Saturday, December 19, 2009

On the Range

I had heard that the Cenla Sport Shooters were having a shoot this morning at the Rapides Sheriff's Office range this morning. I drove out there to see what was going on.

The sport shooters were having their Christmas match. About a dozen shooters were using the law-enforcement pistol range and the shoot house for a match. Here's a picture from atop the tower.



It's a beautiful range and well suited for training and competition. From atop the tower, I heard a boom from the rifle range and walked down to satisfy my curiosity. I met Clay Brister, one of the movers and shakers, and he gave me a tour of the work they've been doing. The Sheriff's Office is setting up a recreational shooting range and they're doing the work as time and money allows. Clay was telling me that the Sheriff thinks it's important to have a facility for the public to use and they're working toward that goal.

We walked the recreational shooting line, which is composed of three sections, shotgun (clays), pistol and rifle lines. Here's a photo taken from the shotgun line looking toward the pistol and rifle lines.



You can see that this work is still in progress and Clay told me that they haven't set an opening date yet, but that work continues as the weather and assets allow. I was on this site in August for my grandson's Hunter Safety Course and I could see that they've done a tremendous amount of work since then.

Finally, a view from the rifle line, downrange. There are berms at 25, 100, 200, and 300 yards. There is still some work to be done on the berms and the safety barriers, but the work moves along. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a good range.



You can click on the pictures for a bigger view. That little white dot out near the tree line is 300 yards away. I can't wait to try it out.

This is fine work. It should be an asset to the community when completed.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Looks like a VERY nice facility!

Termite said...

PawPaw,

I would LOVE to use that shooting range. Being able to actually test my rifles at more than 100 yds would be great. And being closer than the LDWF range at Woodworth is a plus.
Any idea when the Sheriff will open it to we non-LEO types?