Doug Long is one happy guy.

For one thing, the well-traveled Cullman resident is pretty pumped up about where he lives. For another, he has a job that directly taps his passion for firearms and shooting. And his commute — from the place he loves to live to the place he loves to work — is delightfully short. At home or at work, he’s in his element.

Effusive and affable, Long’s the sort of guy who’s grateful for each and every one of the superlatives in his life.

And when the doors to Cullman Shooting Sports, the brand-new indoor gun range he’s been placed in charge of, officially open sometime in early to mid-November, it’ll be hard for him to talk about his workplace without raiding a whole arsenal’s worth of superlatives.

“This is a grand facility,” he says, in a voice that conveys a spirit of sheer giddy awe more than of braggadocio. “And we’ve placed it in a community that’s just so supportive. There was never really a question as to whether we wanted to put this in Cullman. We knew we did.

“Once this place is open, it’ll be something that no other city has; a place that people will travel for. Not even Nashville has a 110-yard indoor shooting range. We want it to be accessible for everyone. We want it to be the gold standard for a modern shooting range in the United States. And we definitely want it to be the exact opposite of a country club with guns.”

The vision of local oncologist and Cullman Shooting Sports owner Dr. Johnny Nacilla, the facility — located just outside the Cullman City limits at the intersection of Alabama Highway 69 and Alabama Highway 157 — is, in Long’s words, “39,000 square feet of awesome.”

With a high-powered rifle target range of 110 yards (a true 100 meters), Cullman Shooting Sports will be the home of the longest above-ground gun range in the entire Southeastern United States. It’s one of only four 110-yard ranges — indoor or outdoor — anywhere in the same region. Eight lanes across, the rifle range is separated from the rest of the facility by an airlock.

The complex boasts a rental counter — as well as an in-house firearms boutique set up more like a jewelry store than a typical gun shop — with a pro staff and an opportunity to rent and sample every model available for sale just yards away, in live-fire testing at one of the shooting lanes.

Each of those lanes is equipped with its own fully-customizable Action Target retriever shuttle and accompanying range control computer, allowing shooters of every skill level to dial up myriad targeting scenarios. There’re even light fixtures designed to flash blue and red, simulating an emergency response environment — an additional bit of realism for shooters training in law enforcement roles.

“I have not seen a range anywhere that has this targeting system installed on all its lanes,” said Long. “You might see it on one bay — but you’re not gonna see it on all of them. We will have adjustable stall tables in the rifle range that are deep enough to allow you to set up your bipod and shoot prone. That’s something that you just don’t often see.”

The ventilation system — a tailor-made piece of engineering intended to overwhelmingly mitigate an environmental hazard endemic to all indoor ranges — cost half a million dollars. Long said he’s not at liberty to divulge the construction project’s overall cost, but the expense not spared on the ventilation system alone “should give you some idea.”

“What’s coming out of these vents is hospital-quality air,” he said. “We have twelve HEPA filters that are pre-filtered — the same as in a surgical environment.”

An obsessive degree of attention and expense has been lavished on making the place quiet. Shooting bays in both the facility’s firing ranges are outfitted with fiber-woven acoustic paneling supplied by Troy Acoustics, the go-to industry supplier of sound absorption and noise abatement systems. A prodigious amount of concrete went into the firing ranges’ extra-thick walls.

“In the shooting areas, we will probably be one of the quietest ranges you’ll find,” said Long. “All the echoes should be greatly reduced. You’ll always still be wearing ear and eye protection, and there’ll always be an NRA-certified safety officer on the range. We want it to be safe, quiet and user friendly. We went to a tremendous amount of expense on the acoustics; on the concrete, but we think it’s just a great investment.

“Above all, we want to be safe — and we want to be good neighbors.”

Flexibility, ease of access, and a relaxed and welcoming environment for shooters both new and seasoned have all been thought into the facility’s design, as well as its slate of training and simulation programs.

“When you walk through that front door, everybody’s equal here,” said Long. “It’s a place to help make new shooters better, and to make good shooters great. The beauty of this facility is that we’re attracting some of the very best trainers; incredibly skilled people who want to come here and teach.

“We’re responsive to the needs of new shooters as well as experienced ones. Old, young; male, female. Fifty-five percent of new shooters are women, and we are going to have training that is specifically designed for them.”

Placing a world-class shooting sports facility in Cullman, said Long, reflects a certain confidence in the community’s demonstrated support for recreational options of all kinds.

“We already thought our idea would work here, and then we did a National Shooting Sports Foundation study of this area to see if the numbers would work — and guess what? It came back, and of course the numbers worked!” he said.

“It makes sense, because just look at what’s here already, even in the public sphere: the [Cullman Wellness an] Aquatic Center — that’s a world class facility. The [Stony Lonesome] OHV park, which is so unique and which people really support. Whether it’s law enforcement, local government, our schools or just the local economy and the people themselves, the Cullman community has really gotten behind these projects and helped sustain them and make them grow. It’s an exciting place for us to be.”

To learn more about Cullman Shooting Sports and watch for an announcement of its official opening date, follow “CSSRANGE” on Facebook or visit cssrange.com.

Cullman Shooting Sports is located just outside the Cullman City limits at the intersection of Alabama Highway 69 and Alabama Highway 157