Build an indoor gun range?

[Rhino]

My wife and I are going to be designing a house to build on the property we bought in Tennessee in the next few years. I started wondering today about the possibility of having a gun range down in the basement. I've never built anything like that before though, so I'm wondering if anyone else here has. I imagine there has to be some sort of bullet trap at the end and probably steel plating on the walls and ceiling to deflect any errant shots away from the rest of the house, but I haven't really thought it past that point yet.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Another thing to check, is to make sure its legal to have an indoor range on your property.

 

[sdprof]

Check with Brad Pitt and Angelina - he gave her a range as a present

Or check here: Link Removed

 

[S&W645]

Main thing about an indoor range is the need for moving air from behind the shooters toward the target and then filtering or outdoor dumping of the air. In some cases, both.

 

[Kramer1113]

I built one in my basement up north.
Cinder Blocks and sand, Lots and lots of sand. I ordered a truck of the white sand you use under an above ground pools liner and ended up ordering 1/2 a truck more.
I made the mistake of allowing the sand to get rained on and it took well over a year to dry. Mold became an issue so I bleached it after several months and the problem went away.
You'll want to heavily insulate the ceiling in the basement and it will still be really loud.
I used a high volume bathroom exhaust fan that went in the window to the left of the targets. Never had a problem with smoke or fumes.
I did always worry about a stray maybe going through the floor but it never happened.
Manually pulled a cloths line and pulley system to run targets down. One shooter at a time.

 

[N R A]

Obama has ordered OSHA to inspect all gun ranges by the end of 2015, and issue fines for anything out of their liking. Fines are ranging (pun intended) from $800 to over $100,000. You really want a range in your house?

 

[kwc]

Obama has ordered OSHA to inspect all gun ranges by the end of 2015, and issue fines for anything out of their liking. Fines are ranging (pun intended) from $800 to over $100,000. You really want a range in your house?

OSHA has no jurisdiction over a personal, home-based firing range. If the OP charges others to use it and it is classified as a business, different story...

 

[rt48]

Ohio law says the ODNR can set rules for shooting ranges including private ones.

Lawriter - ORC - 1533.83 Shooting range definitions.

Lawriter - ORC - 1533.84 Rules for establishing standards for shooting ranges.

Lawriter - OAC - 1501:31-29-03 Shooting ranges.

 

[kwc]

Ohio law says the ODNR can set rules for shooting ranges including private ones.

The EPA and state equivalents (like DNR in OH) do have regs that must be followed. There are often municipal restrictions, too. The OP will need to research TN environmental and municipal laws, and construction codes, before building.

 

[apvbguy]

My wife and I are going to be designing a house to build on the property we bought in Tennessee in the next few years. I started wondering today about the possibility of having a gun range down in the basement. I've never built anything like that before though, so I'm wondering if anyone else here has. I imagine there has to be some sort of bullet trap at the end and probably steel plating on the walls and ceiling to deflect any errant shots away from the rest of the house, but I haven't really thought it past that point yet.

after figuring out how to trap the expended rounds your biggest issue will be ventilation

 

[Rhino]

Another thing to check, is to make sure its legal to have an indoor range on your property.

Why? Do you know of a law in Tennessee against it?

 

[Rhino]

Obama has ordered OSHA to inspect all gun ranges by the end of 2015, and issue fines for anything out of their liking. Fines are ranging (pun intended) from $800 to over $100,000. You really want a range in your house?

OSHA compliance is tied to lead exposure to workers. This won't be a commercial range and there won't be any workers, so it won't be subject to OSHA rules. And yes, I really want a range in my house. I already have one in my yard.
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Ohio law says the ODNR can set rules for shooting ranges including private ones.
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Lawriter - ORC - 1533.83 Shooting range definitions.
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Lawriter - ORC - 1533.84 Rules for establishing standards for shooting ranges.
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Lawriter - OAC - 1501:31-29-03 Shooting ranges.

Those statutes are for public use ranges, not personal use ranges. They exist primarily for noise complaints, the bane of public use shooting range operations. Those are also Ohio statutes, and my post was about Tennessee.
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The EPA and state equivalents (like DNR in OH) do have regs that must be followed. There are often municipal restrictions, too. The OP will need to research TN environmental and municipal laws, and construction codes, before building.

There won't be any environmental contact. This is an indoor range. So there's no concern over environmental regulations. There's also no concern over municipal laws since there are no municipal laws there. The land is out in the country, which also eliminates any zoning concerns. Actually, since technically this probably will involve no structural changes to the house itself, I won't need any building permits, thus negating the applicability of building codes entirely. And this is Tennessee we're talking about, not New York. Nobody in Tennessee is likely to pass laws against shooting on your own property unless they have a death wish. And there's no building code for personal indoor shooting ranges. They do sometimes exist for commercial ranges, but apparently there aren't any where I'm building. I do thank you very much for mentioning that though. The search your question prompted yielded some excellent design resources.
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Actually I need to thank everyone. The inputs have been great so far, as have been the links. Thanks!

 

[N R A]

I do not understand needing everything under one roof. How big a deal is it to walk outside to another close by building?

I think small domes for each room would make a neat house with garden areas between buildings.

My indoor range in in a building 100 feet from my house. I am glad it is not in the same building.

 

[Rhino]

I do not understand needing everything under one roof.

Mainly because it costs a lot more to build more than one building. And everything under one roof is more convenient.
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How big a deal is it to walk outside to another close by building?

If there isn't another building? It's pretty hard. Seriously though, having a home made up of numerous separate structures has no appeal for me. I like to be able to walk from my bedroom to my kitchen without having to dress for the weather. And what if I want to shoot nekked? :lol:
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I think small domes for each room would make a neat house with garden areas between buildings.

Domes? Dude, I'm building a house, not a castle or an indian village.
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My indoor range in in a building 100 feet from my house. I am glad it is not in the same building.

To each his own. I'm glad you're happy with your setup, but not everybody wants the same thing. The only other building on the property will be the barn/workshop, and putting a range in there would involve far more work and money than a range in the basement of the house. A basement range won't require a change in the footprint of the structure like a range in the barn would, and some of the structural strength required for a range is already inherently in place in a basement, unlike in the barn. Then there's climate control, noise control, etc., etc. In the house works much better for me. But thanks for the input.

 

[N R A]

Mainly because it costs a lot more to build more than one building. And everything under one roof is more convenient.
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If there isn't another building? It's pretty hard. Seriously though, having a home made up of numerous separate structures has no appeal for me. I like to be able to walk from my bedroom to my kitchen without having to dress for the weather. And what if I want to shoot nekked? :lol:
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Domes? Dude, I'm building a house, not a castle or an indian village.
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To each his own. I'm glad you're happy with your setup, but not everybody wants the same thing. The only other building on the property will be the barn/workshop, and putting a range in there would involve far more work and money than a range in the basement of the house. A basement range won't require a change in the footprint of the structure like a range in the barn would, and some of the structural strength required for a range is already inherently in place in a basement, unlike in the barn. Then there's climate control, noise control, etc., etc. In the house works much better for me. But thanks for the input.

You sound like my wife. She does not like the idea of seperate small rooms. That is because she does not need to listen to herself! Lol

Heaven would be small detached room's with me one step away from her.

Back on subject. Shooting creates many deadly poisons you do not want inside a closed space if you can help it. Out of wind and weather could mean a covered barn. That is a healthier choice, and lots less money to set up if you have the land. In town, not an option i guess, but most towns are not going to let you shoot in your own home.

 

[Stengun]

Howdy,

I do not understand needing everything under one roof. How big a deal is it to walk outside to another close by building?

I think small domes for each room would make a neat house with garden areas between buildings.

My indoor range in in a building 100 feet from my house. I am glad it is not in the same building.

+1!

With a range in the basement unless you spent +$25k on insulation and vibration dampening ( yes your house will actually vibrate when you fire a gun in the basement ) materials whomever is upstairs while you are shooting will get tired of it real quick unless they are running a jackhammer at the time.

Like G20 said, it's much easier to use a separate building.

A suppressor will help to solve a lot of the noise and vibration in a basement range.

A bullet trap for handguns is easy to make using 3/8" cold rolled steel plates. All you have to do is copy one of the pellet gun type traps and scale it up to your desired size.

The trap is made so the bullet never hits squarely into the trap but at an angle and it ricochets into the next plate at an angle and then lands into a sandbox at the bottom of the trap. You will need an exhaust fan connected to the trap to remove lead, cooper and other materials that will become airborne.

HTH

Paul

 

[alternety]

The NRA sells a very useful and informative range construction manual. It is available on DVD now. I read through it about 12 years ago so I don't know if it has changed. It was oriented toward commercial ranges. But a lot of stuff is only a matter of scale.

When it is in the basement you want several things to be true. You don't want bullets bouncing around. You do not want bullets to leave the range. Put it in a foundation corner and you automatically have two concrete walls (cinder block might be OK for smaller calibers; but I would not do that myself). If you are just building, add a third concrete wall the length of the range. You could do the fourth side for a bit more safety. Insulate the inside walls (on the non-range side.) You may not want to heat the range space, and for sound suppression. It is relatively unused and will be sucking outside air through it when in operation. I would use a wall mountable infrared heater at the firing position.

Well designed bullet trap is a requirement. There are a bunch of designs. See the NRA thing and Google is always your friend (Nosy, but a friend).

But what about the ceiling? My thoughts. Thoroughly insulate the ceiling. For both temperature isolation and sound. Drywall it. You can apply some of the techniques used by the home theater to improve isolation of the ceiling and walls inside the basement. One relatively easy to implement is a double layer of drywall connected by a special caulk/glue that dampens sound transmission. There are special clips for mounting drywall to studs that also provide sound isolation. There is also a useful technique in wall stud structure. You use alternating studs. One phase holds the inside drywall and the other phase holds the drywall for the other wall. Then the cavity is filled with sound absorbing material (e.g., rock wool, fiberglass, etc.). The header and footer 2Xs are also separated. With concrete you would just hold the wall off and pretend there was another drywall. There are many materials and parts to support this approach. Most can be used together. Ceiling would be a bit trickier.

Air - exhaust fan at the far end of the range. Intake air at firing station. One approach I thought of was to put mufflers in the intake and exhaust air ducts for noise reduction outside.

There there is the ceiling. Rather than cover the whole ceiling with expensive and heavy steel (be sure to do all the engineering when you are going to support heavy stuff in the structure), use a series of slanted deflectors. These to be mounted to the concrete; not the floor joists). The easy way to design this (in my mind) is with a CAD package. Paper and pencil if you can hold angles and dimensions can also work. But errors are more likely and most likely much slower.

Create a scale drawing of the range. Designate a line where no one is allowed to fire while on the downrange side. Maybe a simple wall with an access gate so people don't forget. Settle on your bullet trap/backstop and determine the aperture for effective trapping (from the trap design). From the line in the sand, draw lines from the position of the firing gun, to the effective top of the trap (or somewhere between the trap top and the ceiling - you decide). You also get to choose what user heights to cover. Where the gun will be physically position at discharge. If you allow firing in the prone position or from the hip, this may turn out to be less effective than a full ceiling of steel. The line you have drawn at the lowest anticipated/allowable/accidentally firing point (for the shortest person) of the actual firearm to the ceiling/end wall/trap will now easily allow you to determine the spacing and size of the ceiling deflectors. What you need to do is come up with a series of deflectors that will cast a shadow on anything you don't want bullets to hit. That is why I recommend a CAD system. Simple trial and error is effective. You can try constant size deflectors, mixed sizes, angle without messing with arithmetic. You can also readily see the paths of deflect bullets from various shooting heights. The cost of a usable CAD package can be free or reasonable in comparison to the money you are spending on the range.

Also be sure you use an appropriate grade and thickness of steel on the deflectors and traps. Steel ain't steel. Avoid lumps and sharp edges facing the shooter. You want terrible shots to keep on going down range, not administering an admonition to the careless or unskilled shooter.

Don't forget to allow for wiring for lighting and whatever else you want.

I would use only LED lighting. A simple camera (behind some steel) could be very handy to see your hits. on the target With wireless, only power would be needed at the target end. Or you could put a conduit withing the shadow of the deflectors.

Last step (sexist): convince you wife it is OK to be cooking while you are using the range.

 

[Rhino]

You sound like my wife. She does not like the idea of seperate small rooms. That is because she does not need to listen to herself! Lol
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Heaven would be small detached room's with me one step away from her.

Ah. Then you have a reason I don't have.
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Back on subject. Shooting creates many deadly poisons you do not want inside a closed space if you can help it. Out of wind and weather could mean a covered barn. That is a healthier choice, and lots less money to set up if you have the land. In town, not an option i guess, but most towns are not going to let you shoot in your own home.

Ventilation will be part of the design, but you have to remember this isn't going to be the size of a commercial range and there won't be multiple firearms in use at once. My ventilation requirements will be far less than what is normally seen at commercial indoor ranges. I still plan on very robust ventilation though. The NRA range book addresses that.
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It's more than just a matter of being out of the wind and weather for me. It would be far more difficult to dampen sound in my barn than it would be in the basement of my house. It would also be far more difficult to protect the surrounding structure from stray rounds. Both of those difficulties would result in more expense, so I see no reason why I should spend more money to build a range that is further from my house and less comfortable to shoot in. My guns are also stored in my house, and I have quite a few, so an indoor range in my house would be much more convenient in that regard too. Ditto as far as my ammo is concerned. I know that not everyone will have the same preferences I do, but this is my range. I'm going to build it in accordance with my preferences, priorities, and unfortunately my limitations as well. I have significant physical handicaps that make the prospect of lugging multiple guns and bunches of ammo across my property fairly distasteful.
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With a range in the basement unless you spent +$25k on insulation and vibration dampening ( yes your house will actually vibrate when you fire a gun in the basement ) materials whomever is upstairs while you are shooting will get tired of it real quick unless they are running a jackhammer at the time....

Hi, Paul.
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The only other resident is going to be my wife, and the noise won't be any different than what we have when we shoot off the back porch now. And if you plan this into the construction of the house as I plan to do, it's far easier to build in sound deadening technology.
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The NRA sells a very useful and informative range construction manual. It is available on DVD now. I read through it about 12 years ago so I don't know if it has changed.....

It was updated in 2012. Already getting it.
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When it is in the basement you want several things to be true. You don't want bullets bouncing around. You do not want bullets to leave the range. Put it in a foundation corner and you automatically have two concrete walls (cinder block might be OK for smaller calibers; but I would not do that myself). If you are just building, add a third concrete wall the length of the range. You could do the fourth side for a bit more safety. Insulate the inside walls (on the non-range side.) You may not want to heat the range space, and for sound suppression. It is relatively unused and will be sucking outside air through it when in operation. I would use a wall mountable infrared heater at the firing position.[/quote]It won't be drawing in outside air. There are systems now that are designed to bring in fresh air and preheat it because weather sealing has become so efficient lately that there wasn't enough fresh air getting into houses. That was going to be part of the design. The NRA book, available in both print and on CD-ROM, has most of everything else you mentioned. The basement walls/floor/ceiling were pretty much already in the planning stages. The 'deflectors' you mentioned are called baffles.
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I would use only LED lighting. A simple camera (behind some steel) could be very handy to see your hits. on the target With wireless, only power would be needed at the target end. Or you could put a conduit withing the shadow of the deflectors.

The entire house is going to be almost exclusively LED lighting. I like the camera idea. Thanks for that!
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Last step (sexist): convince you wife it is OK to be cooking while you are using the range.

She already likes the idea.

 

[Rhino]

Oh, and I may have neglected to mentioned, this will be a pistol range only. The rifles and shotguns will still be fired outside. We've got 13 acres for shooting those.

 

[tenbanshee]

My dentist had one built in his new house. He had a channel dug from the house out about 55-60 feet and poured with concrete and then concrete slabs laid on top. It has a exhaust fan at the end and a bullet trap. I'm not sure how but he can open the end by the trap and is able to crawl in. Maybe he has a steel plate on top at the end. You could have a window opening in the basement and have the channel dug later. I don't know what he does for lighting.