Hi all,
I am a recent transplant to the Philadelphia area from the West Coast. Being still relatively clueless, I figured I'd ask: are there any open places in the Philadelphia/Bucks County area where a guy could go for some casual recoil therapy? We had several decent quarry-type spots in Oregon, but I haven't found anything like that here.
There are no longer any Quarry/Open Space/Free shooting areas that I'm aware of in the Philadelphia/Bucks area. I'm in Bucks myself. We do have a fairly large number of good outdoor clubs and indoor ranges all around the area. Many of the clubs however and some of the indoor ranges have stupid rules about rapid fire and many/most have waiting lists on joining(for the clubs); some of the waiting lists can be years long since they cap the number of members per bylaws. Some are also expensive to join and/or for yearly dues.
We also have a fairly good number of competitions in the area, IDPA, USPSA, Falling Plates, fun Subgun, etc. If you go a bit farther west in PA, there are also quite a few regular Rifle matches.
Depending on where you are located and how far you are willing to drive I can make some recommendations. If you have questions about other ranges I may be able to answer them.
Off the top of my head though some quick recommendations.
Lower Providence Rod & Gun Club (technically Montgomery County) has nice facilities. I've never been a member, they have waiting lists, need a sponsor, etc. You can meet sponsors by going to a match, IDPA/USPSA, I also assume Clays/whatever else shotgunners do. I've been their for IDPA matches several times.
New Falls Rifle and Pistol Association is more open to join, still need a sponsor, but I don't recall waiting list. I'm not a member for two reasons, it is an hour drive for me and they are a little pricey to join. You can get money off dues by working at the work days. I've been going back and forth in my head about joining, but the drive keeps telling me not to. I do a Submachine Gun shoot their almost every month. It's on Sundays I think it is currently second Sunday of the Month, there has been talk of changing that. They have a calendar on their website that will show when it is. Usually their are about 5 to 10 shooters with various Subguns. We often get a few spectators as well. Normally we let the spectators shoot some of our Subguns a bit after the competition. If you wanted to come by I can introduce you to the board members that run the Subgun match and let you shoot a 9mm M16, or Uzi or both depending on what I bring that month.
Easton Fish and Game I do belong to. They are inexpensive compared to many others and you can currently join online without needing a sponsor or dealing with a waiting list. They also happen to be the closest one to me(about 30 min drive) that allows rapid fire. The rule is no uncontrolled rapid fire, vs many of the clubs are more of a no more than 1 shot ever 3 or 5 seconds or something stupid like that. The facilities are not quite as nice as Lower Providence, about the same as New Falls at least for outdoor shooting. We also have monthly IDPA and Steel Challenge matches during Spring/Summer/Fall. If you want to see the club, I could meet your there sometime, I have a quest pass.