Suppressor

Yeah I was RO at my old range, so could use it whenever I wanted with my own rules as well. That was fun. But it is a 120km round trip from my house. This range? 5km. I thought why not?! :)

KBK
 
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Yeah I was RO at my old range, so could use it whenever I wanted with my own rules as well. That was fun. But it is a 70km round trip from my house. This range? 5km. I thought why not?! :)

KBK

Our range is members-only M-F, so there is no RO on duty. There's five on duty on weekends, when the range is open to the public; One on the registration table and four to cover the 16 shooting ports. Every member is an RO and must give eight hours per quarter as part of the membership requirement. We pay $50/year dues, and have unlimited access to the range during the week.

It's really nice during the week if there's no other members there - one of the pleasures of being retired. :)
 
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I took my newly machined Colt .22 to the local range the day I got it home. The only range around open during the week. I was the ONLY person on the range as it was middle of the work day (I love shifts). The RO forced me to wear my ear pro even though I was trying out my suppressed .22.

Honestly? It is an open air range, I'm TRYING to use my suppressed .22. Gimme a BREAK! No. Rules are the rules! You wear ear pro or no shooting.


KBK

You got to be kidding! I've read some absurd things on this Forum about ranges... stuff like no fast firing, only one round in the magazine at a time.. but I never heard of having to wear hearing protection when shooting a suppressed .22. My target stapler is louder! :rolleyes:
 
I know of NO indoor range (which I assume this was) that will allow anyone to shoot ANYTHING without ear and eye protection (for the range's protection as well as yours). Sure, you may not need it for /your/ gun, but when the guy in the next booth sets off a 30-06, you'll need it. And they know it.
 
my closest lax outdoor range is the fraternal order of police range about 45 mins south. id have to go with a friend whos a member and id be lucky to get out there maybe once a month. otherwise, 90% of my shooting is at my nearby indoor range where i dont think id see all the benefits. i do WANT one though. ;)
 
I got lucky I guess, there isn't a single indoor range within 3 hours of me. The outdoor range by me is about 5 minutes(2 on my bike) away and it's a thousand yards. The only 1k yarder in the state. Plus living in such a small place we have gravel pits everywhere. The one I usually shoot at when I'm not at the range is at the end of my road. Only about 75 yards, but that's my slidefire pit so it doesn't really matter. I had no idea how lucky I was til I read about all your guys' ranges. We pay $80/yr for our range, but we get a key and can go whenever we want. All the gravel pits are what I'm looking into a suppressor for though
 
so jealous!

problem with me getting a suppressor is then id be tempted to start shooting somewhere dumb like my backyard or garage lol.
 
Dik:

Are you getting any of the flooding? I read today that Talkeetna has been evacuated.
 
Funny you said that because as soon as I mentioned a suppressor for the 15-22, my girlfriend shouted "Than can we put a backstop up and shoot in the basement?!?!" lol. Guess there is worse problems I could have
 
Dik:

Are you getting any of the flooding? I read today that Talkeetna has been evacuated.

No I live a couple hours south of the flood area. I'm at sea level with no real mountains around me per se so I'm pretty clear. The Kenai river is across the street from me so it did raise a bit, but any excess water just flows into that.
 
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No I live a couple hours south of the flood area. I'm at sea level with no real mountains perse around me so I'm pretty clear. The Kenai river is across the street from me so it did raise a bit, but any excess water just flows into that.

That's good. I've never been to your town, but I've been to Talkeetna a couple of times. I love visiting Alaska - it does grow on you! :)
 
Funny you said that because as soon as I mentioned a suppressor for the 15-22, my girlfriend shouted "Than can we put a backstop up and shoot in the basement?!?!" lol.
I used to shoot my .22's in the basement of our first 3 houses (25' in first house, 50' in second, 25 yards in 3rd - laid it out to be able to open 2 doors and shoot straight through. I made a 1/4" thick stainless bullet trap that worked well.

Have to admit that my non-shooting wife never liked it much, though.
 
I used to shoot my .22's in the basement of our first 3 houses (25' in first house, 50' in second, 25 yards in 3rd - laid it out to be able to open 2 doors and shoot straight through. I made a 1/4" thick stainless bullet trap that worked well.

Have to admit that my non-shooting wife never liked it much, though.

Holy ****, my wife would beat me about the head and shoulders with an iron frying pan if I did something like that! :eek:
 
I used to shoot my .22's in the basement of our first 3 houses (25' in first house, 50' in second, 25 yards in 3rd - laid it out to be able to open 2 doors and shoot straight through. I made a 1/4" thick stainless bullet trap that worked well.

Have to admit that my non-shooting wife never liked it much, though.

Ya we're honestly thinkin about the feasability of it. So did you just get plate stainless and angle it? I'm exploring options before I decide
 
I would contact the NRA and ask for their information on range construction. It's applicable to any size range. That said, you never want a flat steel backstop. Even at 25 yards. ricochets can come directly back at the shooter.

An angled backstop with a bullet trap of some kind at the bottom is what you want.
 
So did you just get plate stainless and angle it? I'm exploring options before I decide
I'm a mechanical engineer, and worked for a large fabrication plant, so pretty well drew up what I wanted and had the shop make it. The main plate was 1/4" thick and angled at 45 degrees. I think the rest was of 3/16" stainless. Kind of like the uploaded pic below:

Bullets hit it, slid down the back, around the corner and were sent back toward the front under the bottom area, which was filled with sand. Sides completed the structure. It weighed about 50 pounds, and had a shooting area of about 12" square, which was sufficient for the distance with my .22 pistols.
 

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Holy ****, my wife would beat me about the head and shoulders with an iron frying pan if I did something like that! :eek:
Well, as I said, she didn't like it much, but we were newlyweds, and I told her all the guys did that. :D

In the first house, I was firing pretty much under the kitchen, so she didn't like that at all. In the last house, I was firing way under the bedroom area, so during the day that was much better. Plus, I took some acoustic panels (4' x 4') and made a "shooting box" that folded down from the ceiling to help dampen the sound somewhat.
 
Ya that's what I had in mind. I was thinking a plate at 45 degrees and digging down about a foot and filling the bottom with sand underneath the plate. The looks of your design would be right around what I had in mind, but the curve back on itself is a better idea I think. You never had the rounds hit the 45 and ricochet into the top of your trap piece?
 
Ya that's what I had in mind. I was thinking a plate at 45 degrees and digging down about a foot and filling the bottom with sand underneath the plate.
I think that all you really need is the 45 degree plate and a bed of sand on the floor. But I wanted/needed something I could move from one place/house to another, so went with a smaller, self-contained unit.
The looks of your design would be right around what I had in mind, but the curve back on itself is a better idea I think. You never had the rounds hit the 45 and ricochet into the top of your trap piece?
No. In fact, from what I could tell by the marks on in, almost all rounds that hit would "slide" along the 45 degree plate to the bottom, and not ricochet to hit the plate below the angled plate. Lead apparently doesn't bounce very well. (That's not to say it can't happen. Even in one of the local indoor 25 yard ranges, my son was sitting behind me while I was shooting, and when someone else a few lanes away shot, my son caught a piece of shrapnel from "something" that cut his ankle. Got us a few free hours of shooting time. :o

But .22's really seem to splatter into small fragments when hitting anything solid. I know when I filtered out the sand in the bottom after shooting I didn't find anything that remotely resembled the shape of a bullet. I was shooting only solid lead, subsonic/target rounds, but can't believe the copper plating would make a difference here.
 
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