The opening match for the Civilian Marksmanship Program was June 6 D-DAY and 250 competitors shot their M1 Garands in honor of the day and to CMP.
This 500 acre $20 million facility located near Talladega Motorspeedway in Alabama is state of the art in design and comfort.Built in 1 year with funds from the sale of M1s and other rifles.(You can still buy M1s from CMP)The centerpiece of the range is a 55 firing points on a 600 yard range with electronic targets at 2,3 and 600 yards.Heres how it works.
The 200 yard stage all targets are raised by electric motors,takes a couple minutes.Commands are given for the standing course of fire.At your feet is an electronic monitor that records and shows all your shots,last shot blinks indicating the latest shot,it also has an indicator that shows the center of your group.
No need for spotter,spotting scope or scorer.
It records the number of shots in order and gives the total.Also in the comfort of the airconditioned clubhouse are at least 8 big screen tvs with all the firing points scores so family and friends can watch without noise while sitting on livingroom couch and chairs.
200 yard targets go down and 300 yd ones rise all electric.300 stage is shot and scores are recorded this was a rapidfire stage.(I will admit that there were a couple glitches)The Kongsberg people were there and took care of it.
600 yd targets go up while 300 go down.What normally takes all day to shoot this match with pit duty and moving gear now is done in just a little over an hour under the covered firing line.Another great thing is at the end of the match you are presented with a print out of your target for each stage,suitable for framing or just a cool memento.These targets are on the 100 yd range and the 50 and 25 yd pistol ranges.
You need not be a member to shoot here,just a brief safety and instuction course and $20 for 4 hours of shooting on 600yd range when informal shooting.
There is trap and sporting clays also Creedmoor sports has a store in the clubhouse.
The only thing thats missing is silhouette.I asked the Kongsberg folks if animal shapes can replace the bullseye type targets.Yes it can be done.
Imagine a sihouette match where all hits count,no targetsetters,one frame equals 5 animals,and 500m targets can be shot with a .223.
I'd like to see a couple banks of animals at this place as an experiment.CMP is all about shooting so if enough interest was shown it could happen.

That sounds like an impressive range, maybe I'll get out to see it someday.

As for the silhouette, it would be a different game tho no? No ringing rams, no hitting the rail and splattering the chickens down in smallbore. Could they add the clanging sounds when a target is hit too? Hmm, have to think about this one....

It seems like the risk of target carrier damage might be higher in silhouette. I saw some pretty big misses in high power last weekend at the Iron Man, and I'm not just talking about the ones where my scope failed.

No worry as to target frame damage.I shot at the pistol range also and was 1st to put some 45acp rounds in the new frames(not on purpose).It does not record shots that are that far off.
June 5,2015 at the opening VIP ceremonies for this shooting complex.The Who's Who of the shooting world were invited.
To the best of my knowledge,guess who chose not to attend?The NRA.Therefore all of us NRA competitors were not represented.
I cannot believe that all these DC beltway boys are too busy,or are they jealous.I would like to hear the excuse.Sorry for the rant.

hermit5 wrote:No worry as to target frame damage.I shot at the pistol range also and was 1st to put some 45acp rounds in the new frames(not on purpose).It does not record shots that are that far off.
June 5,2015 at the opening VIP ceremonies for this shooting complex.The Who's Who of the shooting world were invited.
To the best of my knowledge,guess who chose not to attend?The NRA.Therefore all of us NRA competitors were not represented.
I cannot believe that all these DC beltway boys are too busy,or are they jealous.I would like to hear the excuse.Sorry for the rant.

Randy, they are probably worried that nobody will want to go to Camp Perry anymore, just for one simple fact NO PIT DUTY!!!!!

Bob,the Perry die hards will always go there.What sucks is Perry just spent a pile of money on new pits and carriers on Viale and Rodriguese ranges.
What will happen is some of us older shooters will only shoot leg matches at Talladega.It may cause a renewed interest in some seniors who had given up leg matches because of the long days and physical limitations at Perry.