Last week the NSSF, National Shooting Sports Foundation, released a new version of their “Where to Shoot app.” The app is available for iPhone, iPad or Android, and can be used to located the nearest range, or read the latest shooting sports news. It’s handy for connecting to all things NSSF with only a few glitches to be worked out.
The app’s home screen allows the user to find a shooting range by either, entering a zip code, or allowing their phone’s gps to hone in on their location. The app also offers a slider of radii to let the user broaden their search. Once run, the search will bring up ranges, with the NSSF members listed first, followed by other businesses. From here one can have all of the ranges marked on a map, or click on an individual item to see their specifics.
Ranges who are NSSF members have extensive information within the app. Other than their name, address, phone number and website, a range’s listing might also include the services offered, the type of facility and the accessibility of the property. Non-NSSF members also have this information listed, but it is, generally, less thorough.
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Within this searching section, I wish the app offered another option, besides zip code and gps locators. I would like to be able to simply enter a city and state and find out what ranges are near by. With the current version, I would have to look up (or know) a zip code, or actually be in an area, in order to run a search. I also ran into some freezing when a large number of ranges came up in a search. Even if the search radius was set to a small number, mapping more than ten ranges took a lot of thinking, on the part of my phone, and in most cases, crashed the app.
The “News” and “Videos” tabs will bring up a feed from the NSSF blog or the NSSF YouTube Channel, respectively. The “Safety” tab lists ten shooting safety tips that are very detailed and offer the option of the user sharing them through email or social media. Though I might have organized this app slightly differently, it seems to have the essentials. Once the bugs are worked out and the app is a bit more stable, happily recommend it regularly.
