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gunovice wrote:HI Gary,

"Jim Two-Gun" here.

Got any update on where our group will relocate?

FWIW, between my home insurance and the NRA insurance, I have been able to recover the bulk of the losses from my range bag. Decided to replace my 1911 with a Taurus PT1911.

Sorry for not responding sooner Jim...I've been told Top Gun is still only operating one of the three bays and it's for CHL only. I'm glad your insurance was able to help you out. One of our shooters wasn't so fortunate but, his friends at Marksman provided him with a new bag, some ammo and other gear to get him back on his feet.

Though I've looked at moving both my Tuesday night group and Thursday's club to other facilities, it appears both groups will be orphans for the time being [abbreviated profanity deleted] a variety of reasons. We can't relocate to Memorial. Because Memorial would have had to shutdown an hour early, they needed more money than we could promise to host the club each Thursday. Most other ranges are too far in all the wrong directions or otherwise already committed to other clubs.

In the meantime, Some of us have been shooting WHIDPA on Wednedsays at the Impact Zone. Others at Shiloh on Thursdays. Both are great clubs but a bit of a drive for most us. The Impact Zone is outdoors and up near Monaville so unless you live in West Houston/Katy/Sugarland its a no go. Shiloh is in the Willowbrook area and a bit more manageable for many of us. Shiloh's facilities can get hot and tight when they have more than a dozen shooters. Also, most stages we've seen so far at Shiloh are simple standards, primarily shot from static positions. Fun, fast and easy to shoot but, not what most of us are used to. Your two-gun routine would probably cause a few heart-attacks in either venue. Being IDPA clubs, both groups run a cold range. That's a minor inconvenience, creates its own hazards and slows things down a bit but, I understand it. I like both groups and recommend trying them if you can make it. I can't thank them enough to letting us join them.

Lodge2004 wrote:Unfortunately for me, I've gone from feast to famine in the last couple of years. Sportsman's Outlet in Humble is near my home and still has not reopened from their fire and now Top Gun, near my work, is down. The range "in-between" is the 59-Gun Range and it's not a pleasant place to visit.

Have no idea what the financials are behind running an indoor range, but it seems like it could be a profitable business. There are quite a few anxious customers looking for a place to spend their hard earned money.

A friend tried to start one a year or two ago in the Sugarland area. Everything was ready to go when the bank asked for an extra 10% down at the last minute. 10% on a $3.5million is quite a lot of cash that normal people don't just have laying around. He's still interested in the project but, I don't know if he's got the time since starting another business venture. That original range project made some compromises along the way but I still think it was viable. Originally, the range would have been located at the South East corner of Hwy 90 and Hwy 6 in Sugarland. The cost of that land was too high, so he moved the project to Stafford. I drive through that area regularly and it appears no one has tried to build anything at either of the proposed locations since the deal fell through.

Done right, I expect an indoor range anywhere along Hwy 6 or Hwy 99 between US 59-South and I-10 West could easily generate $200,000 in monthly revenue between offering classes, range fees, ammo and ancillary gear. Guns themselves don't make a lot of profit but, if you can keep the prices right, you'll make some of that up in volume. A lady/family friendly atmosphere, indoors with A/C and enough room to host indoor qualification/training for local agencies is an almost guaranteed winner. There are stumbling blocks to all this that can't be ignored. The biggest among them is financing. Ideally, one would want to do this all in cash if they had it but, securing investors (banks) is pretty much the only way to make it happen for the average Joe. Assuming a 15-30 lanes split into 3, 25 meter shooting bays capable of handling rifle calibers, I'd say the project can be done for $3-5million depending in the final configuration and location of the range. I am sure it can be done cheaper but, if it's done cheaper, it will be obvious and may even be hazardous.

Quick update...No torts yet but, it looks like TopGun is basically blaming the shooters on the range for starting the fire. Nevermind the faulty backstop, accumulated powder or PE foam that all were primary factors. Nope, it's the shooters who basically defined the purpose of even having a range who are at fault. Yep, makes perfect sense to me. The ranges will be closed indefinitely and both the Tuesday night and Thursday night groups are looking for a new home. MSC doesn't seem terribly excited about hosting either group. ASC wants entirely too much money and is against all thing "tactical." So I'm not sure what's going to happen to either group at this time. I haven't got the money but, I've got the know-how...If anyone is interested in building an indoor commercial range to service west/southwest Houston, Sugarland, Richmond and Katy, I'd love to help!

Excaliber wrote: A good candidate for the start of the fire would be a spark from a round that struck the floor...The outcome could easily be much worse than it was at Top Gun.

Agreed on all points. In this case, any round that caused such a spark would have been rebounding from backstop. I'd rather not get into discussing causes because I'm concerned there may be one or more civil suits brewing from all of this. I will say this, the arson investigators at that scene know absolutely nothing about firearms or gun ranges. To my knowledge, they finally attributed the incident to a "freak nofault accident" when they could see no one standing at the point of ignition on video.

Yes, there are at least two video cameras that caught the incident. While one shooter was standing about 3ft from the point of ignition and sorting through brass at the time, it's HIGHLY unlikely that he could have thrown a spent casing or anything with sufficient force to ignite live, primed case on the ground using the motions we saw as he discarded reject cases. We'll see what the insurance investigators say but, being that hottest parts of the range were covered in PE foam, we know it's presence was not a good thing. That foam was removed after the fire that destroyed Sportsman's Outlet because it was known to have been a primary factor in the speed with which that fire consumed the building. At some point, someone decided to put the foam back up and now we have seen similar results at Top Gun.

bpet wrote:Is there any information on how the fire started?

As is the case at all ranges, there was unburned powder on the deck. Some how that powder was ignited. Just as shooters tried to put out those flames, burning embers reached additional flammable materials on the walls and things quickly got to a point where it really couldn't be stopped with anything other than a large volume of water or aqueous film forming foam. Only 10-15 seconds passed from the time the powder was ignited to the time it became immediately necessary to evacuate the area. I had just enough time to think "Don't let it get to the wall" but, even that took too long. The last guys to clear the range were running under a burning ceiling on their way out.

During this time, one shooter made a brave (borderline foolish) attempt to put out the fire with a dry chem extinguisher that was stored on the back wall of the range as we shoved people out the door. I'd tried to go back in with another extinguisher from the showroom when that shooter came through the door with an exhausted extinguisher. I could see behind him that the range was already completely filled with smoke. Had the other shooter not been very familiar with the range, he probably wouldn't have made it out and was seconds from being overcome with smoke.

There was indeed a Metro bus on scene after a while to provide cooling for the fire fighters. The range is housed in a commercial building that used to house Ferrari of Houston. It has a steel/tin roof and concrete exterior. If the air handlers and chillers are off, the interior temp of the ranges will reach 100-degrees by radiant heating alone in the Texas sun. Add a fire, and all the gear firefighters wear and it gets pretty hot in a hurry. The danger posed by the ammunition is minimal and reports indicating firefighters stayed back because of it are patently false.

I was there, that report is bull. Fire was restricted to the range only, and then primarily on the first five lanes where our indoor defensive pistol group shoots and Matt Brockman and I run Tuesday training sessions. Most of the fire, smoke and water damage is on that bay. The ten lanes that comprise the other two shooting bays suffered mostly smoke damage. The showroom is fine other than the smell of smoke and some damage from the fire department poking holes in the roof.

There was ammo going off because our range bags were on fire. All that happens when handgun ammunition burns is the cases burst and occassionally fly off with enough force to cause a bruise and/or minor cut. But since almost all our ammunition was in our range bags and/or containers, it wasn't likely to be flying anywhere. The firefighters may have hesitated before going in but, it was no more than the time it took to get hoses ready and cut a hole in the roof to clear some smoke and get rid of some heat.

Everyone got out safely. We had a dozen or so shooters at our match and there were probably four or five other customers on the other lanes. Almost all of us shooting an the first bay lost our gear but, that's better than the alternative. There were a bunch of melted plastic/nylon puddles where our range bags used to be. Glocks don't do well in fires...Generally the only thing we found were slides. Two or three of us, myself included, were fortunate enough to recover some or all of our gear. The belongings of those using other lanes were probably covered in soot but that's it. Basically, as long as your gear wasn't in a shooting stall on lane 1-5 or otherwise near the fire itself, it was fine.

I'll share more information when/if it's appropriate.