Announcements
New for 2026: The manual for this year’s grant round will be published in August. But until then, here’s a sneak peek at upcoming changes:
- Acquisition of land currently or previously managed by a public entity is eligible.
- Sponsors have eighteen months from the board funding meeting to acquire land in a combination project.
- Earnest or option payments incurred before the execution of a grant agreement are an eligible pre-agreement cost if they are applied to the purchase price of the land acquired.
Typical Projects
- Installing fences, berms, and other noise and safety elements
- Upgrading firearms and archery equipment
- Renovating clubhouses
- Building new shooting courses
Who May Apply?
- Cities and towns
- Counties
- Law enforcement agencies
- Nonprofit shooting organizations
- Park and recreation districts
- School districts
- State agencies
- Some special purpose districts, such as port and public utility districts, are eligible if legally authorized to acquire and develop public open space, habitat, or recreation facilities.
Grant applicants must be authorized legally to develop, operate, and maintain recreational facilities.
Funding
Funding is awarded every two years and comes from a portion of each concealed pistol license fee.
Grant Limit
$150,000
Match Details
50 percent match is required for all projects, except noise abatement or safety improvement at existing ranges, which have a 33 percent match.
At least 10 percent of the total project cost must come from a non-state, non-federal contribution.
Match may include the following:
- Appropriations or cash
- Bonds
- Donations of cash, land, labor, equipment, and materials
- Other grants
- Applicant’s labor, equipment, and materials
Eligible Projects
Acquisition: Buying real property in fee title (free and clear of underlying liens) or lesser interests, such as significant leases (at least ten years), and easements.
Development or renovation of firearms and archery range facilities, including fixed structures related to range use and management, safety, environmental, accessibility, and noise abatement. The following elements are eligible:
- Archery courses
- Classrooms and storage rooms
- Closed circuit security cameras
- Clubhouses
- Duck towers
- Fencing
- Indoor ranges
- Law enforcement ranges
- Lighting
- Picnic shelters
- Pistol ranges
- Restrooms
- Rifle ranges
- Roads, paths, parking
- Safety baffles
- Shooting stands
- Signs
- Site preparation, landscaping
- Skeet houses
- Sporting clay courses
- Target holders, bullet traps
- Trap fields
- Utilities
Other Requirements
At all firearms and archery range funded sites, the range must be open for general public use eight or more hours a month.
Noise and safety abatement projects and projects that directly benefit shooting activities must be built to contain all projectiles to the applicant’s property. Range designs must meet guidance published by either the National Rifle Association, National Field Archery Association, or Archery Trade Association. Projects must be evaluated by a certified adviser from one of the associations identified above, by a professional engineer, or by some other qualified professional consultant with experience and expertise in the evaluation and design of ranges and course as condition of funding.
Ineligible Projects
- Involve only planning, design, operation, or maintenance of range facilities
- On property bought under a conditional sales contract, unless the grant applicant has title to the property
- With deed provisions that have a significant negative impact on public recreational use of the property
- That unfairly discriminate among users
- With areas or facilities that have exclusive lease privileges
- Involve liability insurance only
- Projects not complying with RCO safety policy
Long-term Commitment
Grant recipients must provide the facilities paid for by grants for ten years from the date of RCO’s last payment to the grant applicant. If grants are used to acquire property, obligations are forever.