The Range

Welcome to the safest, cleanest indoor shooting range in Colorado!

Long before Bob Holmes began talking to bankers and realtors and architects and contractors and range equipment experts, he knew exactly what he wanted: a safe, clean indoor shooting range where people could take their families to enjoy the shooting sports.

If you’ve been a shooter any very great length of time, you know what Bob didn’t want: a dark, dirty, smoke-filled concrete block range filled with cigar-smoking old guys who get a kick out of horseplay and off-color jokes. The floors get swept once a month whether they need it or not. You’d better like the smell of gun smoke—and lead dust—lingering in the air, because it’s been there forever. Of course, those aren’t ranges you’d ever take your family to. In fact, you probably wouldn’t have hung out in them yourself, except once upon a time, they were all you could find. Nobody ever actually liked them: shooters just put up with them.

Those ranges are a thing of the past now. Colorado Springs’ new Whistling Pines Gun Club range is the safe, clean indoor range for serious shooters, newcomers to the shooting sports, and the whole family. It’s for people who understand the right to keep and bear arms includes the responsibility to shoot safely and responsibly.

You’ll soon notice a goodly number of families shooting at the range. If it’s not safe enough for the whole family, it’s not safe—period!

The first time David Fortin brought sons Dalton and Austin to the club, he took them on the range one at a time to stress safety, safety, and more safety. The older children are now as safety-conscious as seasoned adult shooters. In the proverbial “nutshell,” that’s what the Whistling Pines Gun Club is all about.

25 yards may not seem a very great distance until you aim a handgun at a target that far away. All at once, the bullseye looks positively microscopic. Most club members shoot at closer distances; even so, shooting handguns well requires a great deal of practice. Introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses are recommended; individual coaching is also available.

The backstop can handle any handgun caliber ever concocted, any shotgun gauge, and any rifle caliber up to and including the .460 Weatherby magnum, which is renowned for dangerous game hunting in Africa. The backstop’s armored steel is so tough, in fact, it can’t be cut by any saw in the world. Only torches can cut through it. The design of the backstop plates and their distance from the shooting line means bullet fragments can’t ricochet back to injure shooters.

Members are free to shoot their own hand-loaded ammunition, ammunition purchased elsewhere, and ammunition purchased from the club, which is competitively priced. Armor-piercing (steel or steel-cored) and tracer ammunition may not be shot at the club, since it could damage the backstops.

A great deal of sound attenuation has been added to the range; all the same, the floor and walls are made of concrete, which reflects sound, so hearing protection is an absolute necessity. The staff recommends using both plugs and muffs. Cartridge cases ejected from semi-automatic pistols can be dangerous. If your glasses have modern plastic lenses, there’s no danger of shattering; glass lenses, however, require the use of additional eye protection.

This view of the rear half of the air handling system may give you an idea of the enormity and complexity of the task. Fresh air is brought into the range from the roof, then warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer. Every molecule of air brought into the range behind the shooting line is flushed out the far end within 85–90 seconds, then HEPA-filtered to remove lead dust, pollen, bacteria, and ordinary dust before being pushed outdoors. Air is not recycled through the range.

The net result is that there is no lead dust in the air at the shooting line, and the air flushed from the range is cleaner than air brought in from the roof. In spite of the enormous quantity of air moving through the range, there’s no wind to make your targets flap and wave.

This behind the scenes view of the far end of the range shows a small portion of the bullet trap and lead handling system. Bullets enter the large green deceleration chamber, lose their momentum by spinning around and around, and drop into five-gallon plastic buckets, which are emptied twice weekly for recycling.

Did we mention recycling? Here’s about a week’s worth of used bullets. The club recycles over a ton and a half of lead every month, along with over 700 pounds of brass. If you reload your own ammunition, feel free to pick up brass that falls behind the shooting line; brass that falls forward of the shooting line must be left on the floor for recycling: shooters are not permitted to go in front of the shooting line.

Each shooting position is armored above and on both sides. The bullet-resistant transparent dividers are made of the same extremely thick tempered glass as is used in armored cars. In the unlikely event you ever see someone shooting carelessly or unsafely, please stop shooting and inform the staff immediately. Everyone on the club staff is an experienced shooter who’s deeply committed to safety. The Whistling Pines Gun Club accepts no compromises when it comes to safety!

The target trolley controls are easy to use, and show you precise distances in yards.

Firearm muzzles must be pointed downrange whenever they’re in use. If a gun isn’t in use, please box, bag, or holster it. Use the tables behind the shooting line to reload magazines if you’d like, but leave firearms on the benches at the shooting line with muzzles pointed downrange.

If you’d like to practice holster work, please let the staff know in advance. We’ll verify you know what you’re doing, then show you how to remove the shooting bench.