If You Can Shoot On Your Property, I Am Jealous

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I can (and do sometimes) shoot in my yard, but as much as I shoot, I really dont want to annoy the couple of neighbors I have, or draw that much attention to myself. There may not be as many people out here, but they are all nosey as hell, and seem to worry more about what youre doing than they are.

I have a real nice range on the other side of the hill from me, literally two minutes away, so I go there and annoy their neighbors. :)
 
I am a city dweller, it is 13 miles to a sparsely attended outdoor range I am comfortable visiting even now.

A friend has rural acreage with surveyed range, it is an hour's drive for him, but he has a cabin there and can stay all weekend.
 
I was lucky as a kid to have land to shoot on. Both grandfathers were farmers with property. I inherited one, but it came with a mortgage that I pay. My wife and I bought a farm of our own, so we pay for 98 acres at two places. We have cattle on both. I can deer hunt, and shoot at both. I like to tell people that with the exception of six months in my 39 year life, I have always been able to pee and shoot in my yard. But now that I'm grown, I know it was a hard work lifestyle that brings me, and my grandparents that property. I would love to just "own land," but without agriculture there would be no economic reason to justify the mortgage and property taxes. And those cattle come with work. After I get home from my real job, I have to feed them hay in the winter, and maintain fence and ground in the summer. The cattle and property get a lot more of my time than shooting does, I'll assure you that.
 
To me shooting a gun has always been outside and usually in the backyard.

been doing it going on 52 years now and I don’t know no better :)

first and only time I ever shot a gun inside was when I qualified for CCW and I didn’t like it.
 
AK103K said:
I can (and do sometimes) shoot in my yard, but as much as I shoot, I really dont want to annoy the couple of neighbors I have, or draw that much attention to myself. There may not be as many people out here, but they are all nosey as hell, and seem to worry more about what youre doing than they are.

I have a real nice range on the other side of the hill from me, literally two minutes away, so I go there and annoy their neighbors. :)
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I planted Forsythia bush right up against the road on my place. You can't kill that stuff on purpose. Cypress and Pine inside of that. I'm planting Forsythia bush on the rest of the property lines starting this spring. Just wish I'd done it from day one.

I rarely if ever talk to any neighbors so I don't know or care if they are annoyed. They don't care if I am, I'm sure not going to worry if they are.
 
peeplwtchr said:
unusual for me to have a pang of jealousy when I see someone with a range of some type on thier property. LUCKY.
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Luck has virtually zero to do with it.

Choose a career that gives you some freedom and gives you the financial ability to buy land.

Move to a place you can do it

I’m in sales. I was #1 in my group in a company that has 8,000 total employees world wide. I had endless idiots saying how lucky I was. No, it’s because I worked harder and smarter. I was up at 5 when they were sleeping in. I drove my territory on weekends and had everything planned a week in advance. They would go out and wander around aimlessly, then whine because they didn’t sell anything.

Life’s all about choices

Jack Ryan said:
I rarely if ever talk to any neighbors so I don't know or care if they are annoyed. They don't care if I am, I'm sure not going to worry if they are
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I talked to my neighbors when I moved in. Introduced myself and told them to expect to hear shooting fr9m time to time. Found out they’re all shooters too

And yes, I have 5 acres. Walked out beside my house to shoot yesterday. I can buy any gun I want.

As noted in multiple posts above, financial security comes with discipline.

THE #1 CAUSE OF POOR FINANCIAL SITUATIONS IS FAILURE TO DELAY GRATIFICATION. I gotta have it NOW!!! Even if it means borrowing money to buy it. Most people think nothing of making a $400 car payment but would never have the discipline to save $400 a month.

I have a friend that just got a CDL. He will make between $125,000 to $175,000 this year depending on how much he wants to drive.

“Yeah, yeah........but I don’t want to.....”. Well, then you just made a choice.
 
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We had 26 acres out in the country when I was growing up. It used to be surrounded by open field. And then the neighbors moved in and got horses. Now they complain every time we’d shoot because it scares the horses, so we shoot a lot less.

I remember one time the neighbors even called the cops on us… Cop showed up said we weren’t doing anything wrong I didn’t have any illegal weaponry and then just left.

I guess my point is sometimes it takes more than just having land to shoot on having neighbors that don’t mind if you do
 
daniel craig said:
We had 26 acres out in the country when I was growing up. It used to be surrounded by open field. And then the neighbors moved in and got horses. Now they complain every time we’d shoot because it scares the horses, so we shoot a lot less.

I remember one time the neighbors even called the cops on us… Cop showed up said we weren’t doing anything wrong I didn’t have any illegal weaponry and then just left.

I guess my point is sometimes it takes more than just having land to shoot on having neighbors that don’t mind if you do
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Get 8 old worn out tires. Build a rack to hold them so you can shoot through the middle of them towards your backstop. With the muzzle about a foot inside, the retort will be impressively attenuated.

There was a similar set up on some land my family had when I was young. It was there when we bought the place, and though the gully had obviously been used as a range in the past, it was a while before we discovered what that rack of old tires was there for.
 
I have just enough property to shoot on. Helps when I just want to shoot a mag through something new and not be bothered to go to the range 15 minutes away.
 
I am grateful to have a family farm to shoot at. I have set up a rifle and pistol range as well a trap area. The only downsides is that it is a working Apple farm, so we can’t shoot in the fall during Pick Your Own season. Don’t think the city folks would like picking apples next to my range. I also have another 26 acres that I am trying to set up for my fall range area. Besides the Police range, never shot anywhere else.
 
peeplwtchr said:
I have never been jealous of material stuff, which makes it overly unusual for me to have a pang of jealousy when I see someone with a range of some type on thier property. LUCKY.
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As others have said, LUCKY has nothing to do with it. I'm eighth generation here (my great-nieces make 10) and my wife and I have made a conscious decision to remain here despite low wages, high taxes and and an overwhelming socialist bent of the local and state governance. Shoot out the back door and 15,000 Ac.of accessible private land adjacent to 100,000 Ac. of State land. No inherited anything except the history and love of the place. We give thanks every day (more so in this time) that most folk seem to prefer urban squalor (our view) over abject agrarian poverty :)
 
I bought my place in 1992.

I scratched and pinched for the payments more than once. I drove old vehicles (never owned a new one until 2005) that I repaired myself.
I ate beans and rice. I didn't go out to restaurants.

I went to work every day, even if I didn't want to. I worked in the same place for 18 years.

Was there luck involved? Absolutely ! I was lucky I didn't get sick or injured and have to give up working.

I'm lucky I (finally) found a woman that would put up with me, and that was worth putting up with.

My place has been paid off for some years now. I go shoot when I wish, but usually wait until 9am or so to give the neighbors a break on weekends.

Mostly, it's a matter of sacrificing the now for the later. You gotta keep your eyes on the prize.
 
Have been very blessed to have an outdoor range, there were times didn't know if I could make it work financially. Stuck it out and and been able to share it with the kids and grand kids all these years. Been time consuming attempting to create an interest in shooting & hunting....now it has taken root. I can rest assured it will be passed along to for the next generations.

range-1.jpg
 
I have 20 acres with a dedicated handgun range behind my shop that I hold CPL classes. It gives me the opportunity to shoot whenever I have a motion to. For long guns I just move to an adjacent field where I can set up for 50 and 100 yards. All my neighbors are shooters also.
 
daniel craig said:
We had 26 acres out in the country when I was growing up. It used to be surrounded by open field. And then the neighbors moved in and got horses. Now they complain every time we’d shoot because it scares the horses, so we shoot a lot less.

I remember one time the neighbors even called the cops on us… Cop showed up said we weren’t doing anything wrong I didn’t have any illegal weaponry and then just left.

I guess my point is sometimes it takes more than just having land to shoot on having neighbors that don’t mind if you do
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I don't have a neighbor left who didn't move there AFTER I already lived here. I'm going to do what ever I always have and that is what ever I want with in the confine of what I own. They CHOSE to come here. I didn't invite them. I'm not changing to suit THEM. They can buy ear plugs same as I can.
 
I bought 120 acres almost 3 years ago . I retired 4 years ago and just built my house there in August . I have been so busy getting the land and house like I want it , I don’t have much time to shoot . I probably hunted less last season than I ever had . But I did get to walk out the front door and sneak around the house to shoot at a buck in my backyard . Missed my first buck on my property at 20 yards away because my gun had a hangfire . It is still nice knowing you have land and can shoot when you want to , or just sit on the porch at night and listen to the whippoorwills . They just started singing again last week here .
 
Seems like I did it backwards. When I was younger I lived on a 1000 acre farm and had neighbors with 1000 acre or larger farms and they all gave me permission to shoot on their land. I sort of got used to that .Then I moved and started a new way of life and have ended up in houses with very little land. I now must go to ranges to shoot. I've had a friend or two with some land to shoot on but every time I went I was afraid of getting shot. Needless to say they were pretty careless with guns. Controlled ranges only for me for now.
 
Jack B. said:
. I've had a friend or two with some land to shoot on but every time I went I was afraid of getting shot. Needless to say they were pretty careless with guns. Controlled ranges only for me for now.
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When people come over to shoot, I always tell them
"The first, and most important rule of this range; don't shoot the guy that owns it."
 
Luck or not idk. In some cases, like my own, I agree it WAS luck. Of course after inheriting it I have worked to keep it but I could never have afforded what I own with the stupid prices land goes for now.
I was raised pretty poor but by choice I guess you could say. We had a nice house, tractors, dozers, skidders etc but conversely We didn't eat out. Didn't buy anything on credit. Wore hand me down clothes. Spent all day Working in our tobacco, Pole beans, pine roping, hay fields, chair bottoms....etc. just to pay the land taxes (which are pretty cheap here). Clothes that were new or fitted to me or sleeping until noon were unknown to me but the things I never had to want for were a place to shoot or hunt. And that was 80-90s too. Not mayberry in the 60s although I have visited there many times. I can still shoot any time. I'm limited to 6-800 yards depending on which way I face from my porch and which hill I want to shoot. Not limited by lack of acreage but by terrain. Flat land around here is a myth..... but I guess backstops are unlimited. Lol. I'm one of the few around who still hasn't posted everything either. I understand that others werent as fortunate. It gets harder each year though since people steal things, leave gates open, etc. In my case I was just blessed to be born where I was and to whom.
 
Hooda Thunkit said:
When people come over to shoot, I always tell them
"The first, and most important rule of this range; don't shoot the guy that owns it."
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I sometimes host shoots for the folks at work (Army TDA Org) and actually do a little safety brief before commencing. A lot of it's because I run a "hot" range and allow a bunch of stuff; drawing, movement, shooting on the move, etc. that they're not accustomed to. I'll usually dissect an IDPA stage into individual drills, then put them together at the end of the day for a complete stage.

I also have guys out that I shoot matches with for practice sessions:

Getting ready for 3Gun
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Guys from work:
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I was slightly jealous of my one friend who is gone now, who had a huge chunk of land you could shoot on, complete with a nice big backstop made out of fill dirt. But the one I was really jealous of was another friend with an even bigger chunk of land you could shoot on, with a 1800' "driveway" that made an excellent test dragstrip for our cars. All we could really wreck is a lot of corn if we went off the road. On top of those two things, a huge cellphone tower was built on the corner of the lot that pays rent for 99 years. Free mortgage money plus gas money for your car too? Yeah, I'm jealous. He ended up selling the house and most of the land, but the county let him subdivide years ago, and he kept the cell tower land and the $$$. The original land owner's son bought the rest of the land for a huge price to put the original farm back together. It was split up in the '50's. So my friend and his wife got a LOT of money for the "farm", the cell tower lease, and both started getting social security. Their retirement went from "OK", to fantastic in about a 3 month period. The house they live in now is the house they bought when they got married, and the mortgage, taxes, and insurance are less than 25% of the cell tower lease payment.
 
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