I just moved to Austin, and I'm looking for a few good ranges. Can anybody help?  

BTW, I'm currently living in south Austin.

Welcome!  I live in South Austin too.  In my opinion, the best range is Hill Country Rifle Range.  But the owner, Richard, (aka Crazy Richard) is a few short of a six pack, if you catch my drift.  He's a racist, anti-Jew, government conspiracy wacko.  BUT THE RANGE IS GOOD!  I go there to shoot and not to socialize with the wacko.  The rifle range has covered concrete benches, and goes out to 400m.  Steel targets at 300-400m, paper targets at 100 and 200m.   The pistol range is 25yds with steel targets, but no cover, so it gets hot pretty quick.  There is some type of action pistol club that meets there on the weekend, once or twice a month, but I don't have any details except those folks are real friendly and are always looking for newcomers.

Red's indoor range (100yds) is also another good place to go on the South end of town, if you don't want to drive out to HCRR.

Let me know when you want to go!  I'll be happy to show you around!

Dave Peacher

DPeacher is pretty much right on.

HCRR is a nice range.  Richard is one ODD mofo, tho.  Don't engage in conversation!

Red's is OK, but I hate indoor ranges... I always leave with ringing ears, no matter what hearing protection I use.  

Up north, there's Tony's off of 183.  It's a small range, but pretty loose on restrictions.  Then there's Eagle Peak, off of 1431 near Jonestown.  I go to that one a lot because it's the closest outdoor range.  The suck thing about it is the rifle range benches are covered and blinded (meaning they put a board in the front of it at an angle, so you have to shoot under it... from the bench) and no FMJ rifle ammo (due to stupid neighbors suing)

Then there's Cook's, which is actually now owned by Red (of Red's Indoor Range).  It's nicer than the Red's down south, but alas, it's still an indoor range, so I don't go to it unless I have to.

I've shot several Austin ranges, but usually shoot Austin Rifle Club.  It's NE of N. Austin by a solid 20+ minutes, but worth it imo.  You can get limited info from the web-site.  Send me an email if you'd like to know more.

I need to get in the process of becoming a member out at the ARC.  The range is nice, and from what I hear, if you can get down there on a week day, it's usually not busy at all.  

You have to have two 'sponsors', tho.  

You CAN go shoot in the matches without being a member... I get down to the Highpower matches sometimes.  Much fun!

Thanks for all the replies!  I'm probably 2 minutes from the south Red's, but I do like outdoor ranges better.  BrianInAustin, please send me info on ARC.  DPeacher, where abouts is HCRR?

TXN,

HCRR is down off of Hamilton Pool Road.  You'd go down 71 probably 15 miles or so, I think, then take a left on Hamilton Pool Road, and go about 7 miles, then it's on the left.  

Quoted: TXN, HCRR is down off of Hamilton Pool Road.  You'd go down 71 probably 15 miles or so (to Bee Caves), I think, then take a left on Hamilton Pool Road(left at the 3rd light past the HEB in Bee Caves), and go about 7 miles, then it's on the left(big sign on the left, go through the gate and follow the gravel road for about 1 mile to the range shack, don't be freaked by the "Deliverance" feel of the place . $5 per shooter + $2 for each extra gun, bring cash 'cause Richard doesn't take checks or plastic...he doesn't have a bank account......).

The only two I visit are Hill Country out Hamilton Pool Road and Tony's Guns on N183 as these are the only NFA friendly ranges in Austin.

Hill Country is a nice range, but I got tired of dealing with wacko richard standing right over my shoulder always wanting to talk to me about the "communist aliens in his kitchen" and having to shuttle back and forth between the pistol range and high power range. I then got burned afew times by the place being closed and locked up when it should have been open.  
On a plus side, his metal targets on the range are quite nice.

I have been going to Tony's almost exclusively for the past couple months as the guy who runs the place doesn't bother me and it is usually not busy at all. The range is pretty plain jane, but it is the only place that lets you bring "reactive" targets out to shoot. (I usually bring acouple cases of soda to blast.
I havn't checked recently but I beleive they used to sell Tannerite in the office.

Reds pretty much sucks.  The south location has/was closed for months due to bullets escaping out of the range, plus it is an overall crappy indoor range.  The part that killed it for me was the tubby rangemaster whom is a know-it-all pain in the ass.  Constantly bitching about firing too fast for his taste, or shooting too many rounds without picking up my brass, or I shouldn't have bought that Desert Eagle, etc... Plus the place is full of Deer hunters who give you the evil eye when they see an AR, much less when you shoot more rounds in 60 seconds than they do all year.
The Reds north (formerly Cooks sureshot) used to be great for an indoor range, but once Red bought it they banned Machineguns and canceled the pin shoots. I have not been back since Red apparently thinks my M16 is too evil for his place.

I would stick to HCRR or Tonys.  

HCRR is a nicer range but you will have to deal with Richard.
Tonys is not as nice, but the owner will leave you to your own devices to shoot whenever you want and pretty much whatever you want.

BTY, there is a carbine shoot some of us from Austin go to every month in Johnson City (about an hour from Austin).

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/texastactical/tx.html

Sign up and you will get emails about upcoming shooting events.


James
Austin Texas

 

Welcome to Austin. I move here from Pittsburgh, PA over 5 years ago. I just started shooting again, finally! We should arrange a get together for Central TX and burn some powder.

Tom

I had a nice get together out at Tony's last August.  Had a blast... shot the hell out of some appliances and cooked out...

I want to do it again, but lack the willpower to do all the planning.  If someone wants to plan something, I'll definitely show.  I think we had somewhere around 40-50 people show up.  Quite a few full auto (popped my full auto cherry that day!) weapons.  Everyone was way nice and would let you try out anything they had.  

I still have the email list somewhere...