USSA sucks anymore

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Sharpshooter
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What happened to this place? It used to he great, not all that long ago. Now it's a damn goat farm. If the bays aren't flooded they have no target stands, tables or benches to shoot off of. 100yd is 7 bays wide with 3 stands to put a target on.
Steel challenge is 8 separate bays, half are always flooded and the remaining ones only have 2 or 3 steels in each. I wont even get started on the "universal" 50 yard bays.
Pretty disappointing and as far as I know about the only option that a guy can get into.


Pretty frustrating. Wonder if it will ever get better or not
 

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Under previous ownership the "long range" bay would flood out when they got lots of rain, but the rest were dry the next day. Now they're swamps.

Two weeks ago the young lady running the counter said the owner had ordered 80 new steel targets for the Steel Challenge bays, but didnt have stands for them yet. She also said that members had offered to make stands for them but the owner declined as he wanted metal ones of some sort and that was going to take a while. Why on earth would you not take the help being offered by members who want to improve the place is beyond me.
 

dennishoddy

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Under previous ownership the "long range" bay would flood out when they got lots of rain, but the rest were dry the next day. Now they're swamps.

Two weeks ago the young lady running the counter said the owner had ordered 80 new steel targets for the Steel Challenge bays, but didnt have stands for them yet. She also said that members had offered to make stands for them but the owner declined as he wanted metal ones of some sort and that was going to take a while. Why on earth would you not take the help being offered by members who want to improve the place is beyond me.
I'm going to be the devil's advocate here with my years of being part of team running a range.
We had a lot of members offer to help build target stands etc. They for the most part were not sufficient to meet the range safety requirements that were specified by the insurance company.
Still, some took it upon their own to build some target stands and leave them at the range thinking they were doing a service, but in reality they could not put up with the volume of gun fire hits to last more than a few days so they had to be disposed of with the range putting up the cost of disposal, not counting the volunteer members that had to clean it up.
It's in the best interest of the range to build their own or have them built with the range's specifications.
Even the best target stands suffer damage from errant rounds or intentional damage. I can't tell you how many 4X4 posts that support full sheets of plywood at our range have been shot in half by people testing their "firepower" or whatever they think they are doing.
There is a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood they can attach a target to, yet they decide to use the bolt holding the plywood in the 4X4 as a target.
I've personally spent many dozens of hours over the years repairing target stands that had been shot up by centerfire rounds on the rimfire range where signs are posted prohibiting centerfire rounds. They have to walk right by the signs to shoot on the range and choose to ignore them.
Every member of our gun club is required to attend a range safety and range rules class that takes several hours. They are then personally taken to the ranges and shown the signs and given the regulations for each bay, so nobody can plead ignorance.

I've shot a lot of matches at USSA from its opening days until a couple of years ago and thought it was an impressive facility.
I know the original owner put a ton of his own money into it when it wasn't making money, so the current owners have to operate on what they can make for operating expenses. Shame to hear it's not up to it prior glory.
 

j-black

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Yes, it was a nice place to go shoot a few years ago, now seems to have fallen apart.

What really irritated me was the owner wanting copies of paperwork for NFA items. They can't keep track of my kids insurance waivers but they want me to hand over NFA paperwork to them, don't think so. Nothing like a nice day of shooting interrupted by "Gunny" accusing you of braking some unwritten rule.
 

BgBdBob

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What earplugs? I was there last week and they were sold out ear plugs. I do not know the whole story but it is not what it used to be at all. I was the 17th member in the first class there. Those glory days are long gone but I am thankful that it's an option for us though.
 

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