Red Bank Gun Range business is holding grand re-opening after Methane gas explosion in April

Red Bank, SC 06/20/2023 (Paul Kirby) – A Red Bank area shooting range is holding a Grand Re-Opening and Customer Appreciation Day this Saturday after its business was sidetracked by a freak natural phenomenon that caused an explosion in April of this year. According to Kevin Crapps, the owner of Kilo Charlie Shooting Range on Litton Drive just off Two Notch Road, the people who investigated this explosion had heard of this type of thing before. “The investigators say that it’s not uncommon for these explosions to happen. In our case, it was just a freak chain of events that could have really hurt a lot of people.”

Crapps said, “This was an underground explosion, not an accidental explosion. I hate they (the news media) even used the term accidental at all,” Crapps continued. “When someone in the firearm industry has the term accident used regarding their business, people automatically think of negligence. That wasn’t the case at all at the range. We couldn’t have predicted nor prevented this from occurring. We in no way contributed to this incident either.” Crapps said that an intensive investigation revealed that the Methane gas was trapped in a pocket caused by the Earth's movement. When the gas found its way to a crack in the earth's surface, it took that path of least resistance and began to escape through the crack. In this case at Kilo Charlie, it was unfortunate this happened while there were eleven individuals on the range. The ignition of the methane gas was caused by a hot shell casing hitting the crack, which eventually led to the chain reaction that resulted in the explosion,” he concluded.

Methane gas is a common product caused by decomposition. It can come from human or animal waste, old organics like rotting leaves, or the decomposition of materials that are buried in the ground at old landfill sites for instance. It can leak into and get captured in manmade structures like sewer manholes and septic tanks or as was the case at Kilo Charlie, the place the gas gets trapped can be a natural pocket in the earth. Methane is explosive and if a person breathes it in long enough, it can be deadly in other ways. A number of years ago, several employees of a local septic tank company were working on a system near Lake Murry and one of them went down into the tank. Methane gas overcame the first man and when the second employee went into the tank to try and rescue his partner, he was also overcome with the gas. Both died before they could be rescued.

Thankfully, no one was seriously injured by the explosion at Kilo Charlie. Crapps said the public’s misunderstanding of what exactly happened at his business did hurt their reputation. “We had news vans camped out alongside Litton Drive for several days after this happened. Their absolute negligence in misreporting this created more damage than the actual explosion itself,” he concluded.

In order to let the community know that Kilo Charlie Shooting Range is back and better than ever, the Grand Re-Opening & customer Appreciation Day is taking place on Saturday, June 24, 2023. Beginning at 12 noon, there will be free range time, raffles, food, ice cold drinks and more. The entire community is invited to attend. The event will draw to a close at 4:00 p.m.

Kilo Charlie is located at 146D Litton Drive, Lexington, SC. For more information, you can call them at (803) 358-0305.