Home on the range...

[Lodewijk]

Marksmanship is a perishable skill. Having a dedicated practice space of your own, even a limited one, puts you at a significant advantage in the pursuit and retention of shooting skill.

This is a thread about maximizing limited space. The nice thing about archery is that you can get a lot out of even as little as 10 yards, and it doesn't have to be expensive.

Even in places where natural backstops cannot be found, a 4x6 stall mat is about $50 and can be hung on a simple frame made of common lumber. That is where I started, and I am writing this up to 1) hopefully exchange some thinking and 2) to perhaps give people some ideas. This stuff is not limited to archery - variations can be used for a dedicated dryfire range - but I haven't set my dryfire space up yet so this is what I have to share.



I set up a simple range in my basement when we first moved into our house, since I paced it off at about 20 yards (really 18 or so). Primarily for the kids, but I use it too. Little by little, and with some Cabela's club points for the deer, we expanded it to the form above over two years. We started with a low-cost bag target and used it quite a bit, so there is absolutely NO NEED to go big right off the bat. We expanded it mainly because my kids really like to shoot... I've done my best to keep it interesting for them with a mix of interactive targets that, unlike my deer, do something when hit (i.e. they fall over).

After shooting all three days of Total Archery Challenge on Sunlight Mountain last summer and taking special note of course design, I got to planning some improvements and finally started making them. The idea is to make our space more engaging, facilitate something other than simple group shooting, and keep it fresh for the kids.



Took care of the first thing on the list yesterday, which was also the most work. It is rather nice to have a little immersion instead of shooting at a deer that managed to wander in front of an insulated cinderblock wall. Cost was reasonable - a couple of 10x10 camo nets off Amazon for the walls plus $15 in fake ivy to mask the backstop kept things below $100. The kids are thrilled.





The next items will be:

1) Watching FB Marketplace or checking thrift shops for unwanted fake Christmas trees and other faux-vegetation.

2) Setting up a miniature fence section to stage occluded shots (an opportunity to join the Lumberjack Club all over again!)

3) Building some kind of shield for our water connection so the kids don't shoot it by accident. The plan is to use that as another "set dressing" opportunity... stain it or weather it somehow.

4) At my wife's suggestion, dressing the ceiling somehow to look like some kind of forest canopy.

5) Setting up a pipe cover / target stand so my kids can shoot their little foam critters off something other than our deer's back without hitting PVC.



What do your practice spaces look like, ZS? How do you use them, and what do you drill?

[Rednex]

Way back in the day when I had a townhouse with a basement, we set up a indoor range for bb guns. Old acoustic celling tiles as a backstop, to help catch the bb's reduce ricochet. Only pistol bb guns and soda bottle caps as targets. Distance was 15 feet or so . Also used old sheet loosely draped to catch the bb's.

[EBuff75]

Way back in the day when I had a townhouse with a basement, we set up a indoor range for bb guns. Old acoustic celling tiles as a backstop, to help catch the bb's reduce ricochet. Only pistol bb guns and soda bottle caps as targets. Distance was 15 feet or so . Also used old sheet loosely draped to catch the bb's.

I used to do some of that here at my house.  I had a board that I used as a backstop, but there is lots of evidence (in the form of BB-sized dents in the paneling around where the target was set up) of occasional misses! 

[Rednex]

We had block foundation so a miss was a ricochet , we were young and dumb and didn't wear safety stuff.