Braidwood 100yd tunnel range

That bald headed Geordie · June 1, 2017

I was told of a 100yd tunnel range just a few miles outside of Selkirk (75 miles from me) at Braidwood complex by Alan Maughan (Big Al on here).

So gbal (George Balfour) and I decided to have a look as I wanted to test my heavy gun in 6BR without any problems associated with wind/mirage at my home range of Diggle.

We had a nice drive up over the border at Carter Bar and found it without any problems.

First impressions were very good and the reception building was new and also it has a good food/drinks kitchen plus other shotgun stuff which is their main business.

Ed the manager who ran the tunnel range took us over and it was an exceptionally good facility for testing. You can use your own targets or use the electronic with a laptop facility.

But as I wanted to do some testing of bullet jump or jam at various distances I put my own targets up. Walking down the tunnel in the pitch black was novel.

The only downside was that the current bench with an attached seat, was not good enough for absolute accuracy and stability.

My 100yd groups were larger than I used at 300yds at Diggle for my OCW test so all testing at 100yds was abandoned which was a pity really.

The range is good enough for those who want to check their zero but not good enough for benchrest standard load development/testing.

I had a word with Ed and told him that the table was not good enough and he said he would have a word with the Manager during the coming week, so I do hope that they put a concrete fixed bench as I am sure that it would bring in more business and help any shooter whatever their type of shooting and to eliminate bench wobble/vibration and enable more accurate load development.

Will put something on here if I get any feedback from Braidwood.

Good shooting.

weejohn · June 1, 2017

I would of thought everything should of been perfect in the tunnel considering its a Bisley Facility?

Akeld · June 1, 2017

Bisley facility?

In what way??

The same firm has connections to the clay pigeon ground in Surrey, but zero NRA ties/involvement.

(Hence the opening date SNAFU)

Isn't it called "Bisley at Braidwood" ?

Big Al · June 1, 2017

Yes...never said it was called anything else.

BISLEY, being a small town in Surrey has quite a few small businesses there - one that is popular sells metal filing cabinets with the trade name "Bisley". They've got zero connection to the NRA as well; I don't think the NRA have a Trademark in place for the Bisley name....as such it is open to use by all & sundry wanting to promote a shooting related product, or even small firms located in the town.

Your missing the point here. Bisley at Braidwood is a satellite shooting facility of Bisley Shooting Ground, a very well respected private company that offers facilities of the highest standard for clay shooters.

https://www.bisleyshooting.co.uk/about-bisley-shooting/

I waited at least a year for the tunnel range at Bisley Braidwood to open but sadly the old picnic table they offered to shoot from along with the poor aiming mark on the electronic target means it was at best something stalkers would use to check their gun was 'on' - the shooting bench and target itself was in no way good enough for serious accuracy enthusiasts.

Recently I spoke with Ed and explained that I would use this tunnel a lot if I could shoot at my own targets and if the new bench was rigid enough to exploit the wind free tunnel fully. He agreed to let me walk down and stick my own targets up but he wasn't sure exactly how rigid the new bench was in terms of benchrest standard. I mentioned this to Les and he went up yesterday for a look ahead of me, sadly the bench just isn't rigid enough.

Its a real shame as things stand, they have the hard part in place which is a 100 yard tunnel but the facility is let down by the lack of proper shooting bench that is rigid enough for people to do benchrest standard or high level load development. This place is a little over an hour from me and I would use it quite a lot if it was up to the appropriate spec and building a proper bench wouldn't cost much at all.

Maybe if the owners were aware of this thread and the fact they are nearly but not quite there it might promote them to invest a little more to make this facility as good as their usual standards, it would then be a very useful facility for serious accuracy enthusiasts and something people in the North of England and southern Scotland could do with.

I will email this thread to them so if anyone else would like to see these relatively fast and cheap improvements made please speak up, if the owners thought they could recoup the costs in extra business then they would most likely react in a positive way.