Turcotte Shooting Facility
Shooting Range Rules and Regulations
Fine tune your shooting skills. Whether you want to get more proficient with your bow, sight in a new rifle, practice shooting your pistol, or hone your bird shooting skills, our Turcotte Range is the place to go. We have a pistol range, a 300-yard rifle range, 2 archery ranges, 2 skeet ranges, a 5-stand range, and a sporting clay course.
CLOSURE
Rifle, Skeet and 5-stand ranges will be closed until further notice, due to flooding. Pistol and archery ranges will remain open.
The Sporting Clay Range will be closed on Friday, April 26, 2024, to get ready for a tournament.
The Facility will be closed on Saturday, April 27, 2024 for the Mississippi Loggers Assoc. Sporting Clay Tournament.
Entrance Fees
A daily entrance fee of $15 (plus tax) is required to shoot.
We accept payments with either cash, VISA or MasterCard (credit or debit card).
Range Hours:
Summer Hours Begin March 1st
Thursday & Friday: Noon - 6:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Winter Hours Begin November 1st
Thursday & Friday: Noon - 5:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location / Contact Info
Turcotte Education & Shooting Facility
506 Highway 43 South
Canton, MS 39046 --- Google Directions
(601) 859-5164
Range Master - Rickey Pratt rickey.pratt@wfp.ms.gov
If you're trying to navigate, using a GPS device, insert 100 Turcotte Lab Drive, Canton, MS, into the device. It will get you closer than our mailing address.
Shotgun Rentals Now Available
12 and 20 gauge shotguns are now available to rent at all three MDWFP Shooting Facilities for $20.00 per day. Shotgun ammunition purchase is required with a shotgun rental. Call the range for ammunition prices. You must be 21 years old to rent or with a guardian 21 years or older.
MS Scholastic Shooting Program
The Mississippi Scholastic Shooting Program (MSSP) is a team-based, youth development program that uses the shotgun sports of 5-Stand, Skeet, and Sporting Clays to instill life skills such as discipline, safety, teamwork, ethics, self-confidence, and other life values.
More Details...
** HANDGUN INSTRUCTION **
Handgun classes, including the Enhanced Carry Permit Class, are being offered, once again, at our Turcotte Range on Tuesdays, on the 2nd and 3rd weeks of each month (unless otherwise noted, below). What follows is our Class Schedule for Turcotte, then a listing of the type of classes that we are offering.
If you need more information or wish to sign up for one of our classes, please email us (at Steve.Moore@wfp.ms.gov). Classes close out at 10:00 a.m., on the Monday before the scheduled class. Please do not delay, as classes are rapidly filling!
- Basic Handgun 200 Class: April 16th ($40.00 + tax)
- Enhanced Carry Permit Class: May 14th ($100.00 + tax)
- Basic Handgun 100 Class: May 21st ($40.00 + tax)
- Basic Handgun 200 Class: June 11th ($40.00 + tax)
- Enhanced Carry Permit Class: June 18th ($100.00 + tax)
ALL CLASSES WILL START AT 9:00 A.M. ON THEIR SCHEDULED DAY AND END APPROXIMATELY 5:30 - 6:00 P.M., UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE 2ND RELAY OF THE ENHANCED CARRY PERMIT CLASS. THE SECOND RELAY WILL GENERALLY FINISH AROUND 6:30 P.M.
Classes are held at the Hunter Education Building, which is located due west of the Range Office, approximately 300 yards in distance. Please read the following class listings for information on the classes and what you are required to bring to your respective class.
BASIC HANDGUN 100 CLASS: (Age 18 & Older)
(6 hours of lecture/classroom work and 2 hours of work on the firing range)
This course of instruction is for the person who has “little or no experience with a handgun,” or the experienced shooter who has never been taught the "Fundamentals of Marksmanship." If you have just purchased a handgun, or would like to purchase one, but have no idea what to purchase, nor what you need for your purposes, be they self-defense, hunting, or recreational target shooting, then this is the course for you. In addition, if you've shot handguns for most of your life, and want to improve your ability to hit the target, this is the course for you. We begin with a thorough safety lecture, and then familiarize you with two basic types of firearms – pistols and revolvers – and teach you how to safely and properly operate them. The basics of how to stand, how to hold the handgun, how to use the sights, and how to manipulate the trigger will be covered in both lectures and on-the-range exercises. What causes recoil, and methods of mitigating recoil, are also covered, in both lecture and on-the-range exercises.
Four handguns will be made available for the class to try. One will be a Browning HP, chambered in 9mm Parabellum (a.k.a. 9mm Luger or 9x19), a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, chambered in .38 Special, a Smith & Wesson Model 60 revolver, chambered in .38 Special, and a Glock Model 43 chambered in 9mm Parabellum. A limited amount of ammunition will be provided for students to shoot during this course, to determine what level of recoil that they can handle. If you want to shoot additional rounds, you will have to provide the additional ammo, yourself. This course will normally be limited to no more than 8 students, primarily for safety reasons, but also to be able to give each beginning student the necessary one-on-one instructor/student attention. You may bring your own handgun and ammunition, and are required to bring your own eye and ear protection, as well as any other personal gear that you deem necessary (such as bug repellent, sunscreen, water, lunch, etc.)
Students are required to bring: Eye & ear protection, as well as paper & pen to take notes.
COST: $40.00 + tax
BASIC HANDGUN 200 CLASS: Prerequisite – Basic Handgun 100 Class (Age 18 & Older)
(2 hours of lecture, 3 hours of shooting on the firing range, and 3 hours of learning how to take apart, clean, and maintain your firearm.)
This course of instruction is a natural “follow on” to the Basic Handgun 100 course. It gives you, the student, an opportunity to practice, under an instructor’s watchful eye, what you’ve learned in the Basic Handgun 100 course, with your own firearm, then, very importantly, you’ll be taught how to take down, clean, and properly maintain your firearm.
Students are required to bring: Your handgun, a minimum of 200 rounds of ammunition for your handgun, a rigid gun belt (that won’t flex and ride upward, as the firearm is withdrawn) and holster to fit your handgun, eye & ear protection, and a cleaning kit that fits your respective handgun. The cleaning kit must include: a cleaning rod, a jag or slotted tip, a bronze bore brush, cotton cleaning patches, Q-tips, cotton pipe cleaners (I prefer Dill's Pipe Cleaners, and find them on the internet), a cotton cloth to wipe the gun down, a towel (at least 12 inches x 24 inches in size) or a commercial cleaning mat, bore solvent, and gun oil.
COST: $40.00 + tax
ENHANCED CARRY PERMIT CLASS: (Age 21 & Older)
(6 hours of lecture, followed by 2 hours of shooting on the firing line)
This course of instruction is to qualify an individual for the Mississippi Enhanced Carry Permit, as issued by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Firearms Permit Unit. More specifically, the purposes of this course are to: a) expose you to the legal requirements, regarding concealed carry within the State of Mississippi, b) to verify that you are both safe and competent with your firearm, and c) to award you the certificate required for issue of a Mississippi Enhanced Carry Permit.
Students are required to bring: You must provide your own firearm, 100 rounds of ammunition, gun belt, holster, eye protection and ear protection for this course. At the conclusion of the morning lectures, you must pass a 50-shot qualification test, which will be fired from 3 yards and 7 yards. We require the additional 50 rounds, in case you don’t pass the initial qualification shooting test, and need to re-shoot the test.
COST: $100.00 + tax
Range Status
If severe weather is in the area, the Turcotte Shooting Range will close. For more information, please call (601) 859-5164 on days that we are open. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please check back periodically for status updates.
| RANGE | STATUS |
| Pistol Range | Available, whenever the range is open. |
| Rifle Range | Available, whenever the range is open. |
| 3D Archery |
Available, whenever the range is open. |
| Sporting Clay | Available, whenever the range is open. |
| 5 Stand | Available, whenever the range is open . |
| Skeet Range | Available, whenever the range is open. |
Ranges Available
Rifle:
The rifle range currently has fourteen shooting positions on seven tables available. We have movable target stands and shooters are able to engage targets out to 300 yards.
Handgun:
Our handgun range has 12 shooter positions and firing lines at 3, 7, 15, 25, 50, and 60 yards. Only one firing line can be active at any time.
Sporting Clay:
Our sporting clay range stretches a length of 1.3 miles through the woods. It is a newly constructed range with challenging shots throughout a woodland course. We use an electronic clay counting system that allows a single shooter to use the course when the time delay option is selected. There are twelve (12) shooting stations on the course. One complete round of sporting clays is 50 shots. We charge $.30 per clay. We have golf carts available for rent at $20 per day.
Skeet:
Turcotte has two (2) Olympic style skeet ranges on the premises for shooters to hone their shooting abilities throughout the year.
5 Stand:
We offer a "Kamikaze Dove Field" simulating actual hunting conditions to ready you for hunting season or just to test your skills.
Archery:
Turcotte offers a 3D archery range utilizing both known and unknown distance shots in a safe environment.
Other Range Information:
We offer targets for sale for both rifle and pistol ranges.
Neither tape nor staplers are provided, so make sure that you bring some means of affixing your target to our target stands on the rifle and pistol ranges!
Range Requirements:
- All shooters & visitors must check in-and-out with our Range Office.
- All shooters must complete the Range Rules and Regulations documentation. In our new system, you only have to enter the required information and acknowledge that you've read and understood the rules, once. You will no longer be required to do this on an annual basis.
- All shooters and accompanying personnel (even though they're not shooting) must sign in and sign out on the computer stations located in the Range Office, each time they visit the range facility.
- Hearing and eye protection required at all times!!
- All firearms must be handled in a safe manner while on the range.
- When moving on and off the range facility, each firearm must be unloaded, cased, or holstered. No one can touch a firearm unless the range is HOT, and they are on the forward edge of the active firing line, with their firearms pointed toward the targets on the berm!
- All shooting must cease 15 minutes prior to closing time, at which time all shooters & guests must proceed to the Range Office to sign out/check out.
Additional Resources
