I'm sure it's come up before, but it's there a group of long range precision shooters in the North Georgia/Metro Atlanta area? Outdoor ranges with distance are hard enough to find. I'm trying to get into the sport and looking for mentors/guides/or a group for some help and guidance.

SuperJlarge is your man.

Few of us are shooting to 500 for practice at Pickens County Sportsman Club then traveling to PRS matches. Only "ELR" facility I know of for civilian use is in Blakely GA. Will be interested to see if anyone identifies others.

Depends what your definition of ELR is.......

That said, not sure what follows will be much help unless anyone knows what's in Joe's head over there.  

Creekside in Taylorsville is currently a members only range that is NOT likely to accept new members (and may not renew existing members).....  

They do have a 530yd range from "Pit to Creek" that is generally available to members on weekdays from 10a-12p.

Riverbend Gun Club= 1000 yard range and matches

Gunsight Hill= 1000 yard range and matches

You will need to research each for details etc.

Is Creekside even open anymore? I thought that closed several months ago, and even in its last days, only had limited times to shoot that didn’t work for anyone’s schedule really. Having to walk to the 500yd line and carry your gear was a deal breaker for me as I typically take 2-3rifles per range trip.



Did RBGC extend their range? I think they had a 500m range and a 600yd high power range, but nothing further.

Just from the top of my head;

Cool Acres has 1k, Swainsboro
Clinton House has matches in SC, range goes to 1mile for members iirc
PCSC, 500yds Pickens county. They are getting a tactical match practice area going. Not sure about the guys trying to get that going though.

Arena Training in Blakely is the premiere spot for ELR in GA. They host open range days a few weekends a QTR. The ORD’s are held in the unknown distance range with targets out to 2400yds iirc. The majority of the targets are inside of 1218yds.

If going out of state, there’s a new range in NC that has targets out past 1200yds, but I forget the name.
Frontline Defense in NC has targets out past 1k

Bang Steel, Bland VA, targets out to a mile
Tullahoma TN has a 1k range

I'm interested.  I've been to Gunsite a few times and used to go to Joe's matches at Creekside.

I joined as a member for a year in March of 2020.....They are still open to current members Mon-Friday 10a-5/6p.  

Joe cut out the weekends to cut down the membership (but weekdays work fine for me) as they had said several times they planned on "thinning the herd".

He claimed a bunch of knuckleheads were shooting target bases and not following basic rules.

They even removed their covered 100yd shooting positions about 6 months into my membership AND then eliminated the 50yd berm.  

They still have the covered pistol range.....but now you even have to bring your own targets and stands (including bases).

I took a (2 day) Long Range refresher with Joe and he was nice enough to me, but I got the impression the Range portion of his farm was more of a hassle than he wanted to continue dealing with.

I bought property in Paulding that I plan on setting a range up on.  Should be able to do a nice pistol range and get out to at least 100yd shooting station.  For anything longer I will take the drive to Emu or look elsewhere for 300+yds.

Shame, considering Creekside is only 30mins away.

Yeah, I went to Creekside 1-2 times a month back before all of the shenanigans. The matches were interesting; not exactly the same style as PRS, but good for getting rounds off.

For N. metro GA, Pickens and Riverbend are the best options imo if you can’t get your own land.

River bend is a cool place. Dues aren't really out of line for what you get but the initiation is steep.

I've only shot action pistol matches there, it's a fun time and everybody was a good sport.

I used to shoot high power silhouette up north and was looking forward to it at rbgc, but I think they stopped it for a while, and now only run it occasionally.

Their event calendar is online and always up to date. Almost all of the matches are open to non members.

riverbend ranges are 600yds highpower and 484 meters (not really 500) silhouette. pickens has 500yds. from time to time i play with google earth and you can pull up those two ranges and try to drag a line 1000yds anywhere and it aint happening.  shooting 1000 is cool but realistically 300yds seems to be a good compromise between distance and the ability to actually see bullet holes or strikes. once you get around 500yds mirage can get in the way. sometimes you can see hits and sometimes you cant. shoot steel that splatters is easier to see than paper targets. for 1000yds you need some sort of electronic system, either cameras placed at the target or targets that calculate hits and display the results on a display like what they have at talladega. ive played around with different types of spotting scopes and telescopes and high powered rifle scopes looking for the holy grail of 'seeing my hits' and not found anything that works on days with a lot of haze and mirage. some sort of drone setup might be worth looking into...

Spotting impacts on steel isn’t too hard at extended range with a good optic. If the mirage is bad, dial down the magnification. The use of target indicators can help for targets beyond 7-800yds. It’s easy to see the flashing light when an impact occurs, or have targets mounted that can “wobble” slightly when hit.

The big benefit of shooting past 300yds, aside from with a .22, is that you have to account more for environmental factors. At 300yds, it’s still mostly point and shoot unless the winds are pretty strong. At 500yds+, the wind and other environmentals become more of a factor.

I've shot at Cool Acres in Swainsboro- it only goes to 1k though.  My definition of ELR is stuff past 1k.  That said, the range is pretty well equipped and the owner Eric was really nice to me.  I plan on going back and shooting matches.  There aren't many ranges east of the MS river that go past 1k sadly.  If someone opened one in the right spot I bet it would be pretty lucrative.