I’ve been fortunate enough to do some live fire training in Marietta, OH at Fort Harmar’s shoot house. I’ve found that I really enjoy that type of shooting.
I have 40 acres of rural(!) property with a two-story farm house and on old mobile home surrounded by wooded hills and ridges. I’ve been doing some live fire work in the mobile home but it’s obviously limited as far as size.
I was wondering what it would take to start training in the farm house, if anybody’s ever tried converting a home into a training facility, or might have some ideas or resources to share.
This would just be for me, my friends, and maybe eventually a couple of hand-picked students.
At the very least I’m going to use the 2nd story and attic as a makeshift unknown-distance sniper tower with steel targets strewn about the property.
Simunition or airsoft buddy. Running a shoothouse is out of most of our leagues. Not to mention, you don’t want to even think about it without liability insurance in the million dollar range. I’ve been through some instructor development as far as shoothouses go but there is no way in hell I would run a private one for me and my buddies. You’re asking for a world of trouble.
With sims or airsoft, you can get very useful training if you do it right and without such a high risk factor. You can build some non load bearing walls which don’t need to reach the ceiling (high enough to install interior doors), barricades, throw in some furniture, etc…
I don’t know how much training value you can get out of this unless you or one of your buddies has significant training and/experience kicking I’m doors but it would be a lot of fun. Wish I has that kind of land.
+1 on sims and airsoft. Shoothouses are fun and all, but you don’t want to accidentally shoot the neighbors kid who happened to come on to your property. The coolest thing about sims and airsoft is you can have a 2 way range. That’s the most beneficial training you can ever have.
We currently carry two million-dollar policies, but both are for my range and classroom, not this second piece of property.
I know next to nothing about Airsoft; I’ve bumped into a couple guys who are into it exclusively -not as a training tool for anything else- and they’re… um… enthusiastic about the sport. I own a couple of spring-operated pistols that I use for low-light training tools but that’s it. If I could guarantee that it wouldn’t devolve into a game, I’d be willing to try it. Feel free to educate me.
I have several movable walls and barriers that I use for HD classes that could perform double duty in the house; good point.
The way I currently do live fire in the trailer is with one-way presentations. The lay of the land is such that I feel I can do this with reasonable safety but erecting berms closer around the trailer wouldn’t be a hardship. The problem with a single-direction shoot house is it gets stale. The plus is that it’s so tight in there that a lot of standard clearing technique won’t work making it challenging.
Does anyone see any issues with using the two-story house as a makeshift rifle tower? I wouldn’t think some portable steel targets with clear lines of sight would get me in too much trouble.
It actually is very difficult to “wander” onto the property. You’d have to trek over some rough terrain and through some seriously nasty briar to get around the “firearms in use; stay the f*** away” signs but not foolproof.
If your in OH your not far from Pittsburgh.
southnarc will be doing his AMIS course in January. Its all about inside structures and he uses airsoft and sims, no live fire https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=88477
I’ll bet you could glean a lot of info on using AS as a tool inside this structure from him at this class.
Building a shoot house in and of itself isn’t hard. Surrounding it with a 365 degree berm gets a bit harder but it could be done. Affording the liability and insurance riders…and that becomes something else entirely.
40 acres is next to nothing when you’re talking about bullets.
I’m a certified range creation guy.
Shoot-houses are no joke when it comes to building one that is not only safe to those within the room and inside the structure but also to those that are outside the structure.
You essentially have two options: the really expensive and fairly safe way, and the fairly expensive and far less safe way.
The expensive/safe option requires armoring every wall, covering it spall sucking material, and reworking interior angles to reduce the probability of escapement of projectiles through gaps in armor. Not too many residential homes are built with the support structure to handle that kind of weight.
The other option is to create a snail-shell type berm around the structure with overlap to prevent escapement of a projectile from within. The berms must be tall enough to contain a high angle shot (such as a headshot from a kneeling position). Targets should be mounted in bullet traps and carefully placed to ensure that all shots are traveling away from anyone else inside the structure.
You also have the option of building a “tire house”, but a lot of realism suffers with those.
Look at what companies like ActionTarget charge to build a shoot house that will contain 5.56. Not a simple task to undertake, and I highly recommend that you discuss it with your insurance company and see what their requirements are.
Let me get this straight, you have 40 acres and a trailer you’re using as your shoot house for now? So far, I’m just really jealous you have your own training area, even if it is limited in size. I can imagine it’s going to be really expensive building an actual shoot house that’s capable of protecting others in and out of the structure. I’d have to say that simunitions is a good way to go if you don’t plan on spending millions lol
Yeah, I know I’m lucky in that department. Got a three-sided 25 yard pistol pit and classroom, 100 yard range, 2 300-bird throwers as well as archery set-ups. I really can’t complain. M4 members have a standing invitation, by the way…
I guess what I had in mind for the house were stand-up bullet traps like the ones at Ft. Harmar: a large metal box with conveyor-belt type rubber mats. Strictly for pistol calibers. The house is covered on three sides by close-in hillside. And I figured I wouldn’t be taking anyone in there who couldn’t hit a door-sized bullet trap from 15 feet but I recognize that stuff happens.
I’ll probably just keep using the trailer and maybe set some targets up outside the house to shoot at from windows -I can see where that may have some relevancy for us rural folks. Maybe eventually get into airsoft. Converting the old farm house to a full-on shoot house with protected walls would probably be more trouble than just building one from railroad ties.