This is the layout for Ian’s New and Improved Private Shooting Range!
Cutting up that fuel tank rack yesterday yielded me four eight-foot lengths of heavy-duty angle iron with feet welded to one end. I planted them in two pairs, one five feet apart and one eight feet apart. (Cutting up the rack also gave me plenty of 5- and 8-foot lengths of lighter-duty angle iron.) The smaller pair will be for metallic swingers, and the bigger pair for paper targets.
I wasn’t going to put the two sets so far apart, but it turns out…
I think that’s Scottish Thistle. It’s right where I wanted to put one of the poles, but given that it’s Ian McCollum’s range I didn’t have the heart to dig it up.
Anyway…
The supports are at the foot of a talus slope, and the ground there is clay and ash and silt with very little in the way of rocks. I never even took the mattock out of the Jeep, these may be the easiest holes I’ve ever dug.
LB and I came out for digging early, even before chicken chores, but I was done before I shucked off my hoodie.
Then after chicken chores I came back with concrete and water and paraphernalia for mixing same…
The supports are deeply set and anchored in lots of concrete as close to the cliff face as I could get. Last year’s flood would not have bothered them. They’re nice and level, but I had to sort of eyeball how square each pair is to each other, so that’s not perfect. But close enough that bolting up the horizontal members won’t be a problem.
I’m pleased! It’s timely, too, because we’ve had a couple of days of relatively still weather but the wind is due to return. Getting them to stay level till the concrete cures might not have been so easy if I’d done this tomorrow.
