Dear Cedar Hills Gun Club Members,
Even though we decided to cancel our August members’ meeting, the board of directors still had a
virtual meeting Wednesday night to conduct some necessary business and I wanted to update the
membership on the outcome:
The club is in good financial condition and membership is increasing. Due to our current financial
position, the board and I agree that it is time to reinvest in the range. To that end, we will be pursuing
various upgrades to several ranges.
As I am sure many of you are aware, the indoor range was recently closed for repairs and upgrades.
Unfortunately, we will not be reopening the range as soon as we had hoped. The original plan was to
add steel to the existing bullet traps to reinforce them and to replace some of the carpet and belting
that prevents ricochets back towards the firing line. However, thanks to the folks at Premier
Technologies, we were presented with an awesome opportunity to upgrade the range. Premier has
agreed to engineer, fabricate, and install full height bullet traps made of AR550 plate for just the cost of
materials. These traps will be designed to capture bullet fragments and potential ricochets without the
use of conveyor belt or carpet curtains. This will result in a safer, more durable, and more useful indoor
range. The estimated timeline of this upgrade is about eight weeks. While this is significantly longer
than we had anticipated for the range to be shut down, this timeline does support completion of the
upgrade before cold weather sets in, so the range will be available for the winter.
We have been dealing with a safety concern between the upper and lower rifle ranges for some time.
Under certain conditions, ricochets from the lower range have been observed striking on the upper
range. We have been lucky so far that there have been no serious injuries. To address this concern, we
are pursuing two changes. First, we will be installing two additional berms on the lower range at 25 and
50 yards. These berms will be partial width so not to obstruct the 100- and 200-yard targets on the
lower range. By providing a berm at these shorter ranges, we hope to reduce or eliminate the ricochets
that have been observed when people shoot shorter range targets placed on the ground. Second, we
are looking to install concrete barriers along the side of the upper range near the 500-yard berm. This
will provide shielding against the most likely ricochets and improve the safety on the upper range. We
are confident that these upgrades will go a long way towards ensuring that both ranges can continue to
be used simultaneously and safely.
Our current chairman of the outdoor pistol ranges, Shawn Smith is unable to continue in this position
and has asked the board to replace him. I am putting out a call for volunteers to fill this position. If you
are interested in assisting us in managing the outdoor pistol ranges, please let a board member know
and we will get in touch with you.
Ray Tracy
President