Sights set on gun range expansion

Members of the Libby Rod and Gun Club met with Lincoln County commissioners Wednesday and asked them to support a 10-year plan to expand the Lincoln County Shooting Complex from its current 31 acres to a proposed 450 acres, housing separate space for every shooting sports discipline. The range has been open and in use since 1946.

Dan Ackerman, who presented the plan to the commissioners, said it was motivated by a need expressed by club members to provide additional space for the various shooting events and competitions in which they participate.

One of those events is the Big Bore Safari Challenge started by Jay Sheffield in 2011. The inaugural event drew only a handful of shooters, but has grown in each of its four years. The 2014 event brought approximately 60 shooters to the Libby area for a weekend last July. Shooters were turned away due to lack of safe capacity at the current range.

Ackerman compared the event to the Ignite the Nights Car Show, which takes place every summer in Libby. “When that started,” said Ackerman, “there were six cars. Now there are over 400, and none of them club members.”

As more people visit Libby for these events, they spend money in restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and other retail outlets – “dollars that stay in Libby,” Ackerman said.

The proposed plan includes providing a 124-acre area on the south end of the range property for archery, paintball and air-soft activities. “The silent shooting disciplines,” said Ackerman. The goal is to provide a buffer between firearm shooting and the residential lots immediately south of the proposed range expansion.

One nearby resident, who didn’t provide his name during the meeting and who was not available for comment afterward, objected to the expansion. He argued the noise from the shooting range carries into the surrounding neighborhoods and the expansion will only increase that noise, reducing property values in the area.

He also argued that shooters occasionally fire up onto the hillside behind the current range, an area frequented by hikers and horseback riders.

Commissioner Mark Peck seemed sympathetic to the man’s concern. “We definitely need better oversight out there,” Peck said. Expanding the range and making it a county facility would, Peck said, make it easier to provide that oversight and safety.

The expansion would benefit more than just the big-bore shooters, Ackerman said. His goal is to build a facility that will provide an outlet for every shooting sports discipline.

Mike Cirian represents another one of those disciplines, clay target shooters. Cirian is the head coach of the Libby Rock Crushers, who shoot trap, skeet and sporting clays in youth competitions around the state and the region.

Expanding the shooting complex, Cirian said, would provide Libby with the ability to host larger youth competitions. Those competitions draw in not only shooters, but also their families, friends and supporters, which could result in hundreds of extra people coming into Libby.

Ackerman expects to be able to host 10 to 12 large shooting events each year at the range, once the expansion is complete. Each of those events is expected to bring hundreds of people, and in turn thousands of dollars, into Libby.

The biggest hurdle facing the expansion is the property ownership. The entire tract upon which the expansion is planned is owned by the United States Forest Service.

Ackerman said his group approached Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Chris Savage in the summer of 2014 and asked if he had an interest in allowing the range to expand. Ackerman said Savage told the group he had “absolutely no interest” in a short-term expansion, but wanted to see a 10-year plan from the group.

Al Corda, who recently passed, organized a committee with representatives from each of the shooting disciplines with the goal of creating the plan requested by Savage. Together they drafted a preliminary design with accommodations for all types of shooters, along with noise and risk mitigation, expanded ranges and additional parking.

The first step, said Ackerman, is to expand the county’s current use permit from the forest service to add an additional 4.9 acres to the range. That will enable the construction of a 100-yard rifle range and two 50-yard pistol bays.

“This will help us spread out the disciplines a bit,” said Ackerman. “It will decrease the congestion for the shooters.”

The second step is a much bigger hurdle. It will require an act of Congress to transfer ownership of the entire property from the forest service to Lincoln County.

The lands transfer was the basis for the club’s presentation to the county commissioners. The gun club is asking for the commissioners’ help to get Montana’s senators to propose the transfer in Congress.

Commissioner Greg Larsen was onboard right from the start. “I think we’d do anything we could to support it. It would be good for Libby and Lincoln County.”

The shooting range, Larsen explained, is one facet of the economic diversity he feels is necessary to help bring Lincoln County out of its current economic troubles. Larsen spoke about a conversation between some young people he overheard in Troy earlier in the week. “They were talking about work, and one said he hoped they had a good fire season this year so he would be able to work. Imagine that, people are hoping for fires to burn the forests so they can find work over the summer months,” he said.

Ackerman said the growth of Sheffield’s event proves expanding the range would result in an increase in tourism and recreation dollars for the county. “If we build it, they will come,” he said.