Acoustic Modelling of Sport and Hunting Shooting Ranges in the Aspect of Shaping Noise Emissions Into the Environment

The article deals with the problem of acoustic modelling of sport and hunting shooting ranges for the purposes of carrying out acoustic impact assessments on the environment. The fashion for recreational shooting and the dynamic development of shooting ranges resulted in conflict situations between the shooting range and the residents. Increasingly, the condition for allowing the shooting range to be used is to carry out an acoustic analysis to confirm the lack of noise nuisance. Therefore, it is necessary to develop guidelines for acoustic modelling of shooting ranges, taking into account their purpose and types of shooting axes. Each of the shooting axes is designed for a different type of shooting and thus has different acoustic characteristics. In the article, the author presents a method of modelling noise emissions from the shooting range on the example of one of the popular shooting competitions which is the hunting trap. First, acoustic measurements of the unit noise source related to the firing of shots by a firearms shooter were made. Then the directional characteristics of this source were determined, the shooting axis of the “hunting trap” type was modelled during a typical shooting competition and its directionality was determined. Then, on the example of a specific shooting range, the possibility of using the results to analyse the propagation of noise into the environment during typical shootings on the trap axis was presented.