New expansion of PBC Range

[Wakko]

If you haven't been here yet, it's pretty nice.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm ... story.html

Michael Chubb stares out into an expanse of wild grass dotted with sandhill cranes. He aligns his vision along the barrel of his shotgun, brings it level with the horizon, and yells “Hup!”

An orange clay disc soars up from an underground bunker. Chubb locks on and shoots, the sound echoing across the field. Shards of clay fall to the grass. The cranes, on their home territory, don’t so much as flinch.

The Palm Beach County Shooting Sports Complex, where Chubb is range manager, sits in a rural area 30 minutes west by car from Palm Beach Gardens, next to the JW Corbett Wildlife Management Area.

The 150-acre range, which opened at half-capacity in 2020 due to the pandemic, is now up and running at almost full capacity. It’s set to gain 40 more acres of land from the South Florida Water Management District in about two years — the district approved a land donation on June 9.

The new acreage, once developed, will likely contain archery trails, an RV campsite, picnic areas and an administrative building.

In addition to the pending new land, Chubb intends to open the property’s five Olympic-grade international trap fields on the original 150-acre lot in the next two months. That feature, he said, is likely to draw in crowds.

[ RELATED: One of Florida’s largest outdoor shooting ranges opens, but without a bang ]

International trap, or Olympic trap, is a shotgun sport using clay targets about 4 inches in size that fly out in front of the shooter. It became part of the Olympic Games in 1900. Chubb said the new complex is one of only five public shooting ranges in the country to offer international trap training, and the only one in the state of Florida.

“The goal is to make this the foremost training facility in the country for Olympic shooting games,” Chubb said. He competed in international trap shooting at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. “I want to have Olympic shooting events here in the future.”

Anticipating popularity and increased tourism, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which owns the land for the complex, recently requested to expand the 150-acre facility, thus the donation from the water management district.

The allotted land had originally been allocated for the Loxahatchee River Restoration project. But the water management district’s governing board deemed the acreage as non-essential for water conservation purposes in the June 9 meeting.

“The donated parcel is not within the footprint of that proposed Loxahatchee River Watershed Restoration Project, and it was not needed to fulfill water management needs,” said Jason Schultz, public information coordinator for the South Florida Water Management District.

Those 40 acres represent about 2% of the land reserved for the restoration project, and has not yet raised hackles with environmental groups. “In this case, it doesn’t appear that the restoration footprint would actually change,” said Lisa Interlandi, an attorney for the Everglades Law Center. “It seems like a relatively low intensity abuse, so I don’t see a significant conflict with the restoration project.”

The donation does, however, pose a question of whether the approved expansion could create a precedent for decreasing the scope of future restoration projects. “We don’t want to see restoration footprints getting smaller,” Interlandi said.

For the moment, resident sandhill cranes and other wildlife remain largely unperturbed.

Value, land use and cost
Chubb, the FWC and SFWMD are hoping the new facilities and additional land will lead to positive economic impact. Of the facility’s future administrative building, Tammy Sapp, the communications and marketing manager for the FWC’s Division of Hunting and Game Management, said “This 10,000-square-foot building will be used to support large state, regional, national and international events that are expected to have a significant positive economic impact to the local economy.”


The larger plot of land where the range sits has a history of being the focus of economic pipe dreams.

In the early 2000s, Palm Beach County had plans to turn nearly 2,000 acres of a former orange grove into a biotech center. More than $100 million taxpayer dollars went toward luring the California-based Scripps-Research Institute onto the site for development of an East Coast branch. But the project was axed in 2006 due to environmental concerns.

The South Florida Water Management District purchased the land seven years later for $26 million. The deal reserved 150 acres for the shooting complex; the rest of the land was slated for a reservoir to store clean water meant for the Loxahatchee River, which suffers from nutrient pollution. The reservoir has yet to be built.

One year after the deal went through, the district put $3.2 million toward funding the shooting complex. Now, more costs are expected to accrue. Though the shooting range can expand largely without additional funding from the water management district due to the land donation, there are costs associated with readying and expanding the facility.

An impending price point is the cost of paving Seminole Pratt Whitney Road, which leads to the entrance of the range and the JW Corbett Wildlife Management Area. Sapp said the road construction alone will cost an additional $1 million.

Chubb said the revenue earned at the range — spanning everything from equipment rental to concession sales — goes toward employee payrolls and maintenance or expansion costs. Since the shooting complex is owned by the FWC, Chubb and other employees are considered state employees.

“No tax dollars go into the operation of the range,” he said, “we make the money to sustain ourselves.”

[Flashooter22]

I need to get a shotgun to do trap and skeet. I live 10 minutes away.

[Cubanstang50]

This is a great range. Finally, we got our own outdoor range here. When the weather cools off a little i will be back. Hope to stretch some guns at the 300 yard range. Been a long time.

[Tenzing_Norgay]

So...what's up with the Range Nazis?

More than a few negative reviews...

https://www.google.com/search?q=palm+be ... IgAQ%3D%3D

[Off To The Races]

I've been out there 7 or 8 times since they opened and each experience was a positive one. Like some of the reviews have said, the woman that works the register when you sign in and pay could use some customer service training, but it's nothing offensive. For me it's a nice option to have since I'm only about 20 minutes away. I still much prefer Okeechobee Shooting Sports, but for those further south this bridges the gap.

The range staff are mostly volunteers, but always friendly. Some of the rules are a little overboard like the fact that you can't shoot targets with a human silhouette and if so, must fold the head over, but that's really just nitpicking. Overall it's a nice day outside and wins versus shooting indoors any day of the week. Weekends are busy, but weekdays not so much. I've only shot the 10 meter pistol and 100 meter rifle.

[Racer88]

So...what's up with the Range Nazis?

More than a few negative reviews...

I was there today. I've been going since they opened. But, I was curious about the negative reviews, so I went to check them out.

I suspect these folks who posted the negative reviews are simply not familiar with range etiquette and safety rules. I also suspect they went with an attitude and perceived the same in return.

I have found ALL of the staff there to be friendly and helpful, including the check-in staff. The RSOs are excellent. All of them.

Yeah... no silhouette targets. It's a gov't facility. So, no surprise on that. And no big deal. I can shoot silhouettes at the local indoor range when I feel the need to do that.

If you're friendly and polite to them, you'll get the same back. That's been my consistent experience in 20 visits.

PS... the road is in the process of being paved as we speak. Hooray!

[Flashooter22]

I have shot at the range numerous times and have never seen "range nazi" behavior from any of the RO's. WIll they say something if you dont obey the range rules or you are unsafe..absolutely. I have not heard them say anything about rapid fire, however I havent seen anyone dumping mags as fast as you can pull the trigger. I was shooting double taps today in the pistol range and they never said a thing.
This is a very nice range and Im happy that it is finally open and close by....and for the road complaints I am happy to say that about half of the road (starting from the back end near the range) is now paved. I would guess that within a few weeks they will have the whole thing done...only saying that long because there is a small bridge over a large drainage ditch that is being built right now.
If you guys are local and havent checked it out I would. Id be happy to meet anyone out there if they are lookign for a shooting buddy at the pistol or rifle range!

[wjbarricklow]

They finally got it done? I remember going to a meeting at least ten years ago and they were voting on funding a study to evaluate the cost.

[Racer88]

They finally got it done? I remember going to a meeting at least ten years ago and they were voting on funding a study to evaluate the cost.

Yep. And as we speak, they're wrapping up paving the road out there! A few spots pending. I took some pics when I ran a "recon" mission last Saturday...