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The Range at Austin is the Music Capitol of America’s guntry club. It’s also TTAG’s home range. We like it because OMG it’s a palace. Not only does the lobby have the largest gun store in Texas, it’s also the cleanest gun store I’ve ever seen . . .
Sure, Houston’s Athena Gun Club is also like an Apple store. But The Range at Austin is an Apple store on steroids, with gleaming guns lining the walls of various rooms below soaring ceilings. Air conditioned against the brutal Texas heat (of course).
The main shooting range is a main shooting range, good for anything up to .50-cal. As is the four-lane 100 yard rifle range. You can rent full auto fun in a variety of modern and classic flavors, or bring your own (ATF rules withstanding).
On the main range, hourly lane rentals cost $25 for pistol, $30 for rifle. No membership required.
The upstairs Patriot Club is a ballistic oasis, a perfect place to bust some caps in relative privacy — using their shooting drill-enabled Action Target system s’il vous plait.
There’s a cigar room filled with luscious sticks and and an outdoor room in which to smoke them. The coffee machine’s killer, the concierge will summon ammo on request and the TTAG crew’s often on site for serious schmoozing. The function rooms are more than functional.
What’s not to love?
It’s pricey to join: $7500 one-time membership fee and $225 monthly range fee. But let’s be honest here: there are people for whom the price represents a small percentage of their income. Or want it bad. If you’re one of those people, I highly recommend The Patriot Club for your dining and dancing pleasure.
13 gs to shoot (and eat?) no thank you. Seems nice but I have other things to spend my disposable income on.
Lotta dangerous POS (D) liberal terrorists in Austin, you’d need an MRAP to get there, just to be sure.
$10Gs not $13Gs (12*$225 = $2700 + $7500 = $10.2G).
It’s all relative really anyway,
to a regular J6P kinda guy (or gal) spending $10 large on this kind of thing is simply impossible. It works out to a mortgage on a decent fixer upper in a crappy part of town.
On the other hand, to your typical doctor, lawyer, software engineer, it’s a luxury but not an outrageous luxury. Some will go for this, some will go for driving that new BMW 5 series… some will do both.
Freedom, you gotta love it!!
13gs is nothing.
You should see the fees for my Golf Club. Or the insurance on my McLaren.
Is it 7500 annually plus the 225 or is the 7500 a one time joining fee?
http://www.therangeaustin.com/memberships?memberships=undefined&goto=individual-membership
One-time joining fee. Text amended.
And that makes so much more sense. If I lived in Austin I’d do that in a minute. Thanks.
See the email about “Burden of proof” for Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law being ruled unconstitutional by the Miami-Dade district court.
I went there a couple weeks ago and almost signed up, but I found out you can’t shoot hand loads there, which is a deal breaker.
I go to this range to avoid the Texas summer heat.
This new range is only for the casual shooter, not the firearms enthusiasts. That seems to be the demo they’re going after. A lot of the shooters do seem to be young and affluent.
Problems with this range:
No handloads. They only allow new ammo. By not allowing handloads, they’re telling me that they’re not catering to the hard core firearms enthusiasts.
I’ve asked why they don’t allow handloads, and the reason given was because handloads are dangerous. A BS reason. I think the real reason is because people who handload do not spend a lot of money.
This rifle range is poorly designed. The benches are not deep enough for anyone to sight in their rifle or do 100 yard target shooting. Your shooting sled or benchrest will not fit on the shooting platform. The rifle part of the range is often closed because there is not enough demand on the rifle side.
They expect you to be gone after one hour. If the pistol part of the range is busy, they want you to go to the back of the line. For a firearms enthusiast who shoots hundred of rounds at once, one hour is not enough. It’s pretty annoying.
Their retail prices are not competitive. It’s on the higher end. It’s not Gander Mountain. I’ll give them that.
The good:
The range is very clean.
Targeting system is nice. You don’t have to worry about hitting the wires that hang the targets, like at Reds.
The RSOs watch the newbie shooters like a hawk. They have lots of RSOs on site. There are lots of new college age shooters here, and someone needs to keep an eye on them.
They allow shotgun in the rifle and pistol lanes. You can shoot birdshot. It’s nice to be able to shoot shotgun indoors.
They allow full auto. I don’t shoot full auto myself. I see no use for it, but if you’re so inclined, they have reasonable prices on full auto. Last I checked, it’s like $75 plus the cost of their ammo.
This range is great if you’re a casual shooter, not so much if you’re a firearms enthusiast.
This looks like the gun version of a Country Club. It appears to be geared toward the well heeled that wants to socialize and be seen rather than the individual who just wants a range where they can shoot and practice with their weapons. Imagine how much ammo and guns could be purchased with the cost to be a member. I’m an old fashioned hillbilly that goes out into the back yard or up on the farm and shoots all I want.
I have to admit that it’s a darn fine looking facility.
Killer coffee and stogies?
I’m making it a point to visit next trip south.
I think its awesome. People who are unhappy with the price, I understand.
I can’t afford it either, but like a ferrari, a fine yacht, an awsome home, or a G-6 private jet, its still something to strive for!
Least its not like the awesome sheriffs’ department range that is supported with my tax dollars and the dollars shuttled over from the crappy county public range next door. They use the money from me to upgrade their stuff and my range gets nothing.
$7500 + $225/month is the kind of money where you can buy a few acres and have your own range. No air conditioning, but also no pretentious a-holes or dangerous idiots, either. And you can get most of your money back by selling the land later if you need to.
Good luck to ’em, but I’m obviously not the target market…
Negative sir, $7,500 gets you less than half of one acre of unimproved property near there, and that’s if you are buying it 20 acres at a time or more. I’m an hour away and much more rural, and my property is valued at $17k per acre.
Think harder dude. $7500 down on $50k worth of land gets you about a $300 monthly mortgage over 15 years. Stinks way closer than you are.
Your property must be in one of the more “desirable” growth areas, then. I bought 15 acres for $160K three years ago. That’s $10.6K/acre and it has a nice little farmhouse, barns, fences, and a small stock pond. It’s about 30 miles from The Range At Austin in Caldwell county. Raw land can be had for less than that out there. It would probably cost a little more than a $7K down payment and $225 a month to get a piece of land big enough to shoot on safely, but you can do a lot more with that land than just punch paper and smoke cigars, too. I reckon a $300/month payment could get you something pretty suitable out where I’m at.
Put you a little garden shed with an oversized AC unit and a fan behind you. The cool breeze and the shade will keep you comfortable during the midday, keep you up wind of the lead, make it easy to collect your brass, and peace of mind that a kid with more money than sense won’t be right beside you. Only bad thing is the noise from being that enclosed but their is no shortage of suppressors right now.
And I Still need to pay for their overpriced ammo?
Nope.
No, you can bring your own ammo – just not reloads.
That wasn’t my point.
At that price a few boxes should be on the house.
How could they tell if it is factory or handloaded, anyway, if you just put the handloads into factory boxes?
Definitely too upscale for this boy ! Glad you guys at TTAG are making plenty $$ though !
Might be a little trading going on.
Handload issue solved: Put your reloads in a factory box.
“Put your reloads in a factory box.”
Bingo. 🙂
Remember to tumble that brass ’till its shiny.
(You make it hard, I’ll make it *easy*…)
Nobody wants to deal with the liability of your Fudd reloads blowing up on their range.
Go ‘Fudd’ yourself, Vinny… 🙂
If they are concerned about a 38 with a double charge causing problems I serious questions the ranges ability to handle a 50 cal. Just another way to nickel and dime you. Like the auto shop that buys their parts from napa charges you more than if you went and bought them, even though they are getting a huge discount, and then charges for labor too.
We did a corporate event there – catering, dedicated RO and access to VIP lanes for 2 hours (all our hands could take) then a dining room to ourselves with catered BBQ. Cheap? Nope. But as one of my guys said, “I think that’s probably the nicest range I’ll ever get to shoot in!” He said it all. Definitely need some disposable $$ to belong to the Patriot Club, but geez, just shooting in AIR CONDITIONED Texas atmosphere is worth a lot to this OFWG.
Location is very far south. At least Red’s has one on the side of the river where everyone lives.
When I get to be in the 1% club, I’ll join.
Heck I would do join just to walk around and challenge the guys with ed browns, Wilson combats, and les baers to a contest, then pull out a hi point, since that would be all I could afford at that point.
Austin is the yuppie and liberal center in Texas.
We have something akin to this up here called Stock & Barrel – a little less Apple Store a little more leather and mahogany but the idea is the same.
Problem is the actual shooting range is pretty small and the facilities are not as nice IMO as the public safety building which is open to the public on Saturday mornings and Wednesday nights.
Seem like a pretty solid little setup if your into shooting as a social endeavor – I prefer to shoot, clean and get back home so it’s not really worth anything extra to me.
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