OK, so I finally made it out to the range at Hurblurt Field down here in Florida for some quality time with my Sig and HK. While it's nice to have any range, this one just doesn't impress me. First is a 2-man rule where you are required to have at least 2 liscensed drivers at the range. This way in case one of you opt to try out for the most recent Darwin awards, the other one can drive you to the hospital. 
Next is assigned lanes (this is an outdoor range BTW) so being able to pactice firing on the move (the wife and I shoot a lot of IDPA and IPSC) is out. Having to take a written test befroe you can use the range doesn't impress me nor does the idea of having to leave dud rounds in a red ammo can for EOD to dispose of thrill me all that much either. If it's a dud, I want to break it down and salvage the components. I think the longest range is a 200 meter rifle range (woopie! ) though for down here, I'm sure they think that's plenty far enough. Finally, is it just me or does the thought of being under video survelience creep you out too? I know it's a military base and all but it sure has shades of Big brother watching if you ask me! The civilian range up in Crestview isn't all that much better with no more than 1 round down range every 2 seconds (kind of kills doing double-tap drills or failure to stop drills) so I'm not even bothering to join that outfit. :barf:
Now when we were at Minot AFB in North Dakota, the range there was actullay pretty decent. Sadly, we moved before the new indoor range was opened. The outdoor range wasn't fancy or anything but if you were down there on a week day and nobody else was around, no problem. They just trusted the shooters not to manage to shoot themselves and as far as I know, there was never an accident at the Minot range either. It was a fairly large range with a pistol pit, 100 yard rifle/handgun range and a rifle range with old oxygen tanks for gongs all the way out to 800 yards. It was open enough that if you wanted to fire on the move, it was no problem. There were no silly rules about so many rounds per second, having to have 2 shooters out there or anything else like I've seen down here and Big Brother was NOT keeping an eye on you through a camera.
So now that I've described the two bases we've been stationed at, Minot AFB and Eglin AFB, and the ranges that are available to shooters, here's my question. With both the wife and I planning on making the military a permenant thing (she's active and I'm a reservist) we are going to get shipped around a lot to different bases and we want to know what ranges are located next to the various Air Force bases and what kind of rules they have. In other words, where do we want to get stationed after this place?
Next is assigned lanes (this is an outdoor range BTW) so being able to pactice firing on the move (the wife and I shoot a lot of IDPA and IPSC) is out. Having to take a written test befroe you can use the range doesn't impress me nor does the idea of having to leave dud rounds in a red ammo can for EOD to dispose of thrill me all that much either. If it's a dud, I want to break it down and salvage the components. I think the longest range is a 200 meter rifle range (woopie! ) though for down here, I'm sure they think that's plenty far enough. Finally, is it just me or does the thought of being under video survelience creep you out too? I know it's a military base and all but it sure has shades of Big brother watching if you ask me! The civilian range up in Crestview isn't all that much better with no more than 1 round down range every 2 seconds (kind of kills doing double-tap drills or failure to stop drills) so I'm not even bothering to join that outfit. :barf: Now when we were at Minot AFB in North Dakota, the range there was actullay pretty decent. Sadly, we moved before the new indoor range was opened.
The outdoor range wasn't fancy or anything but if you were down there on a week day and nobody else was around, no problem. They just trusted the shooters not to manage to shoot themselves and as far as I know, there was never an accident at the Minot range either. It was a fairly large range with a pistol pit, 100 yard rifle/handgun range and a rifle range with old oxygen tanks for gongs all the way out to 800 yards. It was open enough that if you wanted to fire on the move, it was no problem. There were no silly rules about so many rounds per second, having to have 2 shooters out there or anything else like I've seen down here and Big Brother was NOT keeping an eye on you through a camera. So now that I've described the two bases we've been stationed at, Minot AFB and Eglin AFB, and the ranges that are available to shooters, here's my question. With both the wife and I planning on making the military a permenant thing (she's active and I'm a reservist) we are going to get shipped around a lot to different bases and we want to know what ranges are located next to the various Air Force bases and what kind of rules they have. In other words, where do we want to get stationed after this place?