Visiting JAX area, need suggestions

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?

Shadow Bear said:

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?

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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.

Checked out Gallery and Shooters. Must have hit them on a good day, great service. Good selection, especially Shooters.:banana:

Drove by Bullseye and saw a big sign about no loaded guns, even concealed. WTF?

Any gun shop that tried that in Michigan would quickly be out of business. We take our self defense seriously enough to never disarm unless legally required by law, especially for a hypocritical business that sells guns, but denies your 2A rights.....:banghead:

Are there other non-2A gun stores around here? Certainly don't want to waste time on those......:cuss:

No lie, I lurk this forum all the time, but just joined to reply to your post.
The only (mostly) all-inclusive range in town is on the west side, Gateway Pistol and Rifle. http://grpc-jax.com/
They are by no means nice, or even polite, but they'll let you take your guns out there and shoot. Depending on what you're looking for in town, there are different shops to visit. If you want a long arm at a decent price, shooters is the place... and all the employees work off of a percentage based commision, so if you're willing to sound like a haggler, they can be persuaded to scrape the lowest price that will still put $20 in their pocket.
On the west side, Wild West Guns has the best prices on sig pistols, but not rifles (their prices suck on all rifles, period)
There's another place on the west side called Green Acres, it's a family owned, family employed, business, so the lowest price they'll ever drop too, will still be in a decent profit margin range for them. BUT they have almost anything you can think of, and are one of the few shops in town that will stock new model cheapo brands (hi points, cobra, etc.). Also, if you stop in there and want a laugh, take a stroll through where they keep mags, and accesories, and try to point out which ones are loose because they pulled them from product before selling it. (True story, I bought an AR there, and they tried to sell me the hard case and second mag that come with it from the manufacturer)
But I forgive it because they're usually nice guys, and don't mind me coming in just to fondle the toys.
But there's sadly only the one outdoor range.

Outdoor range:


Ancient City gun range in St Augustine, or if you are near the west side. Gateway Rifle and Pistol club.

For buying guns I prefer St Nicholas gun, or Gun Gallery. I check shooters and will pick one up there also if they have a good price.