A Thousand Miles Apart

Two Locations. Different Range Setups. One Idea.

Sometimes the best range ideas don't generate from our drawing board. They come from the people actually using the equipment. Recently, we received photos from Tomball Gun Club in Texas after the club installed three additional Gopher Target systems alongside one of our systems that they'd already been using for a few years. There was plenty in the photos that caught our attention—but one detail looked familiar. We had seen this one before (about 1,100 mile away).

Ingenuity in Tomball

Tomball Gun Club recently updated three of their shooting lanes. They already had four shuttles and one of our 4:1-ratio Xtreme Transmissions. In the past, they had made three pulley-type systems for use on the other three lanes to move their shuttles downrange and wanted to upgrade those to Gophers. But the transmissions are not what caught our attention. It was the changes to their shuttles.

Eric at Tomball described some of those details as still being a little “home brew” as the club works around its existing support structures. That's probably a description familiar to anyone who has spent much time doing DIY around a shooting range.

As Eric put it:

“We continuously make upgrades / improvements as ideas / time / $ / volunteer labor align.”

The club fabricated a simple drop-down extension beneath the Gopher shuttles. Eric explained that the design has evolved through experience with shooters, their emphasis on safety, and the occasional need to replace hardware after ballistic damage.

The result is straightforward: put a little more clearance between the shooter's target and the physical hardware above it.

(Tomball Gun Club lowers their target below each of the Gopher shuttle's main cross bars)

Tomball Gun Club in Tomball, Texas

Founded in 1963, Tomball Gun Club is a members-only shooting organization in northern Harris County, Texas. The club owns its 40-acre rifle-range property and has a longstanding mission that includes organized shooting sports, marksmanship, safe firearm handling and good sportsmanship.

Established: 1963

Range: 40-acre club-owned property

Gopher Systems: 4

"Wait a Minute… We've Seen This Before!"

Looking at Tomball's photos brought back memories of another Gopher installation from several years back.

That one was in Pennsylvania.

Washington County Machine Guns offers a two-lane Precision Rifle Range in West Alexander. Their Gopher installation is actually a quite a bit longer—approximately 107 yards, making it the longest Gopher installation we're aware of. And back in 2019, they came up with their own solution to essentially the same problem.

Their version is dropped considerably lower than Tomball's. Rather than a short extension beneath each trolley, Washington County fabricated a substantial drop-down target carrier suspended from the Gopher shuttle system. The top of the target was positioned over 12 inches below the overhead crossbar.

There was a practical reason for it.

At more than 100 yards, the range wanted additional separation between the target and the hardware above it because of the greater potential for variation in shot placement. And because of the terrain at their range, repairing damaged crossbars isn't particularly convenient. So they built something that worked for them.

Distant Ranges. Similar Issues. Same Thinking.

That's what makes these two installations interesting to us.

The Texas and Pennsylvania range owners weren't working with the same structures. They weren't solving exactly the same problem. And their finished designs don't exactly match.

But they arrived at the same basic idea: Create more separation between the target and the equipment overhead.

Tomball accomplished it with relatively compact extensions. Washington County went considerably longer with a large rigid target carrier suited to a 107-yard precision range.

In both cases, the range owners created an attachment that works with the Gopher shuttle.

Built by Gopher. Adapted to the Range.

We designed Gopher Targets around a fairly simple philosophy: build a durable mechanical target retrieval system that can work in a lot of different range environments without making it unnecessarily complicated.

But nobody knows a range quite like the people who operate it. They know where shooters struggle. They know what gets damaged. They know what's difficult to maintain. And sometimes they look at the Gopher system and figure out a clever way to make it work even better for their particular situation. Those ideas are worth sharing.

Customer Ingenuity for Target Retrieval

What Have YOU Done With Your Gopher? We're betting Tomball and Washington County aren't the only Gopher owners who have gotten creative. As a matter of fact, the US map above shows some of the locations where our systems have been installed across our great country. We like to hear about customer ingenuity for target retrieval systems. Maybe you've built a different target carrier or developed an unusual mounting solution, weather protection, repair method or maintenance trick. Or is there something you've changed over the years simply because experience taught you a better way?

We'd like to see it. Email us a photo and tell us what you built, why you did it and how it's working. Your idea might just become the subject of a future Innovation article.