Visiting Jacksonville, looking for good gun shops to visit, and a good public outdoor range to give my sister I in law a little a little instruction. Any suggestions?
Few, if any ,outdoor ranges here.I cant currently think of any, off-hand, at the moment. Apart from a skeet/trap range (shotgun-only) near me.
Gallery of Guns on Beach Blvd. is ok-ish. They have an indoor range on-site, but I think it needs membership, if Im not mistaken. Any time I've been in the place, though, it's had a long line of people waiting for a lane to open up.
Semi-decent selection of arms, but they tend to over-price a lot of things. ($1k+ for a WASR, AK? rly? )
Bulls-Eye on Atlantic/Univeristy, is decent enough- wider variety of arms, range on-site (indoor) I believe general public can just pay $x amount to use a lane. Not normally too crowded from what I've seen. A few items they have in there, they try to over-price, but most have been within norms.
Shooters on Phillips Hwy. meh.. very large selection- sidearms and rifles, but-some of the personnel who work there are some real yahoos, and not the most knowledgable-though they will go to near-theatrical lengths to try to appear so. Looked over a couple of arms there, once, that were listed as "new", only to find, on closer-inspection, that they were in fact used-just cleaned up enough to appear "new". Not inclined to trust that place, myself. No range there, that I know of.
There's 1 or 2 shops on the Westside/Orange Park areas- wasnt terribly impressed with either.
In ALL of the shops I've found around here, if one is shopping for anything Ruger- expect to pay $200-300
over MSRP, in most cases. The one exception I have found on that is on SR-9s, which go pretty cheap around here.
Otherwise, there's just Academy and Gander, and a Dicks, like anywhere else.
Personally, I dont even bother with any of the ranges here. I live far enough out in the sticks, that I just go out back and shoot in the yard. If you are visiting someone who also does, or who knows someone who does, I'd say save the $$ and do the same.