Anyone tried the Dayton rifle range yet?

[kittyhawk]

Saw a add in my local paper a while back for the Dayton rifle range. I was wondering how it is.

 

[benenglish]

Hadn't heard of it. Do you have a name or address?

 

[benenglish]

Is it this one? Dayton Gun Club & Range

They claim to be the only range in Dayton so if they're the one you're talking about...I'm unimpressed.

Look at the pictures and read about the fees. For $600/year (according to the home page) or $360 per year (according to the fees page) or $6 per gun per day, you get poorly designed rifle benches, a poorly designed pistol range, and missing overhead cover. Clearly, also, you get a web site that suffers from a lack of proofreading.

Despite it being a private range (which is now open to the public, so maybe that explains something), they have a bunch of rules. Many of them don't make sense for private ranges. Shall we have a look?

From their rules page -

• Rule 2 - You're required to record personal ID information of your guests.
• Rule 4 - Under-18 folks must be directly supervised at all times. It doesn't matter if your 17-year-old daughter is a highly skilled rifleman who's been winning medals since she was a preteen. You must stand over her the entire time she shoots.
• Rule 9 - Even though they're open to the public and charge a day rate, shooters are still responsible for policing targets. Uh, no. If I'm paying by the gun/day, when I leave I don't expect to have to wait around for another cease fire just to go downrange and remove my targets. If it were a purely private club, sure, but not when I'm paying daily and there are range officers present to shut the place down at the end of the day.
• Rule 10 - Firing points are fixed. It doesn't look like close-range/variable-range/movement work with a handgun is possible.
• Rule 14 - No full-auto, no black powder, steel core, or AP. I can understand the first one on that list but the last three, especially at an outdoor range, earn a hearty Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot from me.
• Rule 17 - No "gangster handling" of firearms. OK, I guess they don't realize that there are valid reasons to train with a handgun that's not held perfectly vertical. I sure hope they aren't using that language as code for some less-savory reasoning. Oops, spoke too soon. Check out the next two.
• Rule 18 - No offensive or gang clothing, and
• Rule 19 - Pants must be worn correctly. Sheesh, why don't they just put up a sign that says "No young black men"? It's their shop and their rules but I don't patronize normal businesses (i.e., not including places like churches, etc.) that think they have the moral authority to tell me or anyone else how to dress. They have the legal right but not a moral one.
• Rule 25 - Hangfires/misfires must be paused for 1 minute. Even the NRA teaches that 30 seconds is enough. They provide a place to dispose of live rounds but if you fail to use it "your licensing authority will be notified as to your unsafe firearms handling", whatever that means. I think it means they're full of themselves and are going to go tattle to your mommy and daddy.
• Rule 27 - Rapid fire is only allowed if an RSO is standing over you the entire time. I can't imagine they'd actually enforce that kind of idiocy but it's in the rules.
• Rule 30 - "Safety is the first priority at Kill Zone..." Seriously? They either named their club "Kill Zone" or plagiarized their rules from a place with that name? Way to make a good impression on the public.

I hope somebody with experience on that range will chime in. It (and I'm trying to be polite, here) doesn't seem to be worth the drive for me and I live less than an hour away.

 

[ESinclair]

I've used the range. $6 per gun is their fee. I'm pretty happy with the setup and I didn't find any of their rules out of the ordinary. They have a range master that will give you a ride back to the furthest targets. Parking can be restricted to the road after big rains as you could get your car stuck in the mud. They do have a pistol area and rifle section. They do allow tannerite if you buy it from them. It's never been crowded.