We used to hold IR 50/50 3-Gun sanctioned matches up here throughout the winter months, only they were designated as being "Modified" matches. The reason was, we used to put up an enclosure around the last 6 benches of the range and shoot through portholes rather than sitting outside and shooting open air matches.
Even though it meant we would be shooting in a different Class, by enclosing the range meant we could run a woodstove in order to help with getting some heat into the place, and to keep everything, including ourselves, a little warmer. But, even with this, it didn't always work out quite as well as one would have hoped.
You see, those 6 benches were sitting on a very thick slab of concrete that also was starting the day out at whatever the extreme lows from the night before were. And that piece of concrete didn't tend to warm up quite as fast as the air above it. So, you had better tried to protect your feet by wrapping them in thermal socks along with insulated boots even though the air might reach a sweltering 45°, at best. That is unless you were the lucky shooter who drew the bench nearest to the woodstove, and then you had better have brough along plenty of clothes to help you protect you from the heat or you'd be going home with blisters on your back-sides from the heat of the stove.
To give you an idea of just how bad it could be, sometimes when I'd be opening the club gate the morning of a shoot, the temperature would be sitting at right around 0°, with an all time low of one morning when it was a blistering -12° below zero. And we're talking Fahrenheit here, not Celsius. Plus, add to that, we tend to also have much more wind during the winter months, so there could be times when those extreme colds would be accompanied by a toddery 15 to 30 MPH wind that would usually be coming out of the north and ripping straight down the range, and blast right through those portholes like nobody's business. You want to talk about having numb fingers!
Finally, after enough years of dealing with the cold, plus the fact of our numbers starting to decline (Gee, I can't understand why?), along with the IR 50/50 organization doing away with the Modified Class as it was, and instead creating the Unlimited Class meaning that whatever we shot throughout the winter months would be carried over and combined with how we shot during the warmer months, and putting us at a severe disadvantage when compared to those who only shot in warm weather shoots, I finally decided to stop holding our little winter get-togethers as there was absolutely no interest in having fun matches under those circumstances.
Dave
When we opened the portals, the mirage was so bad that the bullseyes would completely disappear off the target about 4 times every target. THAT's TOO COLD!