I have a 200yd range just past that and am building berms for a 500yd range. Berms should be 30' tall, and thats a a LOT of dirt!.
Learn to handload, it's easy, fun, and economical. Learn to cast and lube your own pistol bullets and you are shooting for about $.05 a shot!.

You can start handloading for as little as $50. A Lee hand kit, some cast bullets, powder and primers. Start slow and learn, get a good manual first, get a press later.

Oneshooter

7.62x54r, .30-'06, .308, 8mm Mauser, all seem to kick about the same.

In a bolt-action rifle, the kick is most severe. In the M1 Garand, the recoil is reduced by the energy siphoned off to work the reloading mechanism, so it doesn't kick as much.

Try the M1 Garand, then run some of the same ammunition through a '03 Springfield. I think the Springfield kicks a lot more. Without all the extra moving parts, the Springfield also seems to shoot tighter groups.

Saving the brass is a good idea. Maybe someday you'll start loading them.

Agree, it sucks to leave stuff on the kitchen table that you need at the range. If you have a checklist, then you can also forget the checklist you left in the kitchen.

the gas action extending the recoil and the extra 1 to 1 1/4 pounds of additional weight. I have a M1 that I built as a Master Class Highpower rifle. It is in .308Win. and with my handloads will shoot 1 1/2" at 200 yds, benchrested, if I do my part! I also have a 2 groove Springfield, 1938 serial# with a 1944 barrel, that will outshoot most all of the rest of my military rifles.

WW1
The Germans brought a hunting rifle

The Americans brought a target rifle

The British brought a battle rifle

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

I wasn't expecting the M1. After all the guff I had heard about the M-G being so brutal and not experiencing my arm ripped from the socket, I was expecting a lot less from the M-1.
They do recoil about the same.

I'm looking forward to getting back out with them soon.

I have another problem, too close to a range. I can get to Bud's Warehouse range in about 3 min.
Costs way to much to shoot inside. I don't like it much either.
I grew up able to 'go out back' and shoot. Oneshooter has the right idea and place for shooting.

It's a club range, not public, and I keep putting off going over there yet to check them out and see if I want to join up. There's an indoor range at near here, too.

I grew up on a farm, too. Go out behind the barn and have at it.

But I hardly go there because it's a 50/50 crap shoot on the kind of people you'll be shooting beside. Normally I'll park and watch a few minutes and decide what to do.


A few years ago a neighbor built a new house that really messed up my "pistol/22" range in my back yard. I miss living on a farm like the good ole days...that is until I get up and watch people go feed cattle in sub zero temps, or putting up fence and hay. LOL