aosailer,
I have plinked on many National Forests in the west. I have received honest information from rangers every time. Usually, I go to the ranger station for the district that I wish to visit. They have maps and usually know where abandoned rock quarries and the like are. The quaries make good plinking sites as they usually have a good back-stop and flat ground at the base of the cliff.
As for shooting from, or near roads, I have found that the Forest Service interprets their regulations to mean that you must be off the road to shoot. A clearance of 150 yards is for campgrounds, buildings, and the like; not roads. Otherwise, in some National Forests, you could not shoot as roads can be closer than 300 yards from each other.
This summer I will be on the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. We are going to spend an afternoon plinking there. We will visit a ranger station before we find a plinking spot.
On one occasion, a Forest Service LEO stopped by and said hello. He knew who we were and what were doing as he had talked with the ranger station. It was a nice visit. He was bored and wanted to talk about guns and hunting.
Here is something to think about:
Civil and criminal jurisdiction
The jurisdiction, both civil and criminal,
over persons within national forests shall
not be affected or changed by reason of
their existence, except so far as the
punishment of offenses against the United
States therein is concerned; the intent and
meaning of this provision being that the
State wherein any such national forest is
situated shall not, by reason of the
establishment thereof, lose its jurisdiction,
nor the inhabitants thereof their rights and
privileges as citizens, or be absolved from
their duties as citizens of the State. (16
U.S.C. 480)
The state of Colorado has civil an criminal jurisdiction on NF lands!!
markm