After more than a year of review, the Missouri Department of Conservation has decided to build a new unstaffed public shooting range at the Pleasant Hope Conservation Area, 30 minutes north of Springfield.
The existing target range, a popular spot for many Springfield shooters because it was free and relatively close to town, was closed last summer while MDC staff reviewed safety issues at the range and continued residential growth encroached near the conservation area.
MDC now plans to demolish the existing south-facing range and build a new one oriented to the north, facing away from most of the area's rural homes.
The new shooting range and its features
The range will have 100-yard and 25-yard shooting lanes and tall berms downrange to stop bullets. Each shooting lane will have two or three shooting benches located beneath covered pavilions.
Some of the multi-use trails on the conservation area's north side will need to be relocated to the south and west, away from the direction of range gunfire.
The design also includes construction of a vehicle bridge over Bear Creek to access the new range.
A key part of the project will be an environmental cleanup of the closed range to collect lead, copper and other metal fragments that were fired into the berms and keep them from migrating into nearby Bear Creek.
Cleaned soil from the berms will be used as material to build the new berms on the north-facing range.
The project will be included in the conservation department's 2024 fiscal year budget, but there's still no timeline for when work will begin or when target shooters can access the new range, according to Aaron Jeffries, MDC deputy director of outreach and policy.
“We are encouraging folks to be patient,” Jeffries said Wednesday. “We won't know the cost until we get the survey and design completed.”
The existing range had a separate shotgun clay-target shooting area, but Jeffries said he doesn't know if the new range will be able to accommodate that. The shooting range area will remain closed — the access road blocked by a locked steel gate — until construction work is finished, Jeffries said.
Why was Pleasant Hope shooting range closed?
According to MDC, the Pleasant Hope range was closed in part because of improper use by some shooters.
A review found that some people were stepping in front of the shooting benches to shoot at targets from a closer distance. Range rules also required that only paper targets — provided by MDC for free at the site — were to be used, but people were shooting at and leaving behind objects like cans or other debris.
Shotguns aren't allowed to be used on the rifle/handgun ranges, but shotgun shell casings left behind showed some weren't following that rule. Shotgun pellets can quickly damage the target holders MDC provides.
Jeffries said that when the new range is built, shooters will need to police themselves and follow the rules posted at the site if they want to keep the range open.
The existing range had concrete shooting benches out in the open, but the new range will have covered pavilions with restricted sight lines to make the shooting environment safer and help prevent bullets from being fired beyond the high dirt berms.
According to MDC, the new design will help bring the range up to modern shooting range safety standards.
Jeffries said the Pleasant Hope range design likely will be similar to the Ralph and Martha Perry Memorial Conservation Area shooting range in Johnson County, which recently reopened after undergoing a major design upgrade. It features pavilions above the shooting benches.
Where to shoot while waiting for the new range?
Until the Pleasant Hope range opens, target shooters can still use MDC's free unstaffed range at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife area, 30 minutes south of Springfield,
The staffed Andy Dalton Shooting Range and Outdoor Center near Bois D'arc — about 30 minutes northwest of Springfield — will reopen its rifle/handgun range in a few weeks, although the shotgun ranges are open. There is a fee to access the shooting areas.
The rifle/handgun ranges were closed in March for maintenance.
There are other unstaffed MDC ranges in Barry County, Dallas County and Newton County.
