North Range 6-21

[totallyunimodular]

Went to the North Range site today for the first time, and it was the first time shooting my first gun (Mosin Nagant 91/59), so a fun start to Father's Day. Here are a couple of items people might find interesting...

At one point there were four different groups of shooters and I suspect the Forest Service folks saw the number of cars and decided it was a good time to pay a visit. A female ranger asked for our attention and went over the basic rules and regulations. Nice lady. She said that the week before they had caught someone shooting a computer monitor and fined him $270. Apparently he had four other TVs and monitors in his car. Interestingly, she said that the Lefthand site was NOT closed, but would be closed soon due to expanding the area of OHVers and building a better parking area and trail enterance. I spent 15 minutes afterwards picking up other people's trash, but surprisingly it did not seem that bad. Although coming across old computer keyboard parts again made me think "Morons"...

Its been a while since I was up in the Lefthand area. Can anyone say what kind of distances you can shoot at? The North Range site seems to be effectively a sub 150 yard area. I suppose if I get around to testing the 91/59 out to 300 yards I'll need to go east somewhere

[gnihcraes]

Sorry to hear people are trashing up the place. I still am meaning to get there a couple times this summer to shoot and cleanup whatever I can.

Sounds like she was reasonable. I don't have any information to give on the lefhand site.

Welcome to the forums... pretty good group of people here.

Kc.

[Marlin]

Come down to the south site.. One could reasonably get 300 there....

[jackmode9316]

You could always travel up to Hot Sulphur springs area. Right before the town of parhall on the right hand side. Free range, and they have target stands already at 25, 100, and 200. They even have shooters benchs.

North site is still my favorite though.

[jason303]

After cleaning up various electronic "targets" up there myself, you made my day by relaying the fact that someone was fined for shooting these up. How did we go from getting enjoyment by improving our shooting skills and fine tuning our equipment to blowing sh!t up? I know it's some people, hopefully not most. I'm not against having a little fun, but when they don't clean up after themselves...

[totallyunimodular]

Yeah, the big issue is just leaving trash everywhere. If it was a quilting club trashing the place out I'd come down hard on them. But, if you come down on gun people for the same thing the advocacy groups scream that you are against guns. Not me, I am just against morons and it sounds like most folks on this forum share a similar view (that being the fact that being able to criticize our own is a necessary means of maintaining a dwindling collection of rights and privileges).

jackmode9316: You had replied to another post I have about the 91/30 I have for sale ($110). I shot it as well as the 91/59 and its a great shooter, if you are still interested...

[Irving]

You should be able to shoot almost anything you want as long as you clean it up. She shouldn't have fined him until after he left without cleaning it up. That's my opinion anyway. Cleaning up blown up electronics sounds like a pain in the ass, so I'd avoid the hassle by NOT shooting them in the first place.

[totallyunimodular]

Sturtle,

I see where you are coming from but realistically its damn near impossible to really clean up lots of electronic parts, and that stuff leaches into the ground water and on and on. I just got off the phone with the Boulder Ranger District to confirm the situation up at the North Range site. Bottom line: you cannot shoot debris, anything that breaks. That includes clay pigeons. The rangers said they typically let that slide for the North Range since it used to be the old Allanspark dump anyway, but technically, no trash, debris or anything that causes litter. It does not matter if you attempt to pick it up, its a federal offense. Bottom line number two: our opinions on this don't really matter because the land owners up there are apparently writing constant letters to the District managers to get the site closed. They are sick of people shooting at night, leaving trash, etc. So, interestingly enough, the District is on the side of the shooters here and are acting as a buffer between us and local landowners. If we want to keep these few sites open we need to be respectful of other users and follow the laws. If we don't like the laws we should work with our elected officials to change them, but we need to remember that its not always "government" that we are fighting, its often other groups of people who see our behavior in a negative way. Its really going to take a concerted effort on all of our parts to pick up afterselves. Sorry for the rant

[Irving]

That's interesting that you can't shoot clay pigeons up there. I thought that they were all supposed to be bio-degradable now? *Not that I've actually returned to a site and seen less pigeon debris than before or anything.*

I totally understand why the law is the way it is. It IS next to impossible to clean it all up, that's why I was saying I'd rather not shoot it in the first place. That's nice of the government to act as a buffer.