New 1,000 yard range coming

[KBCraig]

Reported on northeastshooters.com: the Pemi gun club is in the process of building a 1,000 yard rifle range in Holderness.

Those of you in Grafton County who are interested should get in touch with them.

[Pat McCotter]

Frameless direct link: http://pemi.org/1000.html

1000 Yard Range     
   
There are rumors going around that the Pemi Fish and Game Club, in Holderness, NH, is planning to build a 1,000-yard range. The rumors are true.

There are two reasons that we're posting this update now. One is to let you know the real story about our efforts to build this new range (rumors have a way of distorting reality), and the other is to get a sense of your interest in it. At the end of this note is a request to you to answer some questions.

First a little background. The Pemi is a private club in central New Hampshire. It owns 330 acres, and has several rifle ranges, a trap field, an indoor range, a great archery range, and a nice club house. It runs rifle matches, cowboy and IDPA shoots, machine gun shoots, silhouette matches, summer and winter biathlons, archery events, trap shoots. We host boy scout camping. We do some hunter education, some pistol and rifle instruction, and are affiliated with the CMP. For a sleepy looking club in a sleepy part of the state, a lot goes on.

The rifle range is currently 200 yards, and over the years there has been much talk about expanding it to 300 or 600 yards. The topography makes that tough where the existing range is, though, and we've never gotten much past the talk stage. Over the years, too, a few people have even thought about a 1,000-yard range. That never got past the talk stage either ... until about 2 years ago when one club member was inspired enough to dig up some topo maps, find a possible spot, and drag a bunch of other club members out there to scout it out. And he was right: it looked like it might actually work.

So *this* time more than talk has happened. A little over a year ago we had the space clear cut. This spring and summer we did the wetlands delineation and then had a detailed survey done. Then we solicited and received bids do to the engineering/design work that will be needed to get the various environmental permits and to solicit bids for actual range construction. And finally, I'm going to ask the club's board to make a choice on the bids at our board meeting in early December (and to allocate money for that design work).

That's where we are. Of course, the big expensive step is construction, and is perhaps beyond the ability of the Pemi by itself. We expect to need to raise funds from outside. To that end, we really need to know how much interest there really is out there. So, what we're doing is polling you, NE shooters, about various aspects of the project. Call it "market research".

If you would take some time and answer these questions, it would be greatly appreciated. Send an e-mail to me at randyenger@verizon.net. It would help if you would put something like "Pemi 1,000-yard range" in the Subject line.

The Pemi's about 2 hours north of Boston, about 2 hours up I-93. If we ran a long-range match once a month (during the warm months!), would you make many of the matches? Would you come to 2 a month?

Would you prefer 1-day matches or 2-day matches?

We're looking into electronic targets. As expensive as they are, that would save us the expense of building target carriers and putting in pits. Also, it would eliminate pit changes at matches and the need to pull targets (or pay for target pullers). It would also eliminate the need to move back to each new distance (600, 800, 900, 1,000). There MAY be a small loss of accuracy, and there may be some technical glitches from time to time. In your mind, would this be a good trade off? Would you be willing to pay a little more per match to avoid having to pull targets?

Would you be willing to make a contribution (not now, but when we get the permits) to the range's construction costs whether as an outright gift or in the form of pre-paid membership fees or pre-paid match fees? What would be fair in your mind?

Do you know any die-hard shooters who just won the lottery? No? yeah, me neither. Do you have ideas about companies that might be worth approaching for donations?

I'd be eager to hear any other thoughts you have on this project. Thanks for your time.

[Russell Kanning]

this post might make more sense in the lakes region section
i had to look it up on a map to find the town
i guess it is 43 minutes from here
guys could go here coming and going from porcfest

[Lloyd Danforth]

If their curiosity overcomes their intimidation.