That would be the Tomball Gun Club. I've been there a few times.I hear of a range in Tomball, however I can't find an address or webpage for it. Help needed on that one.
- Street address is technically 12600 Zion Road, Tomball, Texas 77375. That address, though, is the beginning of a private road named Schiel Nursery Road and the club is about 1500 yards north of Zion where the road finally dead ends.
- Membership limited to 275 with a waiting list. Even if you know a member and can get a recommendation that puts you on the list, you'll still wait a very, very long time. A member there offered me an application back in about 2002 and told me at the time that wait times were over 5 years. At that time, the club cap was 200 members. Later they raised the cap to 275 members and for a while around 2008 it was possible to get into the club with a wait of just under 3 years. I shudder to think of what the wait list time is these days, now that development in the area has gone insane. I would be very surprised if the wait time was less than 5 years. The only real way to shoot at that range is to befriend a member and go as their guest. <ETA: As of 2016, the info in this bullet point is out of date. I've been told that membership now requires two current members to vouch for an applicant instead of one. Also, I haven't heard any reliable info about wait times and membership caps for quite a while. Anybody with more current info, please post it.>
- The club is almost 100% focused on formal benchrest rifle shooting. There is no shotgun area. There used to be a pistol backstop thrown out there as an afterthought and a small Cowboy Action area. I haven't set foot on the range in quite a while but now on the satellite imagery I no longer see the CAS area and there are no longer any CAS matches on the club calendar. While there is still some sort of pistol match every month, the part of the line used for that has now been covered and rimfire benchrest matches (which would necessarily use the same space as any pistol shooters) have been added to the club calendar. While there is clearly a way to shoot something other than a benchrest rifle at the range, the point is that the powers-that-be at the club consider it a 99.9% benchrest rifle club. If you think a modern rifle should hold more than one shot at a time or if you can get any sleep the night after you shoot a 100-yard group over a half-inch in size under good conditions, you'll find the atmosphere at the club...uh...less than ideal.
- With some diligent searching, you can find contact info for people who are members and try to get into the club but, IMO, you shouldn't bother unless formal benchrest is your sport of choice. Even then, the way to approach getting in is to find their web site, look at their calendar, show up at a match, introduce yourself, and tell the match director you want to get into benchrest. If you're not willing to go to that sort of old-school, press-the-flesh trouble to get into the club, then it's not the kind of place where you really want to be a member.
- It is one of the great benchrest rifle clubs in the USA. At the regular club matches at this range (to say nothing of the couple of big shoots they have each year) you'll rub shoulders with world record holders, world champions, and members of the USA Benchrest Team and the Benchrest Hall of Fame. If benchrest rifle is your thing and you live within 100 miles of the place, becoming a member should be a "holy grail" goal in your life. Unfortunately, someone has to die or move away for you to move up a slot on the waiting list.
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