A `Volunteer Rifle Range? is shown on the OS First Edition six-inch map, described as `Rifle Range? on the 25-inch sheet (surveys dated 1867-72). Shooting competitions on Hirwaun Common were reported in the local press as early as 1861 (Cardiff & Merthyr Guardian 07.09.1861).
The range occupied a field located to the immediate south of the old Heads of the Valleys road (A465) to the west of Hirwaun. Targets (of which there were three centred at SN94810518) are shown at the south-west end of the field, slightly uphill from shooting positions the lines of which (banks?) are shown at 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 yard intervals to the north-east of the targets. Former coal workings surrounded the site on the south and west which impinged on the field on its west side.
Field investigation failed to detect any traces of the mapped range features. The field has been truncated at its north-east end by the current A465 trunk road which has erased the 500 yard position. To the south-west the site of the targets and the 100 yard firing position is now occupied by the Tower Colliery opencast/reclamation area which was in operation when the site was visited in August 2013; access to confirm the destruction of those features could not be obtained. The intervening positions could not be located in dense rush overgrowth. The unevenness of the ground here together with the pattern of grassland nearby suggests the field has had coal waste graded over it at some point since the range went out of use, part of the field being reclaimed and now used for pasture.
Before the time of the OS Second Edition map (1904), however, it is clear that there had been a change in the way the range was used. The original targets and butts had been removed - perhaps erased - and new targets created; one some 20-30 yards behind the old ones and another in the south-west corner of the field at SN95680522, both sites now in the opencast area. As these are described as `old targets? the range had gone out of use before 1904. However, it is believed to have come back into use briefly during the First World War.
