Let me refine the question.

Given access to both an indoor and an outdoor range, as well as an appropriate open area the same distance from your house, what would you prefer for practice shooting and why? Is the preference dictated by rifle or handgun choice? Season?

While there are times I'll use all three options, my personal preference is for the "open area". Ranges restrict live fire from holster practice in our area, besides, in personal defense excercises, one seldom remains static when shooting. move move move. For benchrest work in load development, I have a nice rigid portable bench and can set up at the specific distance I prefer.

Some ranges are better than others, but, often the target breaks exceed the shooting time at the larger ranges. Often my days off or hours don't exactly coincide with the range either, so its off to the desert, set up the bench and perform the testing of the day or practice.

What about you?

I like the range that I belong to Handloader.
Ten minutes from home, we shoot from indoors to the outdoors.
25yd pistol range-shooting from inside blockhouse.
50yd pistol and rifle range-shooting from inside blockhouse.
100yd range-same as above
200-300-400yd range--all from same blockhouse.

I'm not into the personal protection practices so this kind of shooting works fine for me.

Eric

On my property I am fortunate enough to have a 100 and a 240 yd range just sitting in the "range house" from the back of my house,and many pistol length ranges on twenty acres.If I need more distance I go over to the other side of this state to some family property that is next to BLM ground.There is many 1000s of yards for ranges there!

I'm like you Handy. There are times when the formalised Ranges are useful, but I really much prefer to get out in the scrub and do my own thing.

The formal Ranges are too strict, not that safety is obsolete...I practice it religiously in the bush...but I can take a break when I want to and check my target when I want to. Also if I want to do something that is a little out of the norm, then I can do that also without having someone breathing down my neck. At our range you are only allowed to load single shot, no rounds in the magazine, and when they call a check fire for any reason you must remove the bolt from the weapon (I don't like separating my bolt from my rifle these days...I leave 'em behind ) and place you rifle in a rack off range after it has been checked...and you are not allowed to take your rifle onto the range in a gun bag or box. Nah, give me the outdoors...much more relaxing.

Cheers, Vince

I like the outdoor ranges. I, like Vince, like the less formallies of the the outdoor ranges. Outdoor ranges afford the distance I like to shoot. I do use indoor ranges, but most indoor ranges you must pay and once you pay you just about have to spend the time no matter who they put next to you.

Pictures are worth a thousand words...

The white dot seen through the screens is the target board at 100 (paced) yards for the Winchester and 200 (paced) yards for the Browning. The target is a sheet of typing paper (8 1/2" X 11") with a Midway 25 yard bulls eye (3 1/2") dot...

This is my neighbor's pasture about 300 yards from my front door across the road...

Ahhhh-Shooting the way that GOD meant it to be!

Weekdays? I'll take a vactation day at least once a month to hit up my local public range. The Rangemaster is really cool and fun to hang with. Plenty o' targets up to 700 yds. , concrete benches, re-load store, etc. et. al. A great, old facility that's been there for ages, rifle, HG, sporting clays etc.... Wide open too on weekdays. Darn good folk show up with bitchen hardware during the week. Laid back and mellow and fer 14$ I can shoot my brains out and filthy up all my stuff. Wouldnt be caught dead there during the weekend though....it's a public range!

Weekends? Camping in the desert. Instant shelters for shade, long tables, cans, swingers etc...beans and brisket, good cooking and fireside chats. Gives a feller a chance to dust off a holster wear a side arm too w/o hassel. Try out the night sights as well.

Loving them both......

I go to the state forest they have a range there pistol,rifle,trap and archery I use the rifle and pistol. $50.00 a year or $10.000 a day it's a pretty good range and only about 7miles from the house .
Joe

I,m a member at two different clubs that charge $30 a year to be a member.
Go through the week and you'll likely have the places to yourself or sometimes one other person.
The one range is more for 200 yard shooting. The other has a pistol bay seperated from the covered benches for 25, 50 and 100 yard shooting.
Both are within a 30 min. drive.
I have a third place about 40 mins away I've been thinking about joining.
It has backstop evry hundred yards out to 600 yards. They are in the process of getting aprovall for 1,000 yards.
It's $80 a year with a one time fee of $100.
They are new and are doing alot to get a long range shooting program together.

I would love to have a 100 yard indoor range for working up new loads for the rifles !!!

I'm lucky to have 11 clubs within 1 1/2 hrs drive that are geared to tactical/self defense type shooting.
Showing up at a rifle range around here with a holstered handgun and a timer tends to bring out the SAFTY EXPERTS !!!
The one club even has a sign that says "no quick draws or rapid fire"

For some ranges are great. I got my dad a year membership to our local range and he likes it. The people there are nice and it does a lot of business. Has some nice long ranges for all types of things too. With that said. I HATE IT THERE. If my guns can do rapid fire than let me DO IT. Just becuase I can shot faster with my lever action than they can with a bolt shouldn't mean that I have to slow down. Not to mention that my .22 is a self loader and can go faster than they can too. If no one else is on my range besides my father I should be able to shot as fast as I want. If you are stupid enough to walk infront of me, well that's just a little cloren in the gene pool. For me shoting at a pice of paper is as exciting as giving my students a test. Again I HATE IT. I LOVE being able to walk cans up a hillside. Or when I'm mad at my old cellphone to blow it to pieces.
Now I will get off my soap box and give the simple answer. I like open areas.

Give me the choice & I prefer our "private" shooting area over going to the range any day.
We can set up targets out to 250yds & take time with the chrono or sighting in without restriction.
We do have to watch out for wandering idiots though.

The only reason I'm a member of the local gun club/range is the ridiculous laws here that only allow certain firearms if they're used in competition.

I only go to the local range cause it's close to home. I ,like Tink,Would love the open range/hills to shoot at a target that moves ,like cans windmills etc...BTW,hey bushmaster, I like the idea of using a jack stand for the rest...good idea..Dave

We are fortunate hereabouts to have several good outdoor ranges within an hour's drive, with the closest 5 minutes away.

The latter is my club's range, it goes to 300yds and has 7 covered benches. We RO it ourselves, so depending on who and how many are there things can get pretty creative. :-) This means you can move about to engage targets at any distance. If you don't mind the extra work, you can drive out to 200yds and from there hike your own steel as far out as 350yds. Last year I organized an invitational match and had the whole facility reserved for the occasion.

Mid-week I often have the place entirely to myself.

All this for $30/yr.

With all this freedom to move within a large safe fenced area, we don't really bother setting up in an open area.

I prefer to shoot out in the open, having grown up on a farm and used to doing all my shooting there. Now that I live in Alaska I still prefer to find a out of the way area and shoot by myself. Having said that, Fairbanks has a great shooting range for public use free of charge. It is maintained by the borough of Fairbanks and is open to anyone. It has covered rock solid benches and a 350 yard rifle range and a 40 yard handgun range. On the weekdays it is usually not crowded at all. You never know what you may see there either, my last visit the guy next to me was shooting a Browning 1919 machine gun on tripod mount. He was burning through belts of 30-06. Quite a sight !