Long range in the BC Lower Mainland?

Merritt has a 500m... Other than that you're looking at 300m at MDRGC or 220m at Chilliwack... Vokes range was 600m and open to BCRA, but now closed due to "safety concerns"...
 
The Blair Rifle Range in North Vancouver used to go out to 1,000 yards, or so it said in a historical article I read a couple of years back, maybe in the Georgia Straight paper. Looking for that now I can't find it, but better, found this PDF which is full of old photos and a map and loads of great information. I understand it'd be impossible to have such a range given the development and all the dog walkers and hikers around there these days... but man, imagine being able to hop over to Mt Seymour to do some 1,000 yard shooting eh?
http://deepcoveheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Blair-Rifle-Range.Donna-Sacuto-2014.pdf

Gosh. Just realised the odd little irony of the range's name. Such a different time.
 
The range in north Van is being preserved as a heritage site I believe. I think I'm going to contact the heritage society and ask about the possibility of using the range again but for rimfire only. It would be nice to practice Rimfire PRS shootting locally!! I'd totally volunteer to help with the place too!!

in 1968 the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation took the land over from the military. The idea was for housing to be constructed on it, but nothing ever really materialized, even though over the decades both CMHC and the province talked about developing there. In the late 1990s, North Vancouver District rezoned it so that couldn’t happen.

"Donna Sacuta executive director of the B.C. Labour Heritage Centre"
 
Some camp residents were transferred, others left on their own accord and others were evicted for various reasons, including union organizing.
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That's in the 30's but sometimes still rings today!
 
surplusshooter said:
pemberton range goes out to 675 yards
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No it goes out to 475 yards.

I used to live in North Van right beside the old Blair range when I was in high school. I would take my dog for walks in there and when it rained heavily, which was often, you'd often see old spent casings poking out of the ground. Crazy to think that there used to be a 1000 yard range there.
 
I did a lot of military shooting on Blair Range in the late 1950's, it was heavily used by the numerous Canadian Army Reserve regiments in the lower mainland. I'm sure even today there would be large areas that are heavily seeded with spent bullets, mostly .303, some 9mm and .30 calibre. Because it was used for all Canadian issued small arms of the time, this included the Browning .30 cal belt fed machine gun which included tracers, the possibility would be great that a few of these would turn up still in a live condition. Our tracer riccochets started a forest fire one weekend and we got turned out in the middle of the night to deal with it. The complete clean up of such a large site was probably deemed not practical, making the range not suitable for development.
 
rugbydave said:
No it goes out to 475 yards.

I used to live in North Van right beside the old Blair range when I was in high school. I would take my dog for walks in there and when it rained heavily, which was often, you'd often see old spent casings poking out of the ground. Crazy to think that there used to be a 1000 yard range there.
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good call on that one, mostly shooting at the tactical or the regular rifle range, not the long distance cabin so forgot
 
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