I've lived in both MD and TN and shooting is fricking gay without access to private property/BLM land.
Public ranges are a shithole, and that's if you're lucky enough to get a seat. Private clubs are also a shithole, you spend hundreds of dollars to deal with rules like "1 shot every 4 seconds" or "rifles bench only".
I'm scared that it'll take me YEARS to be able to afford my own land, and even then I've got to pick a specific place that allows me to shoot freely. Until then shooting is so fricking boring and sometimes irritating I don't know what to do about it. You may say "just find friends" but nobody my age is going to have their own land.
Meanwhile all those lucky bastards out in the desert can just walk into the middle of the mojave with their guns and LARP to their hearts content.
Can confirm, you have my sympathy
What's it like living out in the desert? Is BLM land really as based as people make it seem? Can you just run around rocky mountains and shoot whatever you want?
I'd love to live in Desert.. at least, I think I do. But being so far away from everything (family included) not sure I could do it.
And frankly from my lookings on Zillow, land there isn't as cheap as people make it seem.
What's the best areas to live in the desert/plains states?
im not the desert anon but in my state its similar
>Is BLM land really as based as people make it seem
yes. Not just for shooting, hiking, camping. all sorts of PrepHole. shit you can think of BLM or state land is best
>can you just run around rocky mountains and shoot whatever you want?
yes, but you dont want to shoot anything thats gonna start a wildfire in summer and standard rules of shooting apply (good backstop and all that)
>tfw moved to kentucky thinking i would make a friend who owned land and i could shoot on within a few years but still havent made any friends
I need a shooting buddy but I live in ohio and also do not own land
I've got a bunch of cool guns and gear tho
where in ohio?
southwest
same here, cincinnati to be exact. i wonder if we know each other. are you in the discord?
no but I hang out with several people that are and often go to the meetups
Gotcha. I was going to suggest joining the discord and coming to a meet, but sounds like you got it covered.
OP here. Exactly what I did. Moved to TN from Maryland Somehow enjoy shooting less down here than I did up there.
At least MD had people my age. Down here it's all boomers and bubbas. I'm going back to Maryland later this year and going to try my best to find buddies/better ranges.
Im in MD. Just go to VA,WV, or PA or whatever is closest. Marine corps base quantico has 1000yd ranges and is 1.5 hour drive from Baltimore
>1.5 hours Baltimore to Quantico
Yeah, maybe if you go at 8:30PM.
>You may say "just find friends" but nobody my age is going to have their own land.
>Having this little community
Are inter-generational friendships really that rare?
assuming OP is mid-late 20's age range, I've noticed a lot of people around my age range come from absolute shitbag families and are forced to push family out of their life lest they are also dragged down by them
Shit bros, I couldn't get by without my old farmer friends.
Who's land would I hunt?
Who's pickups and tractors would I borrow?
Who would teach me to make fences and grill?
I mean, I get along well with people older than me, but I'm a zoomer and want zoomer friends. Unfortunately most zoomers aren't into guns/can afford shooting
These gay times make men suspicious of each other's motivations, so yes.
Friendships in general are becoming rarer these days
I hate to agree with you but if you dont have wide open spaces to shoot on its really not that fun
>Private clubs are also a shithole, you spend hundreds of dollars to deal with rules like "1 shot every 4 seconds" or "rifles bench only".
Lmao pick a better private range, dumbass. My private range has 0 range jannies, everyone just looks after one another and you're expected to know how gun safety works
>I'm scared that it'll take me YEARS to be able to afford my own land, and even then I've got to pick a specific place that allows me to shoot freely.
Unless you make a shit load of money, it will take you decades to afford enough land to make your own shooting range. Unless you want a shitty little range that maxes out at 10 feet, you're gonna need several acres to make a good shooting range that let's you go out to some distance. This is one of the things /k/ seems to not understand; land is fricking expensive. You can't just go out and buy land on a whim. Look up how much tracts of private land costs in your area. Probably 500k and up for land big enough to support a good sized range. And even if you get it, there's more shit to consider. Like what if it takes driving on miles and miles of dirt, gravel, grass and rocks to get to your land? What if you pop a tire in the middle of nowhere? Will there be cell service on your land? In an emergency, how quickly can you get to a hospital? Where are you gonna take shits, are you gonna construct an outhouse?
Of course, most autists on /k/ don't have to think about shit like this. They work at McDonald's/live with their parents and think they're just gonna go out and buy some land to shoot on kek. You idiots crack me up.
I'm 21 making 83k a year. I'll be getting a salary bump from moving to MD + upcoming promotion. So probably 90k by end of year.
Then I'll be job-hopping whenever this recession shit calms down to bump up to 100k hopefully.
Going back to MD, I'll be living with parents. It'll save me $1k in expenses a month - so I can literally put thousands of dollars away to house fund a month.
I'm not sure if 5 acres is enough for a basic range, but houses with 5 acres generally are 400k. That's a lot of money, but undeveloped land that you can build a simple berm on? That's not really expensive. plus you can just hold it and sell for profit. land never deprecates.
>'m not sure if 5 acres is enough for a basic range,
its not.
Your funds are in the right place for land buying. Just save your money, bide your time and do your research. As this anon puts very well
dont fall into half-assed attempts at buying land. Really do your homework.
How much land needed for a basic 100 yard range?
to start you want somewhere close to 10.
from a technical standpoint you can reach 100 yards at just over half an acre. However, you need to account for space around your range from you property lines. depending on your neighbors or what sort of land (fed, state, private etc) is around you, you will need to afford space for that buffer zone.
At that point don't settle for just 100 yards and aim for at least 300 minimum.
The issue is, I want to live somewhere live eastern WV/Western NC where land is a premium.
10+ acres is easy when you're out in flat desert
Maybe I should just buy a house with enough land for privacy then buy a nearby plot of undeveloped land for a dedicated range?
..then build the house you really want on that later when you have money, leave the first property to a kid. Seen it before.
5 acres is pistol range tier. I have 5 acres and can get 100+ yards but my lot is long vs rectangle. Also my neighbors all shoot too so noise isn’t an issue. You’re going to want as much lands as you can afford.
You make 83k after taxes and you're 21? That's pretty impressive. You don't have any other costs? You don't spend money on car/health insurance? You don't spend money on food/groceries? You don't buy games on steam/consoles? You don't put any money away into a 401k/Roth IRA? You don't spend money on guns and ammo? You can afford to drop every single penny of your salary into a "land for a shooting range" fund that won't generate any cash at all because all you're planning to do with that land is shoot on it?
I'm nearly 10 years older than you, zoom zoom. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give you is that you need to be realistic with your hopes and dreams. The world we live in is an expensive, unforgiving one. You can't and shouldn't just save up literally every single dollar you save on a piece of land you only plan on using for shooting. Life doesn't work like that. What happens if your car breaks down? What happens if your parents have a medical issue? What happens if you get married and have a child? I think you're imaging a world in which you have no other expenses and you're free to spend your money wildly as you see fit. That's not the world you live in. Let's be generous and say out of the 81k you take home, after taxes and after factoring in all your expenses, you can reasonably bank 40k for yourself to do with as you see fit. Using that money on a piece of land for shooting is a moronic way to spend your money. You need to let your money work for you. Invest it in stocks. Invest in crypto. Hell invest in precious metals. Create a business; start an LLC. Start a C Corp. Start a trust fund. If you don't know what this shit is, get a financial consultant. You're rich enough now.
You're an adult now, and you need to be treating your life seriously. You can't just be dumping your savings into a vanity project like a piece of land that doesn't do shit. Life is not a fricking game. It's fickle. It needs to be worked at.
no i make 83k before taxes
Shooting off my back patio when ever I want is pretty based
>bought some land in the mojave for 2k
>spread my brass seed whenever I feel the urge
>have paid about 28 bucks in property taxes since I bought it
>it is now worth 3k because pandemic/inflation
>tfw can drive about 10 minutes and blow up old appliances on BLM land while running into crack vans, skinwalkers and satanists.
>leaves toxic trash all over public land
Yeah nah you're a Black person
The appliances are already out there anon, I just make them into smaller pieces with tannerite. I never bring trash out there and leave it.
Fair enough and perhaps even based. I've definitely plinked on the communal 100 year old stove, it's the drunk 17 year olds with hunting guns shooting CRTs I despise. Mostly because they could be wasting a good Trinitron.
Yeah we get a lot of idiots like that out here, there's actually a public range with steel, but I only night shoot there with NVGs because I don't want to deal with the riff raff accidentally NDing into themselves. For day time shooting, I have a nice outdoor range that's like 10 bucks to go to.
I have a 100 yd range in my back yard with a berm. Sometimes rounds go flying over, apparently a lot more than I thought because my neighbor brought it up casually. Says it's not a big deal because they won't hit anything and his son wants to be SOF and the sonic cracks they hear while playing catch are good conditioning.
Look for 3gun and USPSA matches. Thats the best you can do as far as moving and shooting at normal clubs. From there, talk and seek out the guys with full battle belts. You'll eventually find someone who LARPs and just tag along with them
TN anon here. I just drive out into the middle of state forests and go shooting. Did the same when I lived in FL. Would like to move out into east TN eventually bc it’s actually legal to shoot in national forests and there’s no good ones nearby me currently.
OP Here. I'm in East TN. The state forests around here are a no-go. Cherokee national forest doesn't allow shooting or rifle carrying.
I called and asked the ranger office and that's what they said.
Everybody I know around here shoots on private land but I don't have any such friends and the local public range is an hour of driving over the shittiest roads in the county the one time I went I borrowed someones car because mine isn't high enough and there was a dozen Atlanta tourists with meme guns that shot up my target while I was trying to zero. I just want to hunt pigs but getting range time to be confident about shooting them is annoying.
I pay 75$ a year for access to my local shooting club. Nice place, private, national forest land, and there were like 30 people at this year’s orientation. Last time I went I had the entire range to myself.
Does it allow you to move and shoot? I think that is a large failing of many flat ranges. Also, at least in my area, most weekends in the summer are reserved for various competitions. Thats great if you like USPSA/IDPA/Steel challenge, but for everyone else they can't use the ranges on the days that would be peak