srhecmanager

The requirements to be an RSO is simple. You must have come to shoot at Stones River Range at least five times. After that we do all the training ourselves. There are several videos to watch and it takes about 20 hours to get all the training. After that we give you increasingly responsible positions on the range. We evaluate your progress and when you feel comfortable you become a RSO. Pretty simple stuff. Main thing is that you have time to volunteer and love the shooting sport. We need help. The number of RSO have decreased in the last couple years. If you are interested, we are interested in you. SRHECMANAGER

Range safety officers seem to be eveyones number one complaint about Stones River. I know we have a few RSO that have clashing personalities with alot of people. But those same RSO are here so you will be safe. They are here for you. The average age of our RSO is over 70. Most of them are retired. They don't have to come here and volunteer but they choose to do so. Some drive long distances to get here. I sat down with them not long ago and ask them why they keep coming and volunteering? The consensus answer was so Stones River will be a safe place for people to come and enjoy the shooting sports. That is what drives these people to do what they do. I ask them if they have fun volunteering here? The answer was [b]no[/b] it is [b]not[/b] fun. They said it used to be fun when we had more RSOs and fewer shooters where we could interact with the shooters and help them. Now the range is so busy all we have time to do is police the range (enforce the rules) and there is little time to spend being nice, helping or just talking to the shooters. So the relationship between RSOs and shooters has diminished to the point that shooters only see RSOs as deciplinarians. So you see as the manager of this facility, I have a problem. The customers coming here hate the workers who are volunteers and the volunteers don't have fun being here so my question is, how much longer can we keep going like this? TWRA has already said there is no way they can staff the ranges. Now that I have covered RSOs, let talk about you the shooter coming to the range. All day long everyday I sit and answer the phone and talk to you. I get twenty calls a day with the same questions. Are you open today? How much does it cost? What time do you close? This range has been here for over nine years. It has had the same schedule since it opened. The fees have increased one time from $4.50 to $5.50. The range used to close 30 minutes before sunset but no later than 6pm. That seemed confusing to me so I set the closing times and it is constant for summer hours and for winter hours. There is a sign on the gate and it is on our website. These times are set and have not changed for more that 7 years now. I believe that people call and ask what time we close then wait until five minutes before and show up wanting to shoot. Then there is is all the questions why about our rules. Why does everybody think they deserve an explaination about every rule they question? As I have stated before I HATE RULES. Let me give you an example. I hate wearing a seatbelt. Does me not wearing a seatbelt harm or bother anyone else? My Ford truck will complain by dinging until I am so annoyed that I comply by putting it on. Do I like it? No but I comply. Does my complaining change anything? No. I would just be better off to put my seatbelt on and go along than complaining. Same thing here at the range. You will have a much better experience if you just go along with the rules rather than complain and get your blood pressure up because you are not going to get your way and change the rules for you. I have people call on days that are raining. Are you going to be open today? Yes sir. This is the answer I get. OOOOOkay I guess I will see you in a little while. Just like they are forced to come to the range. You come here on you own free will. It is your choice. The rules are already in place. I don't make them up on the fly to catch you making a mistake. This is not a speed trap. There is no reason people shouldn't know what the rules are. If you don't know ask. I will be glad to provide you with your own copy to take home. What I am trying to say is don't come here and try to change the system. Go along with the flow and you will have a much better experience. Then there are those of you that have posted about Stones River before that have no business being at a public range because nothing will make you happy. If you are one of these people, do us all a favor and stay away. There are plenty of people that like to come to Stones River. I don't need someone here that dislikes everything and everybody. Again, it is your choice whether to come here or not. The range shooter base is growing 12.5% percent a year. I think we can survive without the few bad apples. SRHECMANAGER

Where do I start with this? For those of you that don't know, I am the manager at Stones River Hunter Education Center. I will try to keep my personal opinions about this type of thread to myself and just state facts. Lets start out with numbers. Stones River Range is only open Friday, Saturday and a half day on Sunday. In 2011 we had 15,992 shooters use this facility. That is an increase of 12.5% from 2010. 2010 was up 12.5% from 2009. How do these numbers compare to other ranges in the area? Cheatham Range has about 2500 shooters a year and opens every day at noon till sunset. Montgomery Co. Shooting Complex has about 5000 shooters per year and are open the same days as Stones River. John Sevier in Knoxville has about 4500 shooters per year and are open more than Stones River. Bartlett Range has about 2200 shooters per year and is open more than Stones River. Add all those up and Stones River is busier than all of them put together. What about safety? I challenge every person that reads this to go to what ever range you go to and just sit down and watch what everyone else is doing. Without a doubt you will see someone do something that is unsafe. Stones River has been open for nine years and we have had one person seriously injured and that person shot theirself. I HATE RULES. I HATE ENFORCING RULES. I wish I could tell everyone to goto the range and just use common sense. But common sense is very uncommon. Therefore to be fair to everyone I enforce all the rules here equally to everyone. Whether it is me or an RSO the rules are enforced. I think what we are doing here is working. We have an increasing number of people including women and children using this range. That is because they feel safe here. A range without rules is a range doomed to fail. It is only a matter of time. Look at Cheatham, no supervsion and a thirteen year old boy is shot. It took twenty years but it happened. How many close calls do you think have happened there before this? Let me go through Nashville Slim's important details as he calls it. 1) We only take cash or check no cards. This is true. We check in a person to goto the range about every 70 seconds. Sometimes we do it faster. We have the ability to take cards but it is so hard to do and time consuming. This is what happens when you put government in charge of something. Private business has had this figured out for years. So we don't take cards. Again, look at the numbers I think what we are doing is working. 2) We do not sell ammo. It is not the range's intent to compete with local business. We send alot of people to the local gun stores to buy ammo. We do sell two very simple targets just for those that come to the range and don't bring their own. We do this as a courtesy to the shooters. It is not our intent to make money on targets. 3) We do not rent guns. The state considers guns to be a very sensitive item and they don't want to rent guns. Again support local businesses and buy a gun. Everybody needs one, two or ten. 4) We do inspect every weapon every time to make sure the gun is unloaded and the barrel is clear. If TSA stopped checking bags and a bomb blew up an airplane people would want TSA back checking bags. Why do you complain about us checking guns? We have found dirt dobber nests, plastic bullets, muzzleloaders that have already been double charged, etc, etc, etc in guns. These guns are nothing more than a bomb that is going to blow on the range. This is why we check guns. We do require guns to be in a case but you can have as many guns in a case as the case will hold. 5) We do no allow concealed carry on the range. We do not allow shooters to draw from a holster on the range. Why you ask? Would you like to be in the lane beside someone doing double cross draws from shoulder houlsters? Or someone trying to get a .38 special out of their wasteband without sweeping the line? I can go on and on here. NO CONCEALED WEAPONS. 6) We allow you to have water on the line. We are in TN where the summer heat and humidity is miserable. You need something to drink then. EPA doesn't want any food, drink or tobacco on gun ranges because of the possibility of lead ingestion. We allow water against EPA rules. We don't allow sugar drinks on the range because I don't want to clean up the mess when you spill it. 7) We only allow one target per lane on the pistol range. The rifle range can have multiple. The reason for this is simple. If you post a taget off to the side of the provided backing and place your target at 5 yards and the person in the lane next to you has his target at 17 yards you will shoot thru your target and hit his. I know this has boogled some of your minds but that is the way the angles work. We only use push pins( we provide them for you) at Stones River because the shooter has to pickup their taget frame and move it to change the distance they are shooting. If we allowed staple guns the frames would get full of staples and they would cut the shooters hands up. This rule is to protect the shooters. 8) We need volunteers. You think you can do better come and help out. Otherwise don't complain about how someone else who is volunteering their time so you have a place to a safe place to shoot treats someone who is complaining about everything. 9) This is a rifle and pistol range not a shotgun range. If you want to shoot a shotgun here, bring slugs. 10) Yes we are extremely busy, just look at the numbers. To date our one day record is 216 shooters in one day. We have had as many as 502 shooters in one 3 day weekend. An average weekend is 325 shooters. 11) We are located 8 miles from Mt. Juliet, 4 miles from Lavergne and 6 miles from Hickory Hollow. There are two Academy Sports, Dicks sporting goods, at least three privately own gun stores and a WalMart store with 8 miles of the range. I can't tell you how many restraunts are in that area. Too many to count. I guess some people just can't be pleased. I have a suggestion for anyone that does not like the rules at Stones River, go somewhere else. Go to Cheatham range. There are no RSOs and you can shoot while people are down range and they can shoot while you are down range. Better yet, buy you some land and build your own range then you can do whatever you want. Just look at the next thread about Royal Blue range. Every rule we have is for a reason, to keep you safe while you are here. Do you want this range to close? Why can't you be appreciative in the fact that a state agency has seen the need for people to have a safe place to shoot and that it is provided to you for a minimal fee and there are people willing to volunteer their time to keep you safe? I am at Stones River Range most everyday it is open. I will be glad to talk in person to anyone about this range. I have been here for eight years. I have attended the NRA range school and consider myself to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the state on gun ranges. If you have a suggestion come see me but don't think you can just make a statement and walk away. Be prepared to give facts for your comments and be prepared and open to what I have to say in return. Don't leave here and hide behind a computer to make critical comments. We are always open to suggestions. @ mikegideon Please stop in sometime and introduce yourself. I would like to meet you. @ JWC It has been discussed to give people that buy hunting and fishing licenses a break on range fees. But the idea behind that is to get more people to buy licenses to increase revenue. I agree with you. Hope this helps clear up so many misconceptions. SRHECMANAGER

Carolyn Conley at Defense 2000. Phone number is 615-566-8373. Email [email="defense2000@hotmail.com"]defense2000@hotmail.com[/email]

Thanks again for all the good things that are being said about Stones River Range after the way this topic started. I wanted to let all of you at TGO know that I have read and listened and now silhouettes are coming to Stones River. Based on a suggestion by someone here, the only silhouette allowed will have to be purchased at the range. Not so the range can make money but so the type and size of silhouette can be controlled. Hopefully with this bigger target, some of you will be able to see where you bullets are going. This change should take care of alot a complaints. The last couple of pages of this topic has taken a definite turn from the original post. I think it is time to start a new topic and consider this one dead. Tim

Also feel free to ask me some questions. I will do my best to answer them. Thanks, Tim

Thanks guys for supporting Stones River Gun Range. This weekend we had 346 shooters. We did have one new hole shot in the roof of the rifle range. A shooter let the bolt slam on a SKS and it fired. He had the gun pointing straight up. He did a good job of controlling the weapon. RSO Jenny was standing right there when it happened and she assurred me that the shooter did not have his finger on the trigger. I wished the gun had been pointing down range because now I have to fix a hole in the roof. No one was injured. All in all, it was a good weekend just a little too hot. There are still some issues that have been raised here that I have not addressed yet. I don't have time today, it will probably be the weekend. Stay tuned. @mikegideon That was an up to date aerial photo. It was taken sometime early this spring. I can tell because it is obvious where an idiot ran off the road going behind the range spinning his tires through the grass and mud. This photo is newer than anything that I have. I would like to know where you got it from so that I could get a copy. Thanks. Thanks again for supporting Stones River Gun Range, Tim

Handgun carry permit classes are done on a separate range from the public and they are allowed to use silhouettes.

Sorry, I meant to say unloaded and in a case. Tim

Guys, thanks for continuing to follow this thread giving me a chance to respond. Continuing my post, there is one more piece of information you need. Those 13,001 shooters fired aprox. 1.5 million rounds. I based this on data that we used to collect from shooters on the number of round fired. This also lets me estimate the amount of lead in the berms and to determine when I need to remove the lead. Let talk about the range rules. First let me say: "I hate rules". If every shooter that came here would use good, common sense then there would be no need for all the rules. Like Fred Thompson says: " why do they call it common sense when it is so uncommon". So I have to come with rule for the idiots ( sorry, inexperienced, no sense shooters) that come to this range. The problem is that when I make a rule, all shooters must follow the same rule. I have picked three rules that seem to attract the most attention. First, No silhouette targets. Second, All guns must be unloaded and in a case. Third, Only one target at a time on the handgun range. NO SILHOUETTE TARGETS: This is not a safety thing nor is it a politcal thing. We strive to run a family oriented range that is safe for all ages and gender. Lets say that silhouette targets are allowed. Would you limit them to black only? What if a shooter brought a target of Osama? Fine right. What about a target of President Bush or Obama? One lady was sick of Barney and brought in a silhouette of him to shoot. Can you imagine trying to explain to your child why that lady was shooting Barney? One man brought a picture of his exwife to shoot at. Where do you draw the line? Also, our target frames are only 18 inches by 24 inches and most silhouette targets are much larger than that. This would cause a problem trying to post them on the range. For these reasons, no silhouettes. ALL GUNS MUST BE UNLOADED AND IN A CASE: We teach in hunter ed to transport your firearms unloaded and in a case so that is a rule for the gun range as well. We had a shooter come straight to the range from a gun show with a gun in a plastic bag. Half way across the parking lot, the gun busted through the bag hitting the pavement. The whole time the gun was falling the man was trying to grab it. Anything could have happened. We also don't allow shooters to bring guns in holsters. You cannot draw and shoot from a holster on the range because most people cannot do this safely. I know some of you are thinking bull----!! What about a cross draw shoulder holster? Every time the shooter draws from this type of holster, they would sweep the line with the muzzle. Unsafe right! Again, where do you draw the line? I am concerned with safety, safety and oh yeah, safety! ONLY ONE TARGET AT A TIME ON THE HANDGUN RANGE: This rule was put into place because shooters placing target close to the edge of the frame was shooting up the frame. And more importantly, when a shooter brings the target up to five yards and shoots at a target placed near the side, they are shooting at an angle down range and striking the post holding up the overhead baffle cutting them in half. I have to repair and maintain this range with a minimal budget and fixing things that are getting shot unnecessarily is not something that I like to do. You can see that I have a lot to worry about with a facility this large. More to come, Tim

@StPatrick Thank you for taking up for Stones River. We love repeat customers that know the routine and appreciate the safety of our range. @JHatmaker You do not have problems with the RSOs when you come because you obviously are a good, safe shooter. Only people that are not safe and do dumb things have a problem when they come here. We strive to have a good safe range for people to come and shoot without fear of something unsafe happening. There is nothing that would ruin a good day at the range worse than someone getting shot. We have so many customers at Stones River now that there is a waiting list most days. So for those guys that don't want to follow our rules and do dumb things like shoot up the range can go somewhere else. It will not hurt my feelings at all.

This thread has hit on a topic that is near dear to me. This is my job and the RSOs are my close friends. With that being said I will try not to let my reply get personal but only state facts. Let me give you some facts about Stones River Hunter Eduction Center. This facility is just that, a hunter ed facility. The gun range is second. We are funded soley through money for hunter ed. There are two full time employees here. Myself and one tech. All the range safety officers(RSOs) on the range are volunteer. Last year we had 27 RSOs that worked a total of 5541 hours of volunteer time. We had 13,001 total shooters for the 09-10 fiscal year. Of this number, about 20 percent of them are new to Stones River Gun Range shooters. There were 29 hadgun carry permit classes that did their live fire portion at Stones River with 287 people being certified. There were also several advanced handgun courses and armed security courses taught here. To help put these numbers into perspective, John Seiver in Knoxville had 4550 shooters, Montgomery County Shooting Complex had 4500 shooters, Cheatham had 2200 shooters, and Bartlett Gun Range had about 2000. Stones River did nearly as much as all of these ranges put together. The range consists of a handgun range with 30 lanes(we only use 29 because the FAN takes up one lane). This range is 50 feet long and has four different positions to place targets. The rifle range consists of 18 lanes that extend to 100 yards. We have two lane that extend to 200 yards but you must be an annual member and qualify to shoot on these lanes. We also have a 50 yard range. This range is used for handgun carry permit classes and spill over from the rifle range. We have a large paved parking lot and a office building with clean public bathrooms. These are some facts about the range. I will post more later. I am out of time. Tim

Hello TGO members, I am the manager of the Stones River Gun range that has been the topic of discussion on this forum. My intent for becoming a member of this forum is not to try and change opinions that are already made but to try and correct the incorrect information about the range and the volunteers that work there. My hope is that I will be accepted here and the information given will be well received and will be a benefit to those that are interested in coming to this range. Look for my posts in the worst handgun range in TN. Sincerely, Tim Turrentine