Shooting Ranges of Springfield, Illinois

Shooting Ranges of Springfield, Illinois

by Ron Berkman
December 2007 GunNews

Siddens Indoor Shooting Range & Gun Shop, 10775 Buckhart Rd. Rochester, IL 62563, Phone: 217-498-6988, Fax: 217-498-6790, Email: siddens@warpnet.net. Hours: Tues. thru Fri.11AM to 9PM, Sat. 9AM to 6 PM Sun. 12PM to 6PM, hunting on Mondays.

75 foot indoor shooting range for Firearms, Air Guns and Archery. (limit of 2000 fps velocity indoors)

Open range time during business hours by the hour and half hour.

Buy, sell trade, special orders and gun rental in gun store. Full line of supplies.

Gun rentals available.

Variety of leagues and classes, plus one on one instruction.

Range time appointments are available.

FOID with picture applications available as well as ISRA and NRA membership.

Comments: Met with the owner and found him to be friendly and helpful and ready to meet my and my wife's target shooting needs. The range is professionally set up with the usual safety rules and regulations. Hearing protection is required. We were not ready to shoot, but felt that this would be a great spot to do some indoor shooting with our pistols and smaller rifles. Next time we head to Springfield, we will take our hardware etc. and include this place on our agenda.

Bullet Express Indoor Shooting Range, 4885 Industrial Drive, Springfield, IL 62703, 1, 217/585-0130 or 1-800-562-9941, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10:00AM - 8PM, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday10AM - 5 PM.

Pistol Range - 25 yards maximum Rentals are (per person): 1/2 hour $5.00, Hour $9.00.

Rifle Range - 50 yard Maximum Rentals are (per person): First 1/2 hour $10.00. Each additional 1/2 hour $5.00.

Two stores are sassociated with this range in the same building. First, the range has its own store for supplies and accessories. They also handle any gun rentals.

The second store in the building is the following: Capitol City Arms Supply, 4885 Industrial Drive, Springfeld, IL. 62703, 1/217-585-7199, Fax: 1/217-585-9199. Steve Swartz is owner with 4 sales staff. Very nicely arranged showroom with wide variety of hardware available for inspection and sales. Some are collectors pieces with limitations on their being handled by those not seriously interested in their purchase: Seemed reasonable to me.

Comments: Very professional place and very friendly and helpful staff ready to work with you. We were delighted with the place and very impressed with the layout and convenience of the complex. The rifle range is located in the basement. The firing room is essentially concrete block with individual firing cubicles that face into large drainage tiles (maybe a yard scross in diameter) with lighting and target handling mechanisms located within the tiles all the way to the end of each tile. Air handling equiment moves the gases and what have you to the other end of the tiles. I believe there were 5 firing positions with no limit on size or velocity of ammo. This was, to me, a most ingenious way of setting up a firing range. The upstairs range is more typical of what you would expect. The staff advised us that they have many law enforcement folks come in as well as hunters who need to sight in their hunting rifles etc. My wife and I will definitely be placing this establishment on our trip list next time to Springfield.

We visited another place simply because we noticed the huge AR type rifle on the sign outside the store in Springfield: Birds n' Brooks Army Navy Surplus, 2641 South Sixth Street, Springfield, IL 62703-3807, 1/217-789-2773, owner Dale Patterson.

The store contains all the things you might expect in a Military Surplus Store. Prices seemed reasonable enough with plenty of variety. Lots of ourdoorsman goodies for sure. The gun cases were full of all kinds of revolvers and pistols. There were racks chock full of all kinds of rifles and shotguns. No time to go through them all. A spindle with some collectors pieces at prices that might be called the 'going rate' was out in the open for review. Anyway, suspect it would be worth while to see if they have anything of interest to you next time you are shopping around.