A hidden treasure.. In crappy valley

[SAMI]

Saturday night while assisting in a knuckle rebuild for a buddy's Toyota, Kurt and I talked about maybe going shooting that evening. That fell through as it got later and we were both involved in vehicle projects, but it started a conversation with my buddy that I'm glad took place. Robby Flandro, some of you may know him, mentioned that his family owns a building that used to house a bullet manufacturer... Which has it's own underground shooting range. So, naturally it was planned that we'd check it out on Sunday.

We loaded 5 guys with guns 'n shit into the Nissan and headed down to check this place out. Funny that in the last few years it's never been brought up. Once we figured out all the breakers to control the lights, it was game time.. We found two old computer monitors and put them to good use... 300-400 rounds of small arms fire at 15-25yds.. HK .40, XD40sc, .32 semi-auto, hammer-less .357mag revolver (loved that piece), Glock 19, .45 - can't remember what kind, and my favorite, the grand finally to really stick it to the computer monitors - a bushmaster .223 w/ red dot and roughly 250rnds.. Damnit, now I want one.. We sent those monitors back to 1992...

It was a great time which was followed up with In 'N Out burgers.. Not sure what the hype is about there.

The lighting situation in the range needs some TLC, as there is a breaker that keeps tipping which has all of the lights on the first 20-30yds or so, then after that it's decently lit. The ventilation also wasn't on.. So, we're probably going to get cancer in the next year due to breathing in the mass amounts of smoke from the goings ons... Oh well...

Hopefully after we get the vent fans figured out, I could arrange a time that we could do a utahfirearms.com shooting day.. We could have rifles on one side, and handguns on the other.

I snapped a few pics, but my camera was not loving the low light and the flash would only washout close up due to the tight quarters of the range. But, I'll try to get a few up of our arsenal.

Here's the photos.. Next time i'll take my tripod and maybe borrow a better/bigger flash:

[Brian P]

Interesting...

[SAMI]

Originally Posted by Brian P

Interesting...

That's it? Just, interesting?

[Herzog]

So Robby's family owns this building? Hmmm... So when are you guys setting up shop?

[SAMI]

I don't think that even we could fill up 30,000 sq ft of warehouse... and 9,000sq ft of offices. It's for sale at 2.2mil

But, if money was no issue i'm sure we could figure out a number of ideas to pursue.

[Brian P]

Originally Posted by SAMI

That's it? Just, interesting?

Yup, Cuz I wasnt invited

[SAMI]

Ah I see. Well don't feel bad. We went into it not knowing if we'd even get to shoot at all. So, it could've been a big bust for the evening..

But, now that we know what we're dealing with down there hopefully we can make something happen.

Robby's dad is in charge of the facility, and he was really nervous for us to go down and check it out.. Mainly, hit the breaker to the A/C and cost him $12k payable to the power company... again... But alls well that ends well.. right? Pretty confident that we didn't hit the wrong breakers.

[Brian P]

No worries, I don't expect to be involved in all your doings I hope you had hearing protection.

[Sigmanluke]

Sounds kinda fun, where about is the building located?

[DAA]

Just purely guessing this is the old Barnes facility?

How long is the tunnel? I'd be highly interested in a chance to do some accuracy testing if the tunnel goes at least 100 yards.

- DAA

[SAMI]

DAA is the winner. Both sides of the range go to 100yds, and we suspect that at one time the left side used to be 300yds.

The current landlord is very skittish about allowing anyone down there just due to safety and such. Hopefully we can arrange something in the near future for utahfirearm.com members... slight possibility.