Building a gun range and berm/backstop

[JerryK]

I have a sunken 50 yard berm up here North of Gaylord. I'm sure there is a little water in it when we have a big rain. But with all the gravel and sand, I've never seen it hold water when the frost is out. My shooting area/bench is elevated a little, and shoot down at the base of the berm. My 8500# TLB pushed up the berm in one afternoon, roots and all. I am only down a couple feet, but cutting down at a slant gives you lots of dirt fast. Just cutting and shoving with the FEL bucket. The berm will be mostly made up of your top soil/grass. You want to try to get the final cover as rock free as possible. If your area is anything like mine, you can find sand/gravel/even clay all over your property. I know it was like that is Oakland County. Heck, you might even find Hoffa....

 

[MRCONCDID]

Find a heavy equipment repair shop or tire store that does heavy equipment tire repair or installation. They will give you old skidder tires or large equipment tires.
stack said tires filling and leveling as you build upward with sand, I have just helped a friend do this, we have stacked 3 tires high in a curved row, 5 tires long, then behind this row staggered like bricks, another row, three high and 4 tires long. took 2 loads of sand, my 30hp tractor with loader and built it in just a few hours. this makes the "wall" over 10 ft thick and more than 25 feet long, we shoot at AR steel plates in front of said back stop. You may want to go another row taller if you have any new shooters. but 3 tall is a good start. an you can always reconfigure the tires if you want.

MrC.

 

[kthompson]

I think you will find planting trees on berm is not recommended as I guess them moving in wind or such breaks the soil loose.

 

[bdog]

While possible I would not attempt this with your tractor. That is a ton of dirt to move and will be hard on your machine. If you think you can operate it rent a dozer for a day or two. My berm took over a year to build using a 100hp tracked skid steer, a full size backhoe, and a full size dump truck. Of course we weren’t working on it every day but hundreds of hours were involved. All our dirt was hauled to the location though from a pond we were digging. When all the dirt was basically in place a large excavator piled it up higher and shaped it in a half day.

If you are moving dirt short distances a dozer is the way to go. Even with my little 550 dozer I bet I could push up and pile more dirt in a half day than you could with your tractor in a week. A tractor can do it but isn’t the right tool for earth moving and this isn’t exactly a small project.

If you don’t believe me go out there and get started. Work a few hours on it and you will see how little you get accomplished towards your 30’ wide 8’-10’tall pile. Another problem you will have is your loader if I am reading the specs right only has a max dump height of 62”. This means if you want 8-10’ tall you are going to have to climb on top of the pile to dump and build it up which means the pile will have to be wider.

 

[MoArk Willy]

About your shooting range needs. Is this for your own use? How many shooters do you expect to have at one time? If you have neighbors there may be a distance requirement you have to follow. I have a range on my property which is just for pistol shooting, maximum 2 shooters at a time.
It is nowhere near as large as the one you are planning. I have a pile of dirt about 6 to 7' tall with a row of logs behind it. It is more than adequate for my needs. It is also about 1/4 mile from the nearest residence. My location is rural however and it's not uncommon for shots to ring out from just about every direction from other homeowners target practicing. Most of them do not have berms, they nail a target to a tree or stand it on the ground. I'm sure you will have fun building and using it, just wondering if the usage requires such a large berm.

 

[donaldj]

Sorry for the late reply. Notifications stopped...

It's for my use and some friends.
Up to 5 at a time, maybe 6.
No distance requirement. The nearest house besides mine is over 100 yards away.
I am mostly rural. I too hear shots at all hours of the day.

 

[massey collector]

Sorry I see no need for a L shaped berm. Your talking noise reduction for neighbors then you need some thing at the shooting station for the noise not at the target station.

A simple fence of dog eared design about 6 feet tall goes a long way to reduce noise for your neighbors.
6'x8' panals start at $47.00 my local Lowe's.

Home depot has a composit 6'x8' panal for $85.00 if you do not want to do mantance on the natural wood panals.

As for trees Watch for fall sales at nurserys and get the taller Junipers and plant them close together on the neighbor side of the range.


I just use pick up truck tires filled with sand for my back stop. for years when I worked in Pontiac the state shooting range at Pontiac lake just used semi tires as back stops.


Al

 

[TractorNH]

Our berms are built from stacked logs, mostly pine. Cut the logs about 16' long, stacked them about 6-8' high, and the stack is about 12' deep. The face of the pile is mostly vertical to prevent ricochet's off the curved surfaces. Any bullet that hits the curve ends up into the log above it. Our nearest neighbor behind the berm is about a mile away, on the other side of the substantial hill (80' elevation change to top of hill) behind the berm. The area is also wooded which cuts down on the sound travel a bit.

 

[donaldj]

Sorry I see no need for a L shaped berm. Your talking noise reduction for neighbors then you need some thing at the shooting station for the noise not at the target station.

Most of my shooting is in the 15' and under range (defensive handgun drills). An L shape provides noise deflection because the shooting 'station' is inside it.

 

[CMV]

My pistol berm (up to 50 yds) is 12' wide, 8' tall. That's more than enough for two shooters at pistol range. Rifle (up to 300 yds) is 16' wide, 8' tall.

Getting dirt up that high - with anything - is difficult. 2x base = height was not working for me in reality. After roughly about 4' height I could no longer just dump dirt on top of dirt and go higher. It just ran from peak down to bottom. Pile got bigger and bigger, but never taller. This was just using a backhoe front bucket and trying to compact the dirt as I went by "smooshing" bucket around. Very frustrating and I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing could have done it. I gave up.

So I built [ shaped frames out of 4x4 and 2x4 treated lumber. Won't last forever, but having a solid wall to pile dirt up against uses way less dirt and lets you have a nice thick top vs a peak.

Your sizes sound nice, but will significantly increase project dirt moving. Can always start smaller and expand. I agree with others and would not do L shape. Just a straight wall is going to be much easier to maintain. And no matter what you plant, you will have to maintain. Will still get a lot of erosion and you're continually chewing into the center (.355 and .451 inch holes at a time if like me )

"nearest house is 100 yds away". That is extremely close. Add in a firing line to accommodate 5-6 shooters at once. I don't think you're going to do anything for noise abatement. nothing that will go any way toward substantially cutting down aggravation to a neighbor 100 yds away. I would look to Gemtech, SilencerCo, AAC et. al. to solve that problem.

Otherwise, I would build a box out of 2x8 or 2x12 8' tall, 24-36" deep, and fill that with dirt. Will help a lot with sound and you aren't trying to maintain another 8' berm - with both berms washing down into an overlapping spot where they meet. That "box wall" type deal could even be moved back some so it's out of the way of berm maintenance but still providing some sound and stray shot protection to neighbor's house.

Posted other threads, but in general this is how mine were done. Saves incredible amount of dirt. Just need dump clearance over that back wall for maintenance.