enjoy lead contamination

Walter Payton had one.

I remember reading an article in Guns & Ammo years ago where a friend of the author tried building an underground range off his basement.  The design was well thought out and would have been very safe.  Well he got signed off by the county for his building permits, but his neighbors got wind of it and got the laws changed where discharging a firearm was illegal even for what he wanted to do.  This occurred right as construction was finished so he was stuck with basically a tunnel coming off his house and was out thousands of dollars.  Thats always a risk with an undertaking like this.

There was a guy that had one that lived next to my wife's home-place.

It was made of cement culvert pipe and accessed by a hatch in the wall of his basement that his bench was up against.

It was 50 yards long and had a skylights at around 25 yards and one the end to illuminate the target. He used what looked to me like a aquarium light set-up so he could also shoot at night. It also had a cage fan that pulled out the smoke at about 1/4 of it's length as well as sort of a range hood affair where his rifle rest was.  

The guy was big into .22 match rifles and as far as I know .22 is all he shot in it.

When he passed and the house went up for sale i tried getting it but with the land (some zoned commercial) it was well beyond my means at the time.

My friend did exactly what you are proposing when he had a new septic field installed; he had a 3' corrugated pipe from a road project installed from the back of his basement. Built a small room in the basement end with 4x4 ceiling and has a vent at the far end. works pretty well.

I'll help wire it and with ventilation/ heating.

Sounds fun!!!

Check the bullet drop at 1300 yards, you will need a large diameter pipe

I believe you can bury them, but you have to add sone sort of support structure foe the sides and top. In this pic, I assume concrete walls are going to be poured around the sides.

The container sides and top are not designed to support the load of the fill dirt.

LaRue thread:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_2_219/177561_Containers_set_____8___27_update____LaRue_25_yard_Underground_Range_.html


And more ideas:

We had one in the house I grew up in. Never really used it, it was freaking loud. IIRC it was corrugated 24" tube. Had a pulley system for the targets which someone had shot the hell out of and a light which was, of course, shot out. I never wanted to use it bad enough to crawl down it and fix it. Dad would occasional use it just for function checking guns he was working on.

 At the bulb.



That's why it's better to have a smooth pipe so you can use a auto dolly.

Yeah I always thought that was pretty funny. I also wondered if there wasn't some access through the yard that got covered up at some point, but I never found it. What OP is proposing would make a little more sense. It will still be loud a hell though Im sure.

Not true, I read about one with a 12 inch pipe.

First place I lived in Kommiefornia, the landlord had a bomb shelter he had dug out of the sandstone of the hillside (he was an older guy, so he was around for the Cold War, and Sandy Eggo was ground zero ).  Since the nuke war never happened, he used it as a shooting range, which I was free to use as well.  Talk about a fringe benefit!   John was a happy camper...

And this.  Should you do this thing, don't use the 2 foot pipe, as others have said; make sure you can WALK down it, to fix problems at the other end, and so's you can sweep up the unburned powder that will accumulate.  I vote for cinderblock walls, and railroad ties for a roof, overlaid with plastic and/or tar.  That way, you can have cars drive over it w/o collapsing.

6' would be awesome, but you could have a decent little range something as small as 30"

You would need a decent size basement type room for your shooting area, or partition off a section of your existing basement.

For the pit at the end of the tube what types of calibers you want to shoot would partly determine the size of the pit needed and the backstop.

For rimfire or pistol, a simple 45 degree smash plate and collection tray would work.

If you want to shoot rifle, you would want a more complicated deflection plate system, or a sand or other medium pile in the back, either way it will require a larger pit.

for a pistol caliber setup, the pit could be as small as ~a foot larger than diameter of the pipe in width and depth (+whatever depth to make it back up to grade), and maybe 2 ft longer in length. It could easily be made out of block or poured.  You may be able to find a precast vault that would work.  

Depending on your local soil and the drainage, you may not even need to do a floor.   If drainage isn't ideal you may need to pour a floor and sump.

When i was a kid we would test fire loaded ammo into stacks of newspaper, in the basement.

This is basically what's in the armory at Ft. McCoy as well.

Not really, eventually it will self clean.  

I live on a lot of stone serious boulders...but id love one 

few grand will not cut it.

my guess: Just materials for the 2 basement ends will run 5-7k

total project if you had to pay somebody to do it would be pushing 50k

Find someone who makes tornado shelters or storm sewer junctions. Should be pretty easy if you have a backhoe. If you can get a storm shelter cert, you might qualify for FEMA funds.

Unburned gunpowder collects faster than you can imagine.

The guys who swept up the indoor range where I used to work would routinely set all the dust on fire to burn it off.  

Not a smart move though, considering that ordinary primers are made of a lead compound, so burning off the powder released a lot of lead vapor too.

My uncle built one way back in the day at his house.

He buried a line of concrete pipes about 50 yards out into the yard, one end opening in the basement.

The other end he built a box where you could put targets, along with lots and lots of flattened rubber tires and other backing.  Over that were two cellar doors that opened.

The basement room he soundproofed and sealed up.

Used to use it a lot for his fancy hunting handguns.

Governors Gun Club in GA did it. Pretty darn cool.

When I was about 10-14 I had a friend whose dad would let us do that in the friends' ~10x12 bedroom.  Pointed at an interior wall adjoining his little brothers' room.  Unsupervised.  And not just 22lr....    

A friend of mine in Springfield MO has a 10 yard pistol range in his basement. He lined the walls with acoustic panels to help with noise. It was still the loudest place I've ever been shooting and anything over 9mm would shake the house, dust would fly everywhere.

If seriously considering I would think about a few things:

-Serious French drain with Lots of strong sump pumps.  So if one fails, theres already redundancy built in without having to tear shit up.

Like... I'm talking a sump pump every 6 feet.  Cheap insurance.

-smooth wall

-strong inline duct fans on both ends and one in the middle-Ish.  Stronger fan at the target end for a vacuum.effect.  you want that powder and lead getting pulied away from the firing line.

-recessed LED lighting. Protected from Spall, and less having to go into the nasty end to change bulbs.

-as big a friggin space as possible.

-some noise mitigation architecture.  Consult an audio engineer.  

-consult local soil expert

-sized large enough to access all portions.

Here's a price estimator for different specs of precast reinforced concrete. http://www.ncp-inc.com/price1.html

Here's what those specs mean: http://www.rinkerpipe.com/TechnicalInfo/ConcretePipeSpecifications.aspx

ASTM- C76 reinforced underground pipe in 30" is about  $55 per linear foot. Not bad... but it's 500 lbs per linear foot.

60" pipe is about $200 per linear foot and weighs 1500lbs per linear foot

Here's a concrete block calculator: http://www.cemexusa.com/ProductsServices/BlockCalculator.aspx

A 6'x6'x100' concrete hallway (not counting ceiling) would take about 2100 cinder blocks, plus fill and reinforcement and sand etc.  That's if you use block for.the floor as well (maybe not my first choice.... but feasible).  Don't forget that drainage system and lots of pumps, gravel, etc.  You might be able to have a gravel floor over the French drain and pump array, and just pour footers for the walls.....  hell, we might be onto something with that.  Or maybe pavers, even.

A skinny  30" x 30" x100' cinder block tunnel (not counting ceiling) would take about 800 blocks. That includes the block floor, if doing such a thing.  But if you're going to build this thing, might as well make it big enough to not be a literal shithole.  IMO.  Cinder blocks are something you could do a good amount of the labor on.  Concrete pipe sections are likely not.  That might be a good or bad thing, depending...

All that work to only be able to shoot off a bench thru a claustrophobic tube likely doesn't have enough payoff for me...   an actual tunnel that you can stand and shoot from field positions within is what I'd want to take advantage of at the end of such a massive project.  You aren't a company test-firing guns, you want fun.

I think that's what happened to Nosler.  Can't find the exact article where they figured out what happened, but this describes the fire: http://www.bendbulletin.com/news/1416145-151/nosler-explosion-still-a-mystery

Supposedly what happened was something like this:

They had an underground range that ran under the factory.  Over time, unburnt powder built up, as well as target chaff. Somewhow the unburnt powder was ignited, causing a fire, which destroyed the exhaust fans, which then caused the fire to get sucked back towards the ballistics lab - the room with the shooting benches.  I think the target room was also near the powder magazine, and fire worked its way through old cracks in the concrete until it hit the powder in the magazine - which then leveled half the factory.

Building something like that under your HOUSE sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

I think I mentioned earlier that ours was loud. I can't emphasize enough how loud that damn thing was. First time Dad used it was either the 30-06 or the .338, it wasn't pleasant to be anywhere in that house, let alone the small room in the basement I'm surprised we he didn't get a nose bleed or something. He still seemed pretty stunned by it when I got down there to make sure he was okay. I was afraid he had blown his rifle up or something.

A guy did that here in St Paul a while back and got in some trouble for it, not sure if it was a zoning thing or permit or shooting in he city limits. Anyway I think they investigated him and dragged his name through the mud because he ran a gun store that sold WWII merchandise and there was some flags with swastikas and stuff also a park nearby where people would play basketball and smash 40 oz. bottles all over the place.

Most cities have an ordinance about discharging firearms (and some consider pellet guns firearms). I guess indoor ranges get waivers or something.

That sounds awesome, I bet it would be loud af though.

Local gun store has an indoor two bay rifle range, even with good plugs and ear muffs it is stupid loud.  Huge echo and reverberation adds to the noise.

I hate indoor ranges

Feasible I suppose.

Expensive definitely.

No way your going to get approval to do it.  Would have to lie and say your doing some kind of drainage project or something.  EPA will shit all over you.

that sounds like the ideal place, all I do is 22 target rifles anymore also

more like a roofed over canyon

container walls hold a shitload of weight, they put 40k lbs in 20 footers and stack the fuckers 10 high on the container ships

run the ballistics on the arc of the ammo you will be using for the guns you have.  I'd go at least 3 x the maximum height of the trajectory for the radius of the pipe. Then I'd take into account whether or not I want my barrel centered in the pipe or in a lower quadrant and add that to the radius.

LOL

I can't fathom why anyone would do this with the exception of companies testing guns.

which isn't the worst result in the world. When I was a kid I watched some WWII and it showed how the Japanese had these tunnel systems everywhere.   I got it into my head I needed a tunnel so spent most of a summer building tunnels in my pasture.  I had a couple hundred feet of tunnels with a fairly large room at one end,  my dad was scared it would collapse on me so he had me take the roof off and he put down 4x4's and corrugated steel and we recovered it.  It was pretty awesome.  I used it most of the summer,  had several campouts in it,  about a million imaginary battles with Japanese soldiers, dragons and some actual, honest-to-gosh nightmare sized spiders and one GIANT ass blowsnake that made me shart my pants when I sat on it.


Then it turned into a lake. It flooded and got Sooo swampy.  So we caved the roof in,  I dug some more and hooked it to the irrigation canal, and I turned it into a tiny sucker fishery. That was a lot of fun too. I didn't do a lot of fishing, but I exploded a metric ton of suckers with fireworks that next summer......

We shot 22 in our unfinished basement in Seattle where I lived until I was 8. I would get home from school and shoot a couple rounds sometimes, we had a big hunk of tree as a backstop
That place was perfect as the left end was buried into a hill, no close neighbors and a forest adjacent to the back yard.

Biggest reason I would consider it is load development.  Set up your reloading bench next to the shooting bench.

I'd want 100 yards though.

Noise mitigation wouldn't be impossible.  Accoustic tiles and shoot through tires would help.

The walls aren't structural either - only the floor and the frame have any strength.

I believe the weight is on the corners, not the roof which could make a huge difference.

This is my fear, that even doing it on the cheap,   it's going to be hugely expensive, beyond reasonable.

I found 31" culvert for 600 already. enough to do 30 yards.  I think he'll go cheaper.

I need a trench probably 8 feet deep and 30 yards long.  Not sure how much that'll cost but I'm also considering just renting a backhoe.  I've driven backhoe's before and while I'm not the fastest, I can dig a trench.  I also have a buddy that's an excavator that would probably do it for a few hundred bucks and a case of beer.


That leaves the rooms.  I am only going to shoot rimfire and handguns, no need for high power rifles.     That means no room on the target end. I'll sink a 4' tube vertically, put a ladder in place to climb down and work on the targets.  That's probably a couple hundred bucks for a tube like that. I could also just buy one of the many concrete culverts for sale on my local classified adds.

The the shoot room....  Not sure how to solve this, but i was thinking that I'd build a small room,  I mean tiny,  maybe 8' wide,  6-8 feet front to back and maybe 7' high?  I'd build it from cinderblock filled with cement.


the other option here is to lay the pipe straight away from the house, and come right into my office through the window well.  I would literally open the window and shoot out the window into the tunnel. I can sound cap the Window well with a window well cover with sound proofing on it, and then I have a built in office and place to shoot from. The tube would include a moveable baffle that would basically slide into my window whenever I shoot.  

I'd make it out of a 50 gallon drum, mount it around the outside of the culvert pipe, and slide it back and forth with industrial rollers.

This avoids the whole "shoot room" thing altogether, and avoids punching a hole in the basement wall.

it also makes the lead/particulate problem very low as most of that will be in the drum, and I can replace the drum when necessary, or use a foam lining that I can remove and discard when necessary.


I will take some pictures and show what I mean.

Mostly .22,  suppressed.  

Some handgun, but I have a plan for a giant suppressor made out of a 55 gallon drum I would shoot through.......

how do you like my root cellar?!

There was a similar fire at Glock in Georgia; 2 employees died IIRC.