Improvements to gun range in the works

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After 44 years of ownership, the Boulder Pistol and Rifle Club is undergoing more improvements as the shooting range becomes more popular among gun enthusiasts in Southern Nevada.

The 580-acre range, which dates back to the 1930s when the federal government used the area for shooting practice, was turned over to the gun club in 1962, after the organization already had celebrated its 29th anniversary.

Since then, the leadership and its 765 members have turned the rolling hills into a premier facility that offers a courtesy range to the public and specialized areas -- a 1,000-yard long-distance range, a silhouette range with five steel "animal" targets from 200 to 500 meters, and two shotgun areas -- to its dues-paying members.

Currently, the club is adding a fourth 100-yard pit in the members-only area and will add an 800- and 900-yard line for Palma shooters on the 1,000-yard range.

Palma shooting is done in the prone position and has its own U.S. team and series of tournaments.

Members are allowed to use the facility whenever they want, but the public is limited to Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, when one of the club's 12 volunteer range safety officers is present.

Jack Schreiman of Henderson, who moved from Huntington Beach, Calif., in 1992, has belonged to the club for five years and serves as one of its safety officers.

"We're one of only two public ranges in Clark County, that is, until the new shooting park opens," he said. "We get a lot of people from Boulder City, including the police department, but we get a lot from Henderson and Las Vegas, too, including Summerlin, even though Desert Sportsman's is right there on Charleston (Boulevard)."

Desert Sportsman's Rifle and Pistol Club is a 218-acre shooting park on the outskirts of Las Vegas on the edge of the Red Rock National Conservation Area.

To help Southern Nevada gun enthusiasts get their rounds in, county officials last year broke ground for a new 2,900-acre Clark County Shooting Park in the far northern end of the Las Vegas Valley. The first phase of the park will cost $61 million.

Schreiman's job is to check shooters in to specific pits and, at the same time, check them out.

"I always ask them what they're shooting, make sure they have eye and ear protection and what kind of targets they have because I've got to keep an eyeball on them," he said. "One time, there were a couple of guys and I didn't ask them what they were using for targets. As it turned out when I went out to check on something, I found out they were using watermelons and cabbages. And not in the back of the pit, but in the middle with their bullets ricocheting into the neighboring pits. I had to oust them."

But that wasn't the strangest thing to happen to Schreiman since 2001.

"One time, a couple of guys came in and asked if they could practice drive-bys," he said with a slight chuckle. "They didn't get to stay, of course."

But most public shooters who pay $5 for two hours of shooting and another $5 for a wooden target stand are merely out for the fun of it.

On the day before New Year's Eve, Don Painter and his 13-year-old son, Zach, came out to the range with their friends, Miki Crane, her brother David, and Brian Parker to do some practice shooting with some AR-15s, the civilian equivalent of the M-16 rifle, and some lesser-caliber rifles.

"It's a challenge, it's fun, and it tests your skills," said Miki, an Air Force major and a doctor of internal medicine at the O'Callaghan Federal Hospital on the Nellis Air Force Base. "You have to have a respect for guns. As long as you respect a gun, I don't see a problem having one, especially if you're trained properly."

Zach has been shooting since he was 5, when he started going deer hunting with his father. This year, he bagged his first deer in the Ruby Mountains outside Elko.

"I like (shooting) because it gives me skills and it's fun," he said. "It's entertaining, too. I'd recommend it for other kids because it gets them out and gives them a chance to challenge themselves."

Painter also has a daughter, 15-year-old Chelsea, who's a shooter and recently won a shooting title.

The manager of JT3, a defense services firm at Nellis Air Force Base, Painter grew up and went to school in Bozeman, Mont., and has been using a gun since he was a child.

"I started when I was five," he said. "I used to walk to the nearest shooting range with a rifle on my shoulder, and nobody ever said a word."

Schreiman said the club's president, Harry Helfrich, has done a lot of good for the club.

Helfrich also is a member of the Eldorado Cowboys, which practices in authentic Western garb.

"We come out the first weekend of every month and do some practicing," Helfrich said. "We get out there about 8 in the morning and shoot until about noon, and the public is welcome to come out and see what it is we do."

For those wanting to catch a glimpse of the Eldorado Cowboys and a nostalgic look of what the West once was, the next gathering will be on Feb. 3- 4.

The range is located south of the Boulder City Landfill. Take South Utah Street to just before the landfill, turn right and follow the signs about 1.5 miles to the range.