With passage of the target practice marksmanship training and support act (tarmarc) of 2019, states can now apply a larger percent of their annual wildlife restoration (WR) funds to range development,…

The U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $134,050 Multistate Conservation Grant (CFDA 15.628) to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. (NSSF) to combine and disseminate resources on shooting range development and operations. The goal is to help state agencies and non-governmental organizations better leverage existing grant-funded and industry-supported tools for increasing shooting range capacity, participation, and the return on investment for wildlife restoration funding. NSSF will create easy-to-use toolkits, conduct webinars, and deliver in-person presentations to share these resources, which cover topics such as identifying underserved areas, designing ranges, attracting new participants, and accessing available funding. This project aims to improve state and local efforts to build, improve, and promote shooting ranges, ultimately leading to increased participation in shooting sports and greater wildlife conservation outcomes from Pittman-Robertson excise tax funding.

With passage of the target practice marksmanship training and support act (tarmarc) of 2019, states can now apply a larger percent of their annual wildlife restoration (WR) funds to range development, improvement, expansion, operations and marketing. Several multistate conservation grant-funded resources have become available since then to help states and shooting range non-governmental organizations (NGO) understand where new ranges are needed most, the types of shooting activities consumers prefer, case studies to assist in range design and operations, how to attract more non-traditional participants, available funding and partnering sources, and more. The national shooting sports foundation (nssf) and other ngos also have additional range development resources available to states. However, these grant and privately funded range-support resources are scattered and conversations with states indicate many are not aware of them. The result is limited application in states efforts to increase shooting range development efforts, lower target shooting participation and lower returns on WR investments in range design, development, operational and marketing activities. To help more states benefit from grant-funded and industry shooting research and development tools, nssf will combine these resources into easy-to-use toolkits with a focus on brevity and accessibility, and then most importantly, share them with public and private ranges directly (the beneficiaries), via regular nssf and shooting NGO communications, and through a detailed series of recorded webinars and in-person presentations, both regionally and nationally. The results will help improve states and ngos ability to build new ranges, improve current ranges, maximize participation and achieve greater results from future WR-based range investments.