Safe and Getting Safer - Black's Creek Public Shooting Range

Black's Creek Range (BCR) is Idaho's premier shooting range, providing a safe place to shoot for more than ten thousand shooters each year. Augmenting three dirt berms on the range floor has made BCR that much safer for sport shooters.

The existing berms, constructed more than three decades ago, had eroded to an average height of eight feet, low enough that shooting had to be coordinated between the Cowboy Action, Lower Silhouette, Main and Schuetzen Ranges. With one range hot, folks shooting on an adjacent range could not move downrange due to the potential for bullet skip from the hot range to the cold.

Thanks to the berm project, that concern is now moot. All three berms have been raised to a working height of 15 feet, and all the ranges noted above can now operate independently of each other.

CAPTION: A front end loader was used to build a "road" on top of each berm

CAPTION: Following the loader work, an excavator piled additional dirt to raise each berm to its final height.

CAPTION: The front end loader works on the berm separating the Main Range from the Schuetzen Range.Schuetzen Range.

CAPTION: Two of the three completed berms, flanking either side of the Lower Silhouette Range.

This project was a cooperative effort between the Department and the local shooting club, the EE-DA-HOW Long Rifles, Inc.

Look for more improvements coming to BCR in the coming months!