, 2 trap and 2 skeet fields and a 50 foot indoor range. I think it's $140/year now, with 24 hour access to the indoor range. I can be found there around 1am most of the time.

The other is the S. Deerfield Rod and Gun Club. It's a good club for an informal shooting day. One outdoor 50 foot pistol range (you can shoot from the pavilion in bad weather) and a 200 yard rifle range that is not accesible when the road is snowed in, and they rarely keep it mowed in the summer, so you can't even see targets set up at 100 yards. I don't think I've left the rifle range in the summer without a tick on me. I guess that's what you get for $45/year.

About 10 minutes up the road is the Conway Sportsmen's Club. Informal outdoor pistol/rifle range and the best Sporting Clays range in W. MA. I think the membeship is around $40/year, too.

Aside from the gun stuff, I like the area. There is still a lot of open space in the immediate area. In W. MA, the best places to live, IMO, are S. Deerfield, Sunderland, Whately, Hatfield and Conway.

If you are specifically looking at S. Deerfield, it's a good town. The Police Chief is a great guy and gun friendly. The Fire Department is the model for all volunteer departments in the state. My uncle used to be the Fire Chief there and had the support of the town. A large station was built and is a central training location for the area. I don't know if you have any school age children, but the schools in the area are really the envy of some of the area towns. S. Deerfield, Whately, Conway and Sunderland belong to School Union 38 and all the Elementary Schools are very good. If my daughter was still that age, I would have no reservations sending her to any of them. The high school, Frontier, is the regional school for the four towns. The school is well funded, the level of education is above average and the sports teams are impressive. Do a search for Frontier Volleyball!

If you have any other questions about the town, feel free to PM me.

hey douche, hows the back?

Thanks for the replies guys.

To answer a question asked a couple times now, I would be relocating for a new Job. I actually just returned from the area today. Seems like a real nice area. After my tour of the towns nearby I think the Northampton/Amherst areas might be where I land as they are still a bit active and yet super close to nice outdoor activity areas. If I do end up taking this job I'll have to go a do a much more in depth housing search though so we'll see what happens.

Northampto/Amherst is very liberal. and housing costs/cost of living is higher.

Good luck with Northampton and Amherst. College towns, wanna-be hippies. And Northampton, well, you'll figure that one out on your own.

I guess I'm just getting old or something, but I like it nice and quiet. I like being able to sit in my backyard at night and barely even hear a car going by. Living in a town with less than 15 miles of improved roads is my kind of living. Damn, it's changing, though. We went from one traffic light to two!

Depending on what you want in a place to live, if you stick with Amherst or Northampton, you'll get the busier life. If you choose the surrounding towns, you get away from that while still being close to it. With the housing prices in the shitter right now, you can buy a reasonable sized house with a 30 year mortgage in most towns around here with a monthly payment less than rent on an apartment.

Just an FYI.. I currently live in Queens, NY and commute through NYC to work in NJ. So anywhere that doesn't have fire engines, ambulances and cop cars flying around sirens a blazing may as well be the middle of the woods to me.

Well, its official now. I accepted an offer and put in my resignation today. Anyone care to recommend specific apartment complexes or townhouses or even small homes to rent? I'll be living by myself so nothing too big. I saw a pretty interesting place on my real estate tour that was previously a mill or factory of some sort. Anyone have an idea what that place was called or where it is? Also, what towns are more "gun friendly"?

S. Deerfield, Conway, Whately, Sunderland and all the surrounding small towns are gun friendly. You won't have a problem there.

In Sunderland, there's a few complexes, Sugarloaf Estates, Cliffside, Squire Village and Lantern Court. The first two are the better ones.

If you don't mind, PM me the company you will be working for. I know most of the businesses in town. Just a guess, but I think I know where you will be working.

Two resources that might help: Masslive.com and Recorder.com. Both have real estate sections.
Masslive is all of western mass, recorder is the newspaper in Greenfield so its a little more local.

ETA: in Amherst there is Pufton Village (where i lived before i moved north). Its OK, its right next to Umass so lots of students and some nighttime noise. After the semester or in the summer it becomes very quiet.
One good thing in Amherst/Hadley/Northampton is the public transportation system.

The PVTA busses run through Sunderland and S. Deerfield, too, so even if you lived in one of the larger towns, depending on how far your new job is away from the bus stop, you could take the bus to work if you wanted.

Even if you wanted to rent a house instead of an apartment, there are a lot of houses available in Sunderland, being so close to UMass.

Again, shoot me an e-mail on where you will be working. That could help on finding an apartment. I know a few people who rent out houses in the area that might have something available. If I know about what you want to pay for rent, I might be able to help you out by putting you in contact without even going through a realtor.

Then, when you get settled in, we'll show you the gun clubs you get to choose from. There's only 5 in the immediate area. The most expensive one is $120/year with 24 hour access to the indoor range, too.

Welcome to the area! I'm more in central MA myself but spent some time in the south deerfield area while attending UMass.

Be careful with apartment complexes if you want to stay away from college kids. Specifically Cliffside and Pufton will be full of UMass kids. I lived in Cliffside for a few years about 10 years ago. It wasn't too nice then and can't be much better now

After reading the above I have, apparently, gotten old and grumpy...

Hey, I was arresting people at Cliffside 10 years ago!

Not me, between school and work I didn't have time to get arrested

With my upstairs neighbor however we didn't have to watch COPS. He brought the show to us!

There is a chance you pulled me over at some point though... You and your fancy radar

Radar? Not me! I didn't believe in hiding with radar, I was more of the high visibility patrol type officer in town. Tickets? I'd write about one a year. People would get warnings, though. Someone really, REALLY had to earn a ticket from me.

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/8703-Guide-to-gun-rights-in-your-Massachusetts-town

Not sure how up to date that is, but it will give you an idea of how gun friendly the towns you are looking at are. Northampton isn't that bad a place, if you ignore the liberals, hipsters and militant alternative lifestyle folks. Just be careful of some of the more aggressive panhandlers and stay out of the big apartment complexes.

As far as hawgleg44 being a real person and not some kind of ai, I'm not so sure. I know the guy that claims to be him, but I've seen him try to type,so I don't know how he could have that many posts.

It's about time you showed up here. Now you might learn something about guns.

Yes, that list seems to be more accurate than it was a few years back. There were some towns listed Red that were definately Green, but they have changed that.

you should see him at work

That hurts. Talking about your #1 LT that way!

Hawgleg44 - just sent you an im

So what's the concensus on Greenfield? I'be come across a couple places I am considering in the area. Going up to the area this weekend.

The other guys in this thread are closer and probably have more current info, but in my view "downtown" Greenfield is kinda sketchy and I would avoid it.

It all depends on what you want. If you want to rent/buy a house and have some space Greenfield probably isn't the place. If you want a more metro area it's an option, but frankly for a metro area I'd look to Northampton or Amherst first (I can't believe I just recommended Northampton, but there it is).

If you do want rural, Montague is next door and has less people, more cows, more rural new england.

I live in Greenfield. Avoid it. School system is terrible. Taxes suck. I live in the center of town. Absolutely avoid living in that part like the plague. On the outer edges is fine.

Where will you be working?

Ok so I went up to the area to go apt hunting. Pretty much everything you guys said was spot on. Greenfield was an automatic no-good based on the surprisingly high number of homeless folks and the crackhead who showed me an apt. Amherst was nice but I hate apt complexes so no go there either. Northampton has good restaurants but was a hippiefest on Saturday afternoon and severely overpriced even for someone coming from NY.

Assuming everything goes well I will be moving to Sunderland which is close to work, stores and the more lively areas (Amherst and noho).

So now I need to figure out how to get my firearms up there most efficiently. Suggestions? I have a locking cabinet so that base is covered but I'm unsure as to if I should apply for and wait on an LTC and then bring each one up on a form or ?????

i think you made the right choice in towns to live in.

as far as the firearms go, if you have a trusted family member/friend to keep them with until you get your LTC-A, i would go that route. then, once you get it, bring them in, and register them on a FA-10. which you can now do online

eta- the Sunderland chief is gun friendly. so it shouldn't take to long to get you LTC-A. and here is the online link. be sure to print a copy for your records.

Thanks for the info. That seems like a good plan. Are there any good gun stores in the area? Any FFL's that wont charge an arm and a leg for transfers?

Also, are there any firearms banned by name in MA? I'm considering building a ban compliamt Uzi from a parts kit if its legal.

Mike Burek at Millers Falls Gun Shack (10-15 minutes from Sunderland) does $20 transfers. He's not a large stocking dealer, but he's good for transfers and will order you what we can legally have here.

A ban-compliant Uzi is legal.

R&R Sports in Belchertown (20 minute ride) is a decent store. Prices vary, hot and cold, but you can find some really good deals there.

We'll have to get together and introduce you to the club when you are settled in.

Emilio-your message box is full. Send me an e-mail.

Good choice on Sunderland. IIt's a nice area.

I'm not 100% sure but I do not believe you need to do any MA state paperwork on guns that move with you. Since it's not a "transfer" I don't think it falls under the reporting requirements. You do need to get an LTC-A as noted by DJ.

R&R in Belchertown is a pretty decent shop –– I am there from time to time as well. A little further from your new home but NIck's Sport Shop in Palmer is also a great shop.

Good luck with the move!

you do need to "register" them. it is commie-chusetts after all.

eta-



quoted from the link in my previous post.

What the state posts on that website isn't law. The use of the term "wish" should be a clear red flag

This is the section of MGL that deals with the reporting stuff:

http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXX/Chapter140/Section129C



then:



one of which reads:

the problems with MA gun laws is that they are very confusing. and often filled with double speak.

my suggestion, register them. that way you can prevent some douche going on a wild goose chase. and making you spend money you, or the state, doesn't have.

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