I'm still a few years out of building a custom home on some land and have been looking at different ways i want to lay things out.  The custom house isnt anything special imo, between 2200-2400sq ft single story, but the biggest "difference" is a basement (we just dont have basements here in AZ, and idk why).  I know the basement alone will add $100k to the price tag easy and my budget (not counting land) is around 400k.  The basement itself is going to be more of an "entertainment" room (aka movies/projector screen) with a spare/guess bedroom/bath as well as a vault/safe room.  I have been kicking around the idea of a underground range.  Due to where im buying land, an above ground range just wouldnt work.  I keep seeing the most expensive part is the ventilation and is around $30k for most basic stuff plus whatever is needed for the backstop and the mechanism to move the targets back and forth.  I am mostly looking at something that would be about 15-20 ft wide.   That being said, where im building, there is a decent public/private range that goes out to 200 yards about 10 mins away and its my go to range if i feel like going to a public range vs desert shooting.  The only downside here is you cant draw from the holster and you cant set up metal targets.  

So that being said, as much as id LOVE to have a range in my house, I am wondering if its worth it to do.  Has anyone done this or thought about it and can tell me what im looking at price/time wise?

A 100 yard indoor, underground range?  15 to 20 feet wide?  That's 6000 square feet of underground construction - almost 3 times as big as your house!

I think you might think about a 25 foot indoor range (more than adequate for pistols and small bore rifle) but backstop material for calibers greater than .22 rimfire are the price challenge.

Bury 100 yds of drainage pipe and a storage container. Ask Mark LaRue for pictures of his.

yeah, now u talk about in sq footage, that IS alot.   specially depending on depth and how hard the ground is here in AZ.

You can't just bury storage containers.  They are meant to transfer weight at the corners (when stacked).  Just bury it and it will buckle.

Especially when you backfill on top of it and then someone drives across it.

This isn't a $100 scrap wood job.  Plus ventilation.

It can be done (though 100 yards is ambitious) but needs to be planned out.  And then there is permitting.

yeah, I think the more i see it through others eyes, its just not a thing.  I would have a better chance getting my own range in the backyard, above ground, than the time/cost its worth for an underground one.

To be in the economical range you might bury a lot of 4- 6 ft pipe and do it. The last time I saw a 40ft piece of 6ft pipe was around $3,600.

So 8 pipes would give you 320 ft it would cost around $28,800.  The area would have to be excavated and your looking at a minimum of
a D6 dozer ($180/hr)  and a 300($250) excavator for a week.  Plus you would need to surround and compact the pipe with gravel to
keep it in place.  So I would ball park this around 300 tons of gravel at around $15-$20 ton delivered.

I don't build drainage pipes for a living but $60,000 would be a guess.

50 years ago you could do one of these ranges, pipe or concrete, your problem today is lead vapor,
you cant just dump it outside, you have to filter it and have it hauled off to a toxic waste facility, very expensive.
That leaves you with doing it without permits, that is a whole new ballgame.
First thing I would find out is why there are no basements in the area? is the soil not stable?
Does the concrete dry out too much? I would ask alot of questions.

Shaw AFB has one that is 100 yards, underground and uses culvert.  It sucks.  I think the shock wave goons up groups.  If it was vented better it may work but I have never seen a rifle that would group through it.  It is a standard looking culvert like you would see in a ditch but the end you shoot from is a bit bigger.  

A couple of shots and it is full of dust also.

Oh, it is loud as hell also, even with foam in the shooting end.

 yea... nah.

this.... there is likely a reason they don't do basements there.

25' is more realistic. Most of the target runners and such you can make yourself if you're even slightly handy. Easy way would be to have the firing area, a small diameter pipe with a baffle system made from old tires to kill the noise, at the other end an access hatch and a small well house looking deal with the exhausts vent.
Have the firing line be enclosed to reduce the volume of air that has to be drawn down range.

Make an airlock arrangement so you can bug bomb the fuck out of it when it fills up with scorpions.

Its more to do with the ground hardness.  after 12-18 inches you get the REALLY hard clay.  its not like most states that actually have all 4 seasons and there is actual "soil"  where as the clay is just HARD.  like, really hard.  I forget the name of the machine, but its basically a backhoe with what looks like a long chainsaw blade attached to it.  1 of those is needed and its gonna take a solid week to get what i want.

The problem with any indoor range is going to be lead vapor. A quality air handler to swap out that much air is going to be expensive to install and operate.

The ground here is literally like concrete after about 15 inches.  Some areas also have caliche up to three feet thick across many square miles.  It takes large equipment and lots of money to build a large proper size basement.  Its easier to just build up, and cheaper, then building a basement.  Its why a simple pool costs nearly $30k-$40k alone without upgrades which is just a shallow hold in the ground and not nearly the same size as a basement.

Around here we have solid rock just inches down, yet basements are the norm.  There has to be more to it than a hard to blast into surface.

Oh yeah, and putting a football field underground for a shooting range isn't going to happen in your budget.

Have a range local to me that did this.  They used prefabbed sections of concrete drainage tunnel out to 50 yards, added interior lighting, and a track system

Down range section is a building that has a basement with a backstop - 100% unnoticeable if you didn't know it was there.

In general though, it blows in comparison to an outdoor range in terms of noise, concussive blast, and lighting.

Dupe

Back east most foundations have to be below the frost line so you already have to dig down a ways.  So might as well make a basement many times you have to dig so deep.  Here the foundations only need to be about 18 inches.  Again its just cost.  Much cheaper to build up then down here.  Its nothing special to figure out.

I have shot in those types or ranges underground and they suck for enjoyment.  They get the job done if you need to do some testing but I wouldn't be sitting down there for hours lighting rounds off.

builders are cheap as hell so that is why basements are rare.  they do exist, but usually in higher end neighborhoods and even then its like 1 out of 3 houses because most didn't want the expense.

and for those that haven't lived in AZ, my god the ground is so f'ing hard.  You often need a pick axe to work on a sprinkler system or plant something that came in a one gallon pot from home depot.

culvert systems suck, esp for centerfire rifles.  Anyone else remember the setup at Mandall's?  One of those old timers told me for the first 20 years of operation or so they would just hire several day laborers to go down there and chip out the lead once bullets started bouncing back and haul the lead chunks out with five gallon buckets...   lets say once the EPA cracked down it became a much more expensive process.

I remember it.  I also remember the owner who was a complete loon.  He thought he was Jesus' son or something and the workers at the shop were all part of this following.  I always thought it was likely the lead from the underground range that did it.