Anyone ever consider partnering up and buying a small chunk of land somewhere around OKC and make a small range for their own use?

I bought a house NE of the city a couple years back with some land and shortly after had the bright idea to convert a small area for shooting. Not great for long range, but fun none the less.

With what you are considering it might be hard to find enough people to do that and if you do it'll most likely be a private club atmosphere to pay for upkeep and all.

Yeah...got me thinking...one of the people would bring a friend...that friend would come by himself or with different friends, etc, etc...before you knew it, it would be destroyed.

It wold have to be done with people you really, really trust and have known for a long time, which still wouldnt guarantee the above wouldnt happen.

How big is the range you made? How much land did it take to make it? Maybe i will just look at doing it myself.

In reality it's not too big. I have 8 acres and my house sits at the top of a hill; at the bottom is a small pond with a berm that goes around it. That's what originally got me thinking about making a small range out of it because the berm would make for a good backstop. Obviously the level of the pond changes depending on the amount of rain we get (last year actually filled up completely and took away my range), but I would say the average distance I shoot is around 70-80 ft. depending on where I stand. The cool thing about it being at the bottom of a hill I can back out to higher ground and shoot into it and I'm guessing that would put it at around 100 yds.

As for the target area I have a couple wood frames I constructed  that sit side by side and can hold up to 4 targets if I wish. Being made of wood they'll eventually be damaged beyond use, but I can just replace the boards. Like I mentioned earlier the backstop is the berm itself which is a good 12 feet thick, but I've also put railroad ties along the back in a step design to help stop rounds and keep me from destroying the berm. It's nice to just go shoot whenever I want and not have to worry about range fees, plus I bring friends over from time to time and blast away.

I just sold my house in Arizona City, AZ in March 2014. AZ City is right smack in between Phoenix and Tucson. Me and a friend had converted my 5x7 trailer as a pre-set shooting trailer. Mounted boxes inside it for stuff and hold downs for other stuff. Was really slick. Anyways, we would make Saturday afternoons of it...12 miles down the road in the desert. Shoot, grill, then drink beer with bomb fire kick back and then go home. Was allot of fun. Take his youngest son and my (at the time youngest son both about 18 at the time) son with us. Every now and then some stray friends would go with us as well. Good times. We were both veterans of about the same era so the gun safety and such were embedded into us which filtered over to the boys. We had a similar setup with the pond..ours was never wet though and was set right in front of a small mountain...the pond thing was a rain catch but it doesnt rain allot there. So we had the berm for the catch and the mountain behind it to catch in strays. Only people we ever saw in the area were occasional other shooters, illegals or explorers/4 wheelers. The private atmosphere was the best and no idiot shooting next to you whom you have no idea who they are.

You have it made. And i bet through time you will enlarge your range and better it for yourself and friends. I have put together some AR's over the past couple months, 3 with stainless steel barrels which require (per Wilson) a rigid break in...how you do that at H&H? Clean the bore after each round for X number of rounds, so on and so forth. They dont even have tables in most of the shooting bays that i have seen. Have to put your stuff on the floor and use broken or bent chairs...that place kind of sucks. Anyways got off topic...have a good one...enjoy your private domain!

Yeah, I lived in Phoenix when my dad was stationed at Luke AFB.  Everyone would just head out into the desert to shoot.  Made it handy but in the public areas they trashed the place.  There was garbage i.e. makeshift targets, brass, ammo boxes, beer cans everywhere, granted this was the mid to late 70's so I don't know what it's like now.  I will say, at the time, I loved it.  Now it's the "kidnap capitol of the nation".... No thanks.

You can get similar accommodations here but you'll have to buy a fair bit of land out of city limits to do it.  Personal freedom is a lot harder and more expensive to acquire these days.  If I could afford it, I would have at least 100 acres of personal space...

Yeah, trash is always an issue...dont know why people are like that...they are like that all over. Even in Farmington, SD we had a place outside Rapid City for dirt bike riding and co-located to that was a place where people always went to shoot. That was a dump and they eventually closed it all down. Kind of pissed me off. We had plenty of places to go shooting in SD but not many close by for riding our bikes with semi-established trails. That was in the 80's/90's while i was stationed at Ellsworth.

Is there anyone on arfcom, or even just this HTF, where that would apply?  I'm thinking no.


....which is sad, because Oklahoma HTF arfcommers should have something of a network- given how few of us there are.