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In home gun range

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:14 pm
by Spikes40
Hypothetically, if I were to move to a state where Homes had basements.. what would I be looking at ballpark to have a single lane range built in part of the Basement?

Thanks

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2022 8:14 pm
by George W
All depends on what you want. I know someone in PA that built one himself. He did it by digging up the side yard and dropped a 4' by 50" metal pipe with a cap/bullet trap at the end in the trench. Then, he punched a hole through the outside basement wall. After he buried the pipe , ran lights, and put a cable trolley in it looked really nice. All in, he probably spend about $4k. If he paid someone to do it for him, it probably would have cost $15k to $20k.

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:20 pm
by Odessaman
I would partially bury two shipping containers end-to-end, dome the top with sections of corrugated culvert like a quonset hut, cover with 10-12 inches of top soil, fill the space between the containers and the culvert with blown insulation, line the inside of the containers with acoustic baffles and wire them for light and air filtration. Connect it to the house or put a storm cellar door on it. With salvaged or surplus materials, it could be done for a fraction of the price of a swimming pool.

Tell the neighbors that hump in your yard is the drain field for your septic system or your hurricane shelter.

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:08 pm
by rug357
I know someone who has an indoor range at his house here in South Florida. It's built in his basement and was purpose built when the house was built by his father back in the 60's. It's almost 20' wide and over 7 1/2' high and range portion is almost 60' long and entirely underground. Back stop is two layers of steel plate in angle with about 10" space in between and some kind of rubbery sheet in front. Concrete walls and ceiling with sound dampening tiles covering the entire interior. He has a/c blowers on one end and air removers at the end. It creates enough air movement that you can't just hang paper targets as they'll blow in the wind. He can shoot centerfire rifles in there. You can hear muffled gunshots in the house but not from outside except at the end but it's not loud. I don't know how much he spends to keep it running for his family and friends but I'm sure maintenance is expensive.
I doubt it's a legally built range as the basement was originally described as bomb shelter to get it approved.

The biggest obstacle to having an indoor range at home is controlling lead exposure.

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:18 pm
by charliedwsr
If you've known me a while then you know I shoot guns on my sun porch. Yes, the distance is only 40 feet. However, 99.9% of the time I'm (we) are shooting 10-15 feet into a backstop made up of old library books and a four-foot, square piece of steel behind that.

The cost? The steel was given to me and old library books are free!

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm
by armedpolak
Ruger Mark IV with TacSol Integrally Suppressed Upper and the earth as backstop :D that's how I roll :shock:

My dad has a large house in NJ with basement just as big; we set up a small bullet trap and shot S&W .22 using colibri ammo that was primer only and few hundred FPS. quieter than my suppressed 22.

Re: In home gun range

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:11 am
by jimmac
When I was a youngster, I used to shoot my .22 in my grandmother's basement. I had an old wooden milk crate full of firewood, worked just fine, I'm talking in the '50's, who knew about lead and that stuff then.