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View Full Version : Tri-County or Douglas Ridge or...?



returntrue
04-11-11, 21:14
I live in Portland and am looking to join one of the local gun clubs. Tri-County and Douglas Ridge are roughly equidistant from me and are pretty close in price.

Can anyone offer any input on which might be the better bet for an aspiring M4Carbine'er?

Are there any other options I should consider?

Thanks!

returntrue
04-12-11, 13:53
I've wasted too many weekends looking for places to shoot and finding that the area has been closed to shooting or that it's packed with shooters. I've witnessed some pretty alarming gun-handling in the latter scenario ;)

Does anyone have experience with either club?

I've actually shot at both locations (IPSC & Highpower) and they're both great facilities. Now that I've been bitten by the AR bug, I'm looking to find somewhere reliable to het some shooting time in.

Any feedback on whether one or the other of these locations is better suited to practical AR practice?

Thanks!

Nightvisionary
04-16-11, 07:51
I haven't been to Douglas ridge but Tri-county has 100, 200, and 300 yard ranges open daily. There are also 600 yard shoots and practical rifle matches if you are interested.

Rayd8
04-19-11, 00:38
Another TCGC member....they have a Practical Rifle match on the second Sat. of each month. The rules have been changing lately, but the match used to be open to the public, they only required you to attend a Friday(before) practice & safety session.

There is also a 'tac' match on months that have a 5th Sunday. Essentially a three gun, but with pistol caliber carbine.

I thought DR had some similar activities which were open to the public too, but I've never been

Titleist
04-19-11, 10:00
There's things I like about both, but dislike about each as well.

I go to the CQB matches at Tri-County but try to only attend a few practical rifle matches. This is mainly due to the absolutely inane 'no-muzzle over the berm rule' which makes reloads and fixing malfunctions into absolutely awkward training scar induced fail-fests.

You've also got action bays where you can't use center fire ARs (because deer slugs into dirt is somehow massively safer then a 5.56 round into a dirt berm, right?) and slow fire rules. It's hard because I live 20 minutes away, from downtown (pearl district), and it'd be the best range for my needs. We also considered TCGC for the Magpul classes, but they don't have the training facilities nor the rules/mindset to allow a class like that, which is a shame since it'd frankly be the most awesome location to do it given the location/convenience factor.

Douglas Ridge on the other hand is like a golf course. It's about 30-45 minutes away (I drove it once in 25 minutes hitting every green light on the way there) and as long as you're safe you can go muzzle up, run shotguns, have access to a 1000yd range when available, etc. The issue with DRRC is that they're very old school, and it just takes a bit of time for them to see the value in some of the modern techniques.

So it's tough, I love Douglas Ridge because we've had 3 awesome Magpul Dynamics classes there, some of the BEST ones put on in the PNW, but they lack training bays, etc. Whereas TCGC is very modern, but hampered by a board that's whipped by litigation.

returntrue
04-22-11, 11:24
Nightvisionary, Rayd8 & Titlest:

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. I really appreciate it.

It sounds like each club has its pros and cons with neither being a perfect fit for contemporary practical rifle practice.

I'm currently checking to see if I can get in on the May PR match at Tri-County. I can't find a similar event at DR , so maybe I'll just go watch a 3-gun match there.

At this point, I just need a reliable, safe from the unwashed masses, place to shoot. Realistically speaking, I'm not high-speed yet myself, so either range would probably be adequate for me to get squared-away on the basics.

Again, thanks for the feedback - hope to see you out there!