Knox County Fish & Game Association
Lou's Pistol Range
This a drone's eye view of our Pistol Range–at least the way it looked early on. It has evolved since this photo was taken.
It's located to the right of the clubhouse and the tall divider berm. The right side features mostly steel targets and is designed for target practice and getting shooters ready for the building scenarios on the left side of the pistol range. From lower left you're looking at what could be a classroom complete with lots of innocents and a couple of reactive bad guys. Knock one down and their buddies are apt to show up quickly.
Go out the far door and one bad guy takes off between buildings. The second building mimics a hallway within a house. Not everyone you encounter there will be a threat. Part of this training course is to learn to identify what is and what isn't a target.
Across the back are a couple of what could be military type target situations. 'Could be a terrorist village or something else. It keeps changing.
Targets drop when hit, others jump out concealment, one runs.
It's never the same twice.
So who's Lou the range is named after? He's the retired Marine about to enter the second building in this photo. Lou conceived of the Pistol Range and spent untold hours designing, building, and improving this course. He and Ted did most all of the work and we're indebeted to them both.
As you might expect, there are additional rules for the pistol range.
First and foremost, this is a PISTOL range. Don't bring rifles or shotguns. The targets aren't designed for them. We do set up for pistol caliber carbines once in a while, but no other centerfire rifles.
Second, use only the targets that are in place. DO NOT add your own targets to the fence or any of the buildings. That's unsafe and destructive. There's no excuse for that. Someone doing just that got the range hours curtailed for a month.
Third, shoot only at the targets as positioned, and once you've gone through, reset them for the next shooter.
We have regular shoots every Saturday morning during good weather. At other times we leave the targets set up for members' use. Once it gets slippery the Pistol Range closes. We can't have anyone slipping while carrying a loaded weapon.
There is currently no fixed charge to use the Pistol Range. So far what's come out of the donation jar has been sufficient to cover the cost of targets and other supplies. That's no small matter. We go through better than 75 targets in a season plus maintenance materials.
