Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Shooting Range Drama

is there any reason this family can`t put up their own berm and/or a sound barrier type fence ? these whiners probably have dogs that bark all nite too. gun range is legal and is now grandfathered in because there was no law against it. these people can either fix their problem and live with it or leave period. bet they are city-its who want it all their way ,i say screw them gun range guy has rights too and we should be all on the side of the gun range guy !

I have a guy who lives about a half mile from me that often shoots fully automatic long guns at his backyard range. He is a gun smith and must have a license for these guns. I always like to listen when he opens up.

We cannot have a berm on our side because we are less than an acre he bought an Ag-Res property he isn't on a agriculture he has 2.5 acres and he has the range in the back up by the property line of the residential lines, so no we cannot put up a berm on our side, we already have a fence, we also have plenty of private ranges out here that no one has a problem with because they all faced them away from homes where this guy chose the one direction to place his facing everyone's homes and he isn't shooting your typical handgun, shotguns, he is shooting fully automatic rifles and a 50 BMG and the first 2 homes are only 200 ft from his hole in the ground he has NO UPPER berm at all, so anything that goes over the hole he dug comes straight at all our homes. I think we can all agree even a 22 can travel a mile if it's stray a 50 BMG gone rogue well... you can figure it out. I'm also not city folk I grew up in Ohio which is hunting country my dear on plenty of acreage I shot my first deer at 12, I have raised my children to shoot this is not a matter of guns this is a matter of safety and common sense.

He also will not be grandfathered in FL you can have a recreational range if you are over an acre but the State is considering his a "sport shooting/ rifle range" given the calibers he shoots and the fact he is not using it just for recreational use, he is an arms dealer who manufactures these as well and he is testing them on this range, so if you truly shoot you should understand how dangerous it is to "test" or site these in a range aimed at homes with NO UPPER BERM OR backstop just the hole in the ground that keeps filling up with sand with every rain we get here...

I think some of you need to do 2 things:
1 - Work the pits in a rifle match. (The sonic boom isn't *the* loudest part of firing a rifle, but it's very loud and hearing protection is required.)
2 - Go to a machine gun shoot and watch the tracers bounce around. They'll give you an education in range design. I can easily imagine a bullet doing a skip and tumble straight over a 25' berm and still be moving over 500fps on it's way back. The lower the berm, the lower angle of ricochets it protects against.

I think Misty is a man. Or was.

Exactly.

We haven't established there's no berm.

The only photographic evidence we have of the range shows a berm.

If he’s using a an undisturbed earth berm , a hole you call it, what’s the difference if he built a berm on grade?

In the state of Florida he's conferred the power to have his range.

Ricochets.

She seems like a nice woman from what I've seen.

This is the picture back in November of the range the day we met with him and since then we have had a ton of rain so that sand will have washed into the hole the little tiny what 1 ft that he has above ground? the rest is just a hole....Sorry can't get more up to date pics for you without bringing in a drone again but when you drive by his street you can still see no upper berm at all

Here is another one taken back in November where the county noted it was already eroding see the discoloration of the sand from caving... in FL we get heavy rains hence why we have sink holes here with sand.Only a matter of time before it shrinks more and more from erosion

I haven't read the 12 pages so this may have been addressed already but this whole deal is about the noise. I have a range and my neighbors tried the safety angle to shut me down also even after I hired a track hoe and dug a pond to build a backstop 20 feet high. It's the noise. The sheriff finally told my neighbors that apparently I know the law better than they do. Of course my range is not pointed at anyone's house and the nearest residence is 100 yards away across a federal highway. Don't you old geezers get all agreeable with her because she is female and looks ok when she makes up, slicks up, and poses.

We have more and more people moving onto country acreages or even buying small farms and then complaining about the distant sound of gunfire from the neighbours (who were already living there) and/or the smell of manure. A lot of people ask the obvious question.

Happy you were able to resolve this issues with your range and happy for you , fire away
This isn't so much about the noise, yes that is an issue but the biggest concern it safety, cliff notes are he has dug a hole no upper berm at all, his hole 200 ft from the 2 closest homes in a residential populated area full of homes on less than .50 for most of them, he is shooting fully automatics that he is trying to site on this range and a 50 BMG (which is beyond obscene loud when you're down range 200 ft away). Had he taken the dirt from the hole he dug and put it at the top of his hole and made an actual berm that would've helped with that some and safety but he took the dirt used that to level his lot where he is putting his house and has nothing above ground at all so if he misses his hole guess where those strays are coming since there is nothing to stop it? That is the concern especially when you are taking a fully auto that fires over 100 rounds a minute , he is using steel targets and also a 50 BMG .. not practical and makes us responsible gun owners and other people out here who have private ranges look bad and that doesn't even begin to bring up the 2 schools less than 900 feet away with the parents complaining since he fired the fully auto during a school drill once and some kids panicked thinking it was real deal not a drill

Many times. In the pits, the loudest noise comes from the closest approach of the bullet, which, in the pits, is directly overhead. In the case discussed here, the bullet does not get to overhead.

Go in the pits at a High Power range sometime. The sonic boom (or crack) of trhe bullet is much louder than the rifle report, which comes later because the bullet travels faster than sound.

We have gun shots every night from other neighbors on out skirts and no one complains about them at all, but understand we are not on acreage my lot is less than acre and I have one of the larger ones since I'm at end of the cuddlesac but most lots out here are less than .50 acre this guy bought a lot outside of the residential zoning on ag-residential only 2.5 acres and he chose to aim his range on the only line of his property that is aimed at the hundreds of homes out here, we originally asked him to just turn it and face in a direction that would be aimed at over 40 acres of nothing no homes, some of it is marsh so won't ever be built on and he still chose not to do that, he wanted it aimed in the direction of all the homes rather than taking the safest route possible.

I would think almost every home out here owns guns, we all support 2nd amendment it's not a gun issue one of the other homes in the suit is a retired LA Sheriff Dept Sgt, another is a veteran ( I'm not the only one going after this guy) They just stuck me on the news because I was the closest home to danger. Several homes all retained the same attorney, the Governor sent EPA out over this, the Attorney General of Florida has addressed this range twice now to 2 different homes stating our county should be handling this so we were forced to retain an attorney since although our county believes this is not safe as well they want a Judge to rule on it based on the exceptions portion of the staue