Hey Dutch,
Got a 100 yd. range behind the house. Try to keep it clear, but have problems with mesquite growing everywhere. Wasn't so bad when we had a tractor to mow it all, but that old thing gave out years ago. So, I try to keep the grass clear to the rifle backstop. Just a couple of posts with a sheet of 1/2" plywood screwed to the posts. Have several piles of old tires behind it in rows. I filled them with sand as a backstop. Use to have one at another end of the field with up to 200 yds, but it is seriously grown over now. My F in law set that one up with an old freezer full of sand for a backstop and posts and plywood. Problem with that one was that once the freezer was shot full of holes, all the sand came out. Don't have that problem with the tires.....yet. Ya just stack them and fill them with sand/dirt as ya go.
Have a heavy picnic table set up on a rear deck to BBQ from and it doubles as a bench rest. Made it from heavy drilling pipe and 2X6s bolted to it on angle irons that are welded tothe drilling pipe. All this stuff use to get used alot when my in laws, kids and everyone else was around. Now it is just my half blind azz and my wife with bad knees trying to keep it up. Water well too and it gives us problems periodically. Total of 22 acres. Use to be near 40, but wife's uncle got about half in a lawsuit between the families and he already had @ 40 to begin with So, all I can do now is try to keep the grass and mesquite cleared back at least 40 to 100 yards from the house and the in laws now empty house.
Of course I keep the 100 yd. range cleared all the time. Suppose to get the whle place buldozed soon, so maybe I can get back into the other range. For pistols, I just shoot where I want. Got javenila coming in here again cause of the brush and the males come and challenge the dogs to fight. Killed quite a few. Don't hunt much anymore cause of my eyesight, but I still hit a few of the pesky, smelly critters when they show up.
Do have another 30 acre place @ 50 miles south of here and about half way to the border at the Reynosa, Texas crossing as the bird flies. That's roughing it. No water, no electricity, no shelter, no cell phone service. Lotta illegal trafficing and drug trafficing in those areas. Deer, hogs, javelina, bobcats, and coyotes of the 4 legged and 2 legged kind. Gotta take shovels, plywood, bumper jacks, etc, in case ya get stuck which is INEVITABLE. Also hachetes, the good U.S. military ones. gass chain saws, food, beef jerky, lotta water too cause the nearest house is @ 5 miles away through the brush. Nothing but big bore rifles and big bore Ruger single actions there for backups. And with all the deer blinds popping up around us now, ya might need a bullet proof vest cause it's turning into a rich man's shooting gallery all around us on the deer leases. Use to shoot in any direction some years back. not so much now.
Do have one old portable benchrest that I made up for field use back on the old rancho down south. It is in the shape of a "T" with all the corners rounded. Cut 3 thraded collars with an angle of about 30 degrees on one end and welded them to some 1/4" steel plate. Drilled holes in the corners of the plates and lag bolted them to the "T" top which was mage of double thick with 3/4" CDX plywood glued together. Yeah, it's heavy, but solid. Cut legs from pipe that fit the threads in the collars. You can cut them to table height or what have you @ 30 inches with the legs screwed to the collars. The collars have the 30 degree angles and have to be set with one at the bottom end of the "T" table and the other 2 collars kinda pointed towards the outer corners of the top of the "T" table top corners. I use a portable chair with it. Well, I use to when I was shooting alot and could see well. Woorked well set up in hte back of the truck at the end of a plowed field full of varmints. Jackalope soup. Or maybe some fried chupacabra with french fries. EEEEEeeeHa!
Now it's just the backyard benchrest if I can see the target through the 9 power scope. Suppose to have a cataract surgery to fix the right eye a bit. Might get back to where i was a few years ago. However the gluacoma is not fixable.
All those guns and no eyes to shoot them with. Well, I still make alot of noise.
Almost forgot. Wife's family has owned the place we are on since the early settlerscame here the early 1900s. They were mostly of German, Irish, and Chec familes that moved here from the hill country of Texas to work for the dairy industry. You may have heard of seen the label of "Falfurrias" sweet cream butter or milk. Use to be made here in town exclusively. Now made somewhere in Wisconsin IIRC.
My dad worked at one of the main daries suppiying milk to the creamery in town when he was a kid and teenager then through the depression. The dairy was only a mile from this location and he know all of my wife's relatives cause they went to get water at the dairy by wagon. It was the only water well in this area at that time.
The other 30 acres south of here was given to my mother by her father. Several hundred acres of land that was divided up between the remaining 10 childern of 15. Mother's father aquired the land which had been part of the Texas land grants after he returned from WWI. He was a decendant of Spaniards that owned the land in the area since the grants were awarded. His wife a decendant of Mexican/Indian families of the area.
