How many balloons does it take to stop a bullet ?

New Breed In Gun Clubs' Sights As Shooting Ranges Go Stylish

Customers line up to spend a morning on the shooting ranges
at Elite Shooting Sports in Manassas, Virginia.
 Illustrates GUN-CLUB, by Michael S. Rosenwald (c) 2014,
Washington Post photo by Marvin Joseph)

By The Washington Post 

Blake Vaught and Alex Williamson, buddies in their late 20s, were having a cognitive dissonance moment.

“This place is like a country club,” Vaught said, looking at a concierge desk, granite countertops and sleek black couches.

“Or like a really nice steakhouse,” Williamson said.

They were not at a country club. They were not at a steakhouse. They were at Elite Shooting Sports, a new gun range in Manassas, Va., that, like a wave of other ranges across the country, is targeting a new breed of shooter — younger, more affluent, style-focused, increasingly female and even environmentally conscious.

The gun industry's term for these shooting retreats: “guntry clubs.”

In Miami's arts district, a new high-end club attracts celebrities such as LeBron James, shooting fully automatic machine guns, then chilling in VIP lounges. A Texas range features gun valets. A Colorado club offers custom fitted earplugs, apps to reserve shooting lanes and chess sets. Membership fees at these ranges are sometimes hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Cigar lounges — yes. WiFi — of course. There is lots of leather.

The high-end ranges are popping up as the $15 billion gun industry's sales have more than doubled since 2005. Fears of regulations with a Democrat in the Oval Office have juiced much of that growth, which is leveling out. But experts say an industry shift away from hunting culture has helped spawn a generation of firearms enthusiasts buying up sleekly designed handguns and AR-15 rifles for tactical shooting practice.

‘A comfortable image'

The average age of new target shooters is 33, while 47 percent live in urban or suburban areas, and 37 percent are female, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry. Shooters spend $10 billion a year on target shooting, including the cost of firearms, ammunition and range fees.

Those demographics and economics are attracting investors without firearms industry backgrounds, who see ranges as a new place to employ their cash. Elite Shooting Sports, a nearly $14 million project, has investors from the electronics industry. Real estate, finance, hotel and auto industry executives have backed other new ranges.

“A lot of savvy investors have seen the surge in sales within the firearms industry, see that it's a quality industry to invest in and are smartly doing so,” said Zach Snow, a range expert at the sports foundation. “These ranges are trying to project a comfortable image to the largest contingent of people possible.”

Families welcome

Gone are the folding chairs, stale coffee and drab settings of some old mom-and-pop gun ranges. The idea now is to compete for entertainment dollars with golf and country clubs, nightclubs and movie theaters, which have also gone high-end with leather chairs and mixed drinks.

Miami's Lock & Load, which offers themed machine gun packages, including one with Israeli special forces weapons, is the No. 1 ranked activity in the city on TripAdvisor. Ranges are even becoming a new place to take clients for lunch — and squeeze off a few rounds.

Standing in the lobby of Elite Shooting Sports, near the concierge desk where shooters check in and sign forms on iPads, Greg Wodack, the range's founder and managing partner, said: “We wanted to be more open and inviting for families, to appeal to everyone. This is not your stereotypical range. “

Wodack, a former professional shooter, used to run the National Rifle Association's shooting range and consult on other ranges around the country. Seeing where the business was going, he went off on his own but differentiated by putting a more utilitarian spin on the trend — creating a shooter's version of affordable luxury. Membership fees are just $34.95 a month; hourly rates start at $20.

The range is colossal — more than 65,000 square feet, with 42 shooting lanes featuring booths wider than industry standards. A local millworker made the counters and dark wooden sales kiosks. Shooting booth tables have oak frames. In the 100-yard range, shooters can monitor where their rounds hit on an overhead screen.

There is a cafe serving pastries. Local restaurants cater lunches. There are enormous flat-screen TVs in the mammoth lounge area. And then there is the air. It is always a crisp 71 degrees. A special filtering system pushes gun smoke away from the shooter, cleaning the air so expertly that Wodack said it leaves the building cleaner than it entered.

Since opening in November, the club is averaging a thousand new customers a week.

“This is absolutely beautiful,” said Cheryl Serrano, 39, who lives in Bristow, Va. “It's amazing.”

Wearing a hot pink vest, Serrano stopped in this month with her family — her husband and sons, decked out head-to-toe in Under Armour gear, and her sister visiting from California. Serrano was there to shoot her Christmas present and a couple of other guns. She had shot at an outdoor gun club where her father was a member.

“This is nice, and now we can establish ourselves here,” she said.

They all took turns shooting. Serrano and her sister commemorated the moment with a selfie.

Novices and experts

Owners of older local gun ranges said they are not concerned about Elite Shooting Sports or other high-end ranges, but they do grumble a bit about them in class-like tones.

“It's for the people who have money that the rest of us don't have,” said Carl Roy, the president of the Maryland Small Arms Range in Upper Marlboro, Md. “Is it bad? Is a country club bad for golf? You might not be able to afford to golf there, but it doesn't hurt the game.”

Wodack and other high-end gun range owners think their efforts are good for the industry, attracting people who might be hesitant to try shooting at an old-school club, fearing they'll use the wrong lingo or be privately mocked because they're a newbie.

Everyone who comes to Elite Shooting Sports — expert or novice — has to watch an orientation video about range etiquette and rules. Wodack preaches exceptional customer service to his staff.

In Houston, the Athena Gun Club — its amenities page on its website has a picture of a Starbucks-like takeout cup surrounded by coffee beans — promotes a surround-sound simulator for “first time shooters apprehensive of handling a live firearm.” In its retail store, firearms are displayed not in glass cases but on tables like iPhones at an Apple Store. (The guns are disabled.)

“We wanted to build a business so people right off the bat would feel comfortable and not like they are doing something wrong,” said Steve Bishop, Athena's marketing manager. “None of us started as an expert shooter.”

Shooters won't find much political talk at these new ranges either.

“We are not going to push super pro-gun ideologies in people's faces,” said Javier Lopez, a partner at Miami's Lock & Load. “We avoid that stuff at all costs. Our staff will not initiate any political discussions with any of our guests.”

Which is not to say that these ranges are trying to avoid old-school shooters. Not at all. But, as Wodack put it, “with the Tactical Teddy group, if you go too far off in that direction, you're not appealing to everyone.”

There has been debate about the new ranges in online forums.

Shooters who used to shoot at the NRA range and other old-school ranges are showing up at Elite Shooting Sports.

“So far, I love it,” said John Lehman, 48, who was getting ready to shoot for the first time at the new range. “This is state of the art. This is awesome.”

Sportsmen's Groups Defend Lead Ammo Use

By Bob Frye

 

Traditional lead ammunition is in the crosshairs of some groups, 

such as the Humane Society of the United States. It claims 

lead ammunition left in the environment harms wildlife. 

Those associated with the shooting sports industry say 

such claims are untrue.

The ammunition shortage that's plagued America's shooters for more than a year isn't over just yet.

Just try finding some .22 long rifle shells, for example.

But, according to a survey of some local gun shops, things are better than they were even six months ago, especially when it comes to certain calibers. Most of what's out there is the typical, traditional lead ammunition.

“That's what most people always want,” said John Anderson of Delmont Sport Shop.

The appeal of that ammo is threefold, said Jeff Egley of Gone For A Day Sports in Elderton. It is most often readily available. It's effective on wild game, and it's significantly less expensive than lead-free ammunition made using metals like copper, copper-zinc alloys and even tin.

“In this area, because it's legal to use lead ammunition, we don't even carry that other stuff because it's way too expensive,” Egler said. “If you have a choice between a $40 box of ammo and a $20 box of ammo that does the exact same thing, you're going to buy the less expensive one.”

The Humane Society of the United States would like to take away that option. The group has launched what it's calling its “lead free campaign, a strategic offensive to end suffering and destruction caused by lead ammunition.”

“Lead poisoning translates into a painful, prolonged death for an animal, and we intend to elevate the cruelty associated with its continued dispersal in the environment,” reads the group's description of its campaign.

The group already has petitioned the Department of the Interior to ban lead ammunition for hunting purposes on all of its federal lands. That would cover about one-fifth of the land mass of the United States, it said.

The reality, though, is that the Humane Society's proposal, like others attacking lead, is based on bad science, said Nick Pinizotto, the Indiana County native who is president and CEO of the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.

For example, he said charges that lead ammunition — such as that found in carcasses or gut piles fed upon by raptors — is harming wildlife are bogus.

Pinizzotto referenced a website called huntfortruth.org.

It says that the lead used in ammunition is metallic lead, “which is not sufficiently soluble in the digestive tract of scavengers to result in poisoning under natural feeding conditions in the wild. For example, several scientific studies have shown that it is extremely difficult to poison raptors with lead, even with constant feeding of large amounts of lead shot with food over extended periods of time.”

Groups seeking to ban lead ammunition know that but are using this debate as a back-door attempt to ban hunting on the basis of emotion rather than reason, Pinizzotto claimed.

“They don't have to be right. They just have to keep saying it enough until people start believing,” Pinizzotto said. “That's the goal.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry, likewise said there's “no conclusive evidence” that lead ammunition hurts wildlife, including raptors.

“Rather, raptor populations, including the population of bald eagles, continue to steadily rise — a welcome and positive trend that coincides with the longstanding, widespread use of traditional ammunition by sportsmen across America,” it said in a report.

Others aren't as sure.

A study done by Oregon State University researchers — which involved reviewing existing literature — said ingesting lead harms as many as 120 North American bird species. The study could not determine, however,  whether the damage is great enough to impact them on a population level.

Another Oregon State researcher warned that a move to non-lead ammunition would cause at least short-term pain for shooters. Non-lead ammunition hasn't been developed for all firearms, and what does exist is typically in short supply, said associate professor Clinton Epps.

Indeed, nontraditional ammunition accounts for less than 1 percent of the market sales, according to the Shooting Sports Foundation.

Shooters are learning that firsthand in some places.

California already has banned lead ammunition within its borders. That goes into effect starting next year with full compliance due by July 1, 2019.

That, combined with Arizona's voluntary ban on lead in parts of the state where condors are known to appear, has caused shortages. The Arizona Game and Fish Department has gone so far as to suggest hunters buy their ammunition early, prior to hunting seasons, before it runs out, as happened in places last year.

Oregon has no condors now but has had them in the past and potentially could have them again via expansion or reintroduction. So the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife is surveying hunters about what they know about lead and what they think about alternative ammunition.

That's not an issue here yet. Egley hopes it never gets to that point. He said he hopes people see the debate over lead as an attempt to make it so difficult or expensive for people to hunt that they'll just quit.

“There's still a certain amount of common sense out there, I hope,” he said.

Details

Lead ammunition and the economy

What might it cost if lead ammunition were banned?

A lot, according to a National Shooting Sports Foundation “traditional ammunition economic impact” study.

The report said manufacturing non-lead ammunition can increase costs by up to 190 percent. That would lead to prices high enough to drive some people away from shooting, it said.

The result would be as many as 27,900 lost jobs and a reduction in the national gross domestic product of about $4.9 billion. Federal, state and local taxes would decline by up to $655.1 million, and excise taxes ­— used to fund wildlife management — would decline by up to $113.8 million, it said.

Pennsylvania would feel that as much as anywhere, the report said.

A ranking of the 50 states, looking at how hard they would be hit by a lead ammunition ban, shows Pennsylvania would rank in the top four in terms of lost jobs and wages and in the top five in lost overall economic output.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors

Indoor Shooting Range Proposed For Cranberry Twp, PA

By Bill Vidonic Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Keith Pindroh said he doesn't have major safety or noise concerns with a proposed indoor shooting range that would go next to his Route 19 vehicle repair business in Cranberry.

“I'm not anti-gun,” said Pindroh, an owner of Pindroh Bros. Auto Body. “I don't have a problem with this. It looks like it'll be top-notch stuff.”

Representatives of the Ellwand Shooting Sports Academy are scheduled to present plans to the Cranberry Planning Commission on Feb. 24 for a $14 million indoor shooting range and outdoor archery range.

Dave Gemperle, 56, of Cranberry, one of the project developers through Diversified Productivity Group, said the basement shooting range would be quieter than the constant drone of traffic along Route 19.

“There's really no place for the average joe if they don't belong to a sportsman's club to practice shooting sports,” said Gemperle, a pilot with FedEx. “On weekends, every gun facility in the area is packed.”

The closest indoor ranges are in New Stanton and West Mifflin, he said.

Plans for the proposed academy show a nearly 143,000-square-foot building with the shooting range in the basement. The academy would have a retail area for a sporting goods store and space for education and safety classrooms, social events and other amenities.

The building would have sound-dampening materials, Gemperle said, and a ventilation system that would clear smoke from fired weapons and remove pollutants before it leaves the building.

“If we can lower the noise, people have a better experience,” Gemperle said.

A National Rifle Association-certified trainer, Gemperle said people using the shooting range would first have to complete an instructional orientation so they know the safety rules.

He said his group will use mesh netting to keep arrows from the outdoor archery range from flying off property.

If Cranberry's planning commission and township supervisors approve the complex, the ranges could open in a year, Gemperle added.

Gemperle said his group has been working with township officials to avoid the problems experienced by a proposed indoor shooting range in nearby Jackson that resulted in years of litigation.

The project ultimately didn't materialize.

Gemperle said Rick Everly of Butler, a retired Marine, will be the academy's vice president of operations, while Ross architect Fritz Baehr, who is working on the academy design, will be vice president for range development.

There are few properties adjacent to the proposed site on the southbound side of Route 19. One home, which sits between the property and Cranberry's fire and EMS stations, has been up for sale. It's nearly 200 feet from the proposed shooting range.

Several buildings and residences are within 500 feet of the range, though the residences are separated from the property by the auto body shop and foliage. Cranberry also has maintenance facilities on the hillside just above the 22-acre site.

Ron Henshaw, Cranberry's community development director, said no complaints have come from the community about the project so far. He noted the township has an outdoor police training shooting range located near its maintenance facility.

He said developers have been talking with township officials about the project for several months.

“We like the project,” Henshaw said. “It's a unique use. People are a very interested in this use. As long as it complies with the ordinances, we're fine with it.”