Schmidt Bottoms Rifle Range Renovation - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Schmidt Bottoms Rifle Range Renovation

The dirt is piling up at Schmidt Bottoms Rifle Range.

The North Dakota Game and Fish has started adding and remodeling the gun range.

With only five shooting benches at the site currently--the project will add 15 more.

The remodeling also includes three new ranges--a 200 yard rifle range, a twenty-five yard pistol range, and a shotgun range.

Bill Haas from North Dakota Game and Fish says one more big change... involves keeping an eye on what items a shooter brings to the rifle range for target practice.

(Bill Haas/ ND Game and Fish) "At times before it started to get pretty messy with garbage and bottles and we really wanna avoid that. So what we're gonna do is put security cameras up and increase enforcement and we're really looking for volunteers that would wanna help out like we have at Mclean."

The new ranges will have twenty foot tall back drops and eight foot tall side walls to contain the bullets.

Haas says as the number of concealed weapons permits increase--so does the need for a place to practice with that firearm.

That's been a large contributor to the expansion.

(Bill Haas/ ND Game and Fish)"I think that is part of it people like to shoot and maybe some of these people don't hunt but they do shoot and when they shoot they bring money in to our system through taxes on gun sales and also ammunition."

Schmidt bottoms Rifle Range will open back up sometime in July.

Mclean Bottoms pistol range is closed for the season.

Remodeling and Construction on that rifle range will begin next year.