With
an annual clientele of about 10,000 customers, the Ohio Division of
Wildlife’s Grand River Wildlife Area shooting range is the agency’s
second busiest such facility.
Leading
the operation for more than 12 years is range supervisor Jason Cox
who describes those shooters who utilize the range’s three
60-position setup as “family.”
And
that family continues to grow, too. The Wildlife Division recently
held the second of a series of voluntary introductory orientation
sessions at the Grand River facility. Among the likely recruits was
Dick Beyerle, who although already belongs to a Trumbull County
sportsman club that has a rifle change, is interested in the public
one.
“I
live only a couple of streets away so it would be convenient,”
Beyerle said.
Less
convenient will be the commute for Michael Shaffer who lives about a
45-minute drive away in Kent. Still, Shaffer believes the travel time
likely will be worth the effort.
“I
sometimes use an indoor range but I am also looking for an outdoor
range,” Shaffer said.
Thus
was hatched the range introductory idea by Ken Fry, the outdoors
skills coordinator for the Wildlife Division’s District Three
(Northeast Ohio) Office in Akron and Allen Lea, the District’s
assistant wildlife management supervisor. Both men also are range
customers themselves, each more than happy to drive the nearly
one-hour trip from their respective Akron area homes to the state’s
public range in rural Trumbull County.
Grand
River’s range is located at 6693 Hoffman-Norton Road, Bristolville
Township. The range features three units with distances of 25, 50,
and 100 yards.
During
the 90-minute long orientation session Fry, Lea and Cox provided a
look at the several facets of the range, its operation and protocols,
range safety, and range etiquette.
It
was explained by Fry that the Grand River range was established in
1998 and is one of 44 rifle/pistol, shotgun, and archery ranges
located throughout the state on wildlife areas and state forests.
However, the Grand River range is one of only five so-named “Class
A” ranges and which are supervised.
These
and designated Class B and Class C ranges, Lea, explained, require
either a $24 annual shooting range permit or a $5 one-day range
shooting permit. These passes and full information about the ranges
are available on-line via wildlife.ohiodnr.gov.
Range
passes also can be purchased at any retail outlet where hunting and
fishing licenses are sold. Importantly, passes are not available at
range itself.
Hours
at the Grand River facility are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with closure on
Mondays and Tuesdays to allow for range maintenance and for use by
local law enforcement departments. The range is also closed in
January and February (this is the Snow Belt, after all), as well as
certain holidays.
Even
so, the range’s popularity is not in dispute.
“During
the summer on a Saturday and on a Sunday after noon often all of the
shooting positions are full,” Cox said.
And
Lea said that Grand River’s record usage was in 2016 when it saw
14,383 shooters which “also corresponds with a peak in range permit
sales for the state.”
“Last
year, statewide, we sold 7,594 annual range permits and 23,226 one
day range permits. In 2016 we saw a boom in sales with numbers
nearly reaching 11,000 annuals and 36,000 one day passes being sold,”
Lea said.
“These
2016 numbers coincided with a boom in number of people securing a
concealed carry permit in 2015 and 2016. That boom has dropped
off of late.”
So
popular, in fact, is the operation at Grand River that the Wildlife
Division is forever tweaking its strategies for usage by the shooting
public. One such likely move is to cut the 25-yard section in half
with the addition of a berm, shortening one of the proposed new units
to seven yards in order to better accommodate pistol shooters, Fry
says.
“Back
in the day, this range was designed with hunters in mind but we
recognize the growth in sport shooting and the financial contribution
their participants play when they buy firearms and ammunition, so
you’ll begin to see changes to address their interests,” Fry
said. “But we won’t forget hunters, of course.”
The
range also will likely again see a lead recovery project as the state
works to scour out the metal from the earthen bunkers. How that will
be accomplished without also closing the entire set-up remains to be
determined, Lea says.
Lea
said as well the range has strict safety protocols in places to help
ensure that accidents are few to none. To that goal is attached the
note that in all of its years of operation the range has experienced
only two minor self-inflicted injuries, Cox said.
One
of these rules that at first may not seem to be of safety mindedness
is that staples are prohibited in order to attach targets to the two
corrugated plastic/wire frame portable target stands provided to each
shooter. The reason is that the wire staples can cut a person’s
hands, leaving blood on the target stands which are reused by other
shooters.
Thus
the requirement that only tape be used to attach targets to stands
helps prevent passing on any blood-borne diseases, Cox said.
“The
fact that we stress safety shows just how few accidents we have had
here,” Cox said. “The shooters really are self-policing the
ranges, too, including helping each other out, telling others of a
problem or when targets need to be pulled.”
As
for what can be brought out, Lea said he sees everything from young
children bring BB guns to powerful .50-caliber rifles and behemoth
pistols.
“If
you can shoulder it, you can use it as long as it’s not a hand
cannon, which is illegal by state statute anyway,” Lea said with a
chuckle.
Fry
said also that future introduction/orientation sessions are possible;
not just at Grand River but at the Wildlife Division’s other
supervised Class A ranges.
“It’s
something that my counterparts in the other (Wildlife) Districts are
considering to do as well,” Fry said.
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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