OXFORD, Miss. — The Lafayette County Planning Commission has approved a preliminary site plan for a $1.8 million shooting range.
The proposal now goes to the board of supervisors for consideration.
The Oxford Eagle reports the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks plans a shooting range on 300 acres with classrooms, skeet shooting, pistol ranges, rifle ranges, 5-stand and an archery range. If approved, it will be built near the F.D. “Buddy East” Training Complex.
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I think this would be great for Oxford and the county,” Planning Commissioner T.J. Ray said. “I think a lot of people here would enjoy skeet shooting and archery. None of the ranges around here offer that sort of thing on the grand scale of what this is talking about.”
The project would be funded through a federal grant, Ray said.
The range plans to sponsor different shooting competitions that will attract more people and inherently more revenue to the county, Ray said.
“This seems to me like a win-win situation for the county,” Ray said.
The operators of the range would make it available for rent to organizations, such as the Boy Scouts or hunting groups, he said. The annual fee would be about $40.
A similar range was opened in Perkinston just outside of Hattiesburg in May.
The McHenry Shooting Range in Perkinston offers 20 shooting lanes with ranges from 5, 10 and 20 yards. The rifle ranges offer two ranges with 10 shooting tables per range. One trap range is offered for shotgun practice. Three Olympic-style skeet ranges are also available.
Two archery ranges are also provided and they use both known distance sighting-in targets and 3D animal targets at unknown distances.
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