Closed shooting ranges – what should I do to open such business?

Opening a shooting range is considered a good idea for a business. There is a reason for that – shooting is generally getting more and more popular. There is a increasement in interest both in courses and associations connected to guns: both emergent and historical. There is also a growing number of people interested in licence for weapons.

Growing interest is followed by many young people deciding to connect their future career with armament or joining professional army. Additionally, recreational shooting is also a way to establish new hobby or build team relations in many companies. With all those features, shooting range is starting to emerge as a great way to locate your funds.

When deciding to open a shooting range, one has to consider whether he wants to create an open or closed place. Closed shooting range is localised in a building, which has both advantages and disadvantages to it. Limited space may stand for one disadvantage. At closed shooting ranges, shor distance shooting is typically trained. On the other hand, such place can be opened for the whole year, regardless of the weather, which is generally good for business. Additionally such range will be easier to place within the area of the city, without the necessity to find a large place on the outskirts, that may be hard to find or approach by people without a car.

What are the requirements to open such shooting range?

The rules for shooting ranges can be found in following documents:

The Act for Firearms and Ammunition

It is a set of rules created by polish MSWiA in 15th of March 2000 in case of regulations on shooting ranges.

In case of closed shooting range, we are not considering any law that is connected to environmental protection, which are important when establishing open shooting ranges.

To legalize your shooting range, you have to approach governor, mayor or president of the city, to confirm that your set of rules is in fact correct. The template for those rules can be found in the mentioned Act of MSWiA and it can be either modified for your own purposes or straight-up copied from the site. Decision is made within thirty days. If we are attaching the template and it is in general followed, there are no reason to reject our rules. It is however likely, that officials will demand another documents, allowances, attests etc. In fact, that is a mistake on their part, and we should immediately revocate in such case.

It is also worth knowing, that owner of the shooting range does not have to posses any licences or even courses related to the subject if he is employing qualified instructors to conduct shooting.

How to plan your shooting range

In case of closed shooting range we have few options. We can lend a building and prepare it for the new purpose, but we have to note in the contract, that we will be using it for the shooting range. We can also create it from the scratch.

One interesting option may be to consider companies that are offering modular ranges. Those are typically made from steel and their emplacement and numbers is depending solely on the owner’s requisition. What’s important, such things are not connected to the ground and it may be important later on. Those modular shooting ranges are also worth their price, when we need to establish our business relatively fast.