The Heritage Guild of Easton — Local services in Williams Township

Came here with my brothers for a graduation celebration. Younger brother loved the idea of handling firearms but was naturally intimidated by the prospect of firing a handgun for the first time. I myself have only shot a handgun once before and just started handling rifles (.22 LR) about 2 months prior. My older brother is former USMC but has been out of realistic firearms practice for some time and has also never fired a handgun before. We wanted to come in here, learn a bit more about gun culture, and have some fun renting guns and shooting paper. Sounds simple right? Here was our experience.

The retail store front seemed fairly well stocked. There's plenty to browse for both firearms and archery and got us immediately talking about how awesome of a place this was.

After filling out some cursory paperwork (which has to be re-filled every YEAR for some reason), we then had to watch an 8-minute safety video. Not a big deal, but most other ranges have someone actually TALK to you, to explain basic operation of a firearm and how the range works.

Pricing seemed a bit high compared to other rental areas in the immediate geography. $20 per lane, $10 for addon per lane, $ for ammo, then $12-$15 per firearm you want to rent. So 4x firearms = $60 for the hour. Most rental places I've been to charge you $XX/hour + ammo to rent and you can just freely swap out the firearm. Seems like a money grab for those that want to try out different firearms. But we were here for a graduation, so no biggie. Sucked it up and moved on.

We ended up getting two lanes and rentals. There are maybe 10 lanes altogether. But for some reason, there were like like 6 range safety officers (RSO's) there. A bit crowded, but I figure they just want to be extra safe. The initial RSO was great. My younger brother was feeling uneasy, but the RSO went ahead and explained the basic operation, safety, and stances of how to operate the handguns. Awesome. If everyone had left us alone after that and only interjected if there was a serious question/safety concern, this would have been at least a 4-star review.

But it seemed like every 5 minutes, the RSO's (I'm sure it wasn't all 6 or so of them, but at least 2-3 different guys) would come up to us, sometimes WHILE SHOOTING, to sneak in a snarky remark about how our bullets were "all over the target," or "the groupings should be so much closer at this distance," or "why don't you shoot the AR further out." It seemed like the RSO's saw an opportunity to flex their ego's when complete beginners to firearms were on the range, just because we couldn't shoot as well as them. You could seriously hear them joking amongst each other behind us through our ear protection. It came across as incredibly unprofessional.

Without exaggerating, I genuinely believe it was about once every other magazine someone would come up and make a snide remark about our accuracy, stance, or other handling of the gun. This was done for THE ENTIRE HOUR. My brothers and I are jokers and sarcastic by nature...we get humor and joking around with your customers if the mood feels right. But to make fun of our accuracy, belittle us for not shooting at their level, and to ACTIVELY THESE REMARKS AT US WHILE SHOOTING LIVE MAGAZINES is completely unacceptable. One RSO even said to my (first-time-shooting) brother something along the lines of "having to take your man-card away), and then to us said, "...lucky your girlfriends aren't here, or I'd really make you look bad."

This seems like a pattern as the other review at the top by "Daniel Black" seemed to have this type of experience as well.

With this experience thoroughly behind me at this point, I cannot in good conscience recommend this place to anyone looking to have some fun with rentals or with small groups. The idea of newcomers being made fun of and berated for wanting to experience firearm safety and operation is absolutely absurd to me and a complete detriment to this place as a commercial business, as well as gun...

First I’m going to state my credentials and you can determine if that warrants reading the rest. I’ve grown up shooting my whole life since 9, did 4 years of competition shooting in HS for a team, then some years after solo in general comps. I’ve been an RSO and I’ve been a range custodian so I know how to present a comfortable and safe range experience as a good custodian of my community. I’ve been thinking about writing this review for about three weeks now because I don’t often take the time to review non-food establishments much given people often have to FAFO on their own these days but I go to this range every few years (long enough to forget each horrible experience) and if nothing else maybe this review will remind me to convince buddies to go elsewhere if they’d like to go with me. I am only giving this place two stars because I know how the owners of places like this tend to be and they’d rather have a 1 star suppressed by Goog than to fix issues within their establishment otherwise it’d be negative 3. I will now explain my experience and you decide. I showed up with two other buddies looking for some quick range time. Quick is out the window, you have to stop at the counter, go through their system and a short film. should you need ammo expect to purchase 10-20 round packs because whole boxes are out the window at the borderline scalper pricing they have going on if they’d even have em. (Asked and confirmed prices to be sure counter guy was GREAT no complaints) next you get the privilege of walking into the range and encountering one of two RSOs. One is a larger gentleman whose parents taught him general respect and empathy for others in an unfamiliar environment. The other is your typical trained dog of the state mentality who barks orders at people not intentionally doing anything wrong in a way that makes em uncomfortable (I was watching my friends fumble their mags from how off putting and abrasive he can be mind you they aren’t operators) then when range dog is done he’ll tell you the shooting safety glasses made by tasco a company that’s been around longer than hes been alive let alone swimming in his father’s classless jewels aren’t acceptable. Idk if this was a way to make another few bucks on his range commission or w/e but luckily a buddy had a spare so the issue was resolved quickly without me saying anything to him but I did take note hence the review. The facility itself is a bit small and if the owner would stop using the place as a personal safe for all his toys which he rents out at insane prices (because he doesn’t want ya touching his toys) more lanes could easily be added. Long and short if you’re really new, like New Jersey new and want someone breathing down your neck levels of oversight this might be the place for you however if you want a NORMAL range day with NORMAL PEOPLE who don’t think themselves super-cop in an environment of law abiding citizens seeking education and training . I would HIGHLY recommend looking ANYWHERE else. This is a place for beginners who like to be barked at. Not a place for actual...

Customer service is just not their expertise, came in this past week to go to the shooting range to rent a gun I was looking to buy to test out, I was aware of the 4:30 last call for the range time and planned accordingly. Drove all the way from Emmaus and hit traffic around the hellertown exit which caused me to be late, arrived at 4:31 and walked in only to walk up to the shooting range desk for a person sitting down on his phone to glance up and say “range is closed no exceptions”. What a turn off especially from an establishment that I was looking at buying a $1200 gun from. Unfortunately this is NOT the only bad experience I have had here, I wasn’t gonna write this but since I’m here might as well. Around a year ago me and my son who was 17 at the time were looking for a new pistol. We saw a pistol that he liked, so we flagged down a young (looked to be new) sales associate and I stated that my son really like this gun and we would like to purchase it, he then asked if my son is buying it or I am. I said he’s only 17 and I will be purchasing the firearm and it will be mine, he then said that he doesn’t feel comfortable selling the gun to me because he thinks it’s a STRAW purchase. Which was absolutely ridiculous, I explained to him that I would buying the gun, it is mine and I would be in possession of it and I’m buying it so me and my son can use it at a range under my supervision. He then stated he’s very skeptical and he had to confer with his manager, the manager said that it was fine and it’s not a STRAW purchase.

There are MUCH better stores and range options available in the Lehigh Valley / Northampton area and beyond with a more competent sales team and better gun ranges. Relic hunter firing line is one of my go tos, near Whitehall, great range and store selection and amazing people. If your looking for automatic rentals and probably the best indoor range (it’s a good drive but in my opinion worth it) go to national range and armory in Williamsport. Such a shame that a range desk worker who could accommodate the fact that me and my son were 1 minute late (we are already in the system so we would just need a range lane, rental pistol and a box of 9mm) that they most likely lost a $1200 sale. Take your business...