Valid approach, Cam. No flames from me.
Are local ranges too expensive for range fees? too expensive for guns/ammo?
Too restrictive? no draw, no rapid fire, etc. range nazis (realizing that many shooters are VERY novice shooters)
Too few lanes?
Too short of hours?
Too short?
pricing policies? (charge per gun vs per person vs per hour)
More competitions?
more lessons?
Gun rentals?
Membership packages or privileges?
hosting TGT events?
Most aren't what I'd call "too expensive", unless you want to talk pricing policies as you mentioned below.
Depends. One public range near me is outdoors, but are overly range Nazi. And nothing faster than one shot per second. Try working double taps and the owner goes all psycho on you. No draw, no rapid fire means there's a lot of things you can't practice.
Range where I'm a member has lights, yet still closes at dark. Another range not far from here stays open late, but they charge per gun, which is a BIG turn off to me. As you discussed, if indoors, you're pretty much limited to pistols only. One indoor range near me allows for rifles. But the concussion is brutal and the range is really too short for anything other than wasting ammo with an AK. Indoor also limits the type of competition you can have as all the shots need to be directed toward the backstop.
This is one that gets my goat. I can't shoot more than one gun at a time. So why charge me for more than one gun? I freaking HATE that. Used to be the only range close to me was one that did that. Since I've become a member at another range, I've never been back.
Competitions are fine. Just don't cover up the schedule with competitions to the point of excluding walk ins. We all need to welcome people into our sport and when ranges become essentially "competition only" or "members only", it puts up barriers. Gun rentals are okay so long as your insurance doesn't levy some stupid requirement on you. When we were looking for a CCW for the MUCH better half, I found a place that had one she was looking at in their rental fleet. Place is over an hour away, but okay. Called them and they required us to take a 1 hour "firearms safety" class (that we had to pay for) in order to rent a pistol so she could fire a few rounds from. Needless to say, we didn't visit that one.
Funny, the largest feedback I received on my feedback is, We make lots of money on ammo so no matter what were going to overcharge you for ammo. And written in red. Can't wait to avoid your range.
If you are too cheap to run a magnet over your brass, well, I'd rather shoot outdoors anyway.
Aahhhhhhh, my eyes, my eyes!
Please, don't post in red if you want it to be read.
I really would like for all shooters to be an RSO for week or two to see and experience all the crazy stuff some folks do .........
Not to throw cold water - but I would study the subject of lead contamination before opening a range.
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The biggest thing I don't like is that all the rules have to be slanted for the newest, least trained, most dangerous shooters.
Of course we can't have the newbies doing quick draw and dumping mags all over the place. They can barely hit the paper at five yards and they need supervision.
But I'm a safe shooter. I've been shooting for 50 years, and I carry concealed every day... and I need to practice my draw sometimes or I'll fumble it when it matters.
So, how about a ranking system?
First timers wear an orange ballcap, stay in a certain part of the range, and get scored by a range master for safety and skill.
After so many range visits, or a certain amount of skill points, they can test for a yellow ballcap and some limited priveliges.
After showing more skill and safety, test up for a green ballcap and full privileges.
Any safety violations or other problems gets a demotion back to a lower privelege level.
The ballcap system (Or it could be a badge) would make it easy to tell who needs watching and who is worthy of not being nannied to death.
Just an idea.
Maybe with some tweaking it could actually work.