Shootable: find room to shoot, know it's allowed and safe

Three answers, and the reason for each

Every check ends in one of these. Each has its own colour and its own pattern, so you can tell them apart in bright sun or with colour blindness.

Prohibited

A regulation or bylaw bans discharging your firearm at this spot. The answer names it and quotes the section.

Inside Vancouver, any rifle: City of Vancouver By-law 2280.

No prohibition found

Every rule Shootable checks allows it here. You still choose a safe backstop and stay clear of people and buildings.

Comes with the rules that apply everywhere, like 100 m from any dwelling.

Not confirmed

Something here can't be settled from the data yet: a boundary no one has drawn, or a bylaw a person hasn't checked. Shootable won't guess.

Says exactly what's missing, and who to ask.

No prohibition found means the rules Shootable checks don't ban it there. It isn't a permit. When a source changes and hasn't been checked again, the answer drops to Not confirmed until it is.

Open for hunting isn't open for target shooting

Most BC shooting rules were written with hunters in mind, and many of them exempt a licensed hunter. A target shooter on the same spot gets no exemption.

Fraser Valley
No shooting within 400 m of many roadsThe Closed Areas Regulation closes road corridors to shooting, and Shootable draws them on the map.
Town bylaws
A hunting season doesn't open a townMany towns ban discharge everywhere, or allow it only in mapped zones while hunting. Shootable reads the bylaw and its map.
Shot only
Your firearm changes the answerSome areas allow shotguns with shot but no rifles or slugs. Air guns and bows count as firearms in some bylaws and not in others.

What every answer checks

Each check shows where it comes from and how old your copy is.

Closed areasAll 221 areas in BC's Closed Areas Regulation (B.C. Reg. 76/84) that restrict shooting: no-shooting areas, shot-only areas, seasonal closures and specified Crown land.
Town and regional bylawsEvery municipality and regional district in BC. A bylaw counts only after a person has read its text against the source.
Parks and reservesProvincial parks and ecological reserves, and regional parks whose bylaws ban discharge.
Recreation sitesBC recreation sites, where firing into the developed area isn't allowed.
First Nations reservesReserve land answers Not confirmed, with a note to contact the Nation.
Fire and evacuation ordersBC Wildfire Service area restrictions and local evacuation orders close the area. Fire bans are listed, including exploding targets.
Rules that apply everywhere100 m from any dwelling, school, church or occupied farm building, and the highway road allowance. Listed on every answer.

RifleShotgun with shotShotgun with slugsHandgunMuzzleloaderAir gun, low powerAir gun, high powerBow or crossbow

Restricted and prohibited firearms get their own answer: approved ranges only.

Safety comes with every answer

Knowing where shooting is allowed is half of it. Shootable puts the rest on the same screen, and says Not confirmed instead of guessing.

The rules that apply everywhereEvery answer lists them, even No prohibition found: more than 100 m from any dwelling, school, church or occupied farm building, and never from a highway's road allowance.

Checked around your GPS accuracyNear a boundary, Shootable checks a ring as wide as your GPS error. If any part of it falls where shooting is prohibited, the answer is Not confirmed, not a guess about which side you're on.

Fire and evacuation ordersWildfire area restrictions and evacuation orders close the area. They're refreshed every 2 hours in fire season, and an answer without a recent copy says so.

Restricted firearmsHandguns and other restricted firearms get one answer anywhere outside an approved range: Prohibited, with the reason.

Downrange checkPro shows mapped buildings, roads, trails and property lines in your line of fire, out to your cartridge's danger distance. See how it works.

Daylight, wind and fire dangerPro adds the day's light, wind, lightning and fire danger for the spot, so you know before you drive out.

The basics still come first. ACTS and PROVE from your firearms safety course, a safe backstop, a clear line of fire, and no shooting toward anything you can't see past.

Pro · safety

Know what's downrange before you shoot

A spot can be open to shooting and still be the wrong place to shoot toward. The downrange check shows what's mapped in your line of fire, out to the distance your cartridge can carry.

Pick your firearm and cartridge.Shootable uses its danger distance: how far a round can travel if it misses or ricochets. About 1.2 km for a 12-gauge slug, 1.5 to 1.8 km for a .22 LR and 3 to 7 km for most centrefire rifles, a little farther the higher you are.
Point the way you'll shoot.Turn the arc on the map, or face that way with your phone.
See what's in the arc.Buildings, roads, forest roads, trails and property lines, nearest first, each with its distance. Parks and closed areas in the arc are flagged too.

Mapped features only. A tent, a vehicle or a person isn't on any map: confirm your target and what's beyond it every time.

In your line of fire.22 LR · 1.5 km · bearing 30°

Forest road640 m

Trail900 m

Building (cabin)1.1 km

Property line1.3 km

Pro · longer shots

Find a lane, not just a spot

Past 300 m the question changes from "may I shoot here?" to "where can I shoot from here?". The lane finder works outward from the spot you're standing on and shows the bearings worth walking.

Pick your distance band.100 to 300 m, 300 to 600 m, out to 1,500 m.
See the lanes.Bearings where the ground-level line of sight reaches a target in your band, the ground rises behind it, and nothing mapped sits in the fan past it. Bearings with a building, park or closed area in the fan are left out.
Keep the lane.A lane card holds the targets, bearings, ground profile and your parking spot, with the date it was checked. It stays on your phone.

Mapped terrain and features only. Walk the lane, confirm the backstop and what's beyond it.

Illustration with invented data.

Pro: plan the day, check downrange, work without signal

The answer is always free, and so is anything that changes it. Pro is for the trip: saving a region for no signal, knowing when the rules change, and checking what's beyond your target.

Offline regionsSave a region at home and every rule layer works with no signal.
Rule-change alertsClosed-area amendments, bylaw changes and fire orders near your saved spots, and a re-check of every saved spot when the data changes: a new mapped building in your fan, a lost verification, a closure.
Downrange checkMapped buildings, roads, trails and property lines inside your firearm's danger distance. Mapped features only: confirm your target and what's beyond it.
Plan an areaCheck a forest road or a whole area before you drive out, not one pin at a time.
Private saved spotsAs many as you like, kept on your phone. Never shared, ranked or put on a map for anyone else.
Conditions and wind windowWind, rain, lightning, daylight and the day's fire danger for the spot, plus the hours when the crosswind on your lane is low and the sun isn't in your scope.
Drive thereOffline directions on mapped forest roads to a saved spot, by road name, with km boards and radio channels where they're published.

For longer shots

For shooting past 300 m on Crown land. All of it is part of Pro.

Lane finderFrom your spot, the bearings with ground-level line of sight to a target in your distance band, rising ground behind it, and nothing mapped in the fan past it. Computed from terrain and mapped features only.
Lane cardsA saved lane with ranged targets, azimuths, the ground profile, your parking spot and a dated check, kept on your phone and shared only when you choose.
Offline imageryThis season's satellite imagery saved with a region, so a cutblock or gravel pit looks the way it does now.

CA$24.99 a year14 days free, then billed yearly

CA$4.99 a monthFor one trip or fire season. Cancel anytime

Subscriptions are billed through Google Play or the App Store and renew until you cancel.

Where shooting may be allowed. Never where people go.

Shootable answers questions about places, not people. There are no popular spots, no heat maps and nothing ranked.

Checks run on your phoneThe rules are downloaded to the app, so the spot you check isn't sent anywhere to get an answer. With signal, only the map tiles load from a map server.
Saved spots stay on your phoneThey aren't uploaded, pooled with other people's or used to rank anything.
No coordinates in analyticsWe count how the app is used, never where.

Find room to shoot. Know it's allowed and safe.