Safe and Sound Outfitters offers classes, indoor archery/firearms ranges

NEW CARLISLE- It’s been less than one year since Safe and Sound Outfitters opened in its new location on Addison-New Carlisle Road. The new retail store and indoor shooting range have already become a popular destination for local shooting and outdoor sports enthusiasts.

“It has been great,” co-owner Mark Hensley said. “There has been a very good turnout.

“We draw traffic from a 50-mile radius,” he said. “There is nothing like this around.”

Featuring a 10,000-square-foot retail showroom, the store offers a full selection of firearms, ammunition, and accessories, bows and archery equipment, deer stands and hunting blinds, Case knives, Liberty gun safes, Milwaukee tools, clothing, Muck Boots, and other outdoor gear. The new location also includes indoor and outdoor archery ranges and one of the most sophisticated indoor rifle and pistol ranges in the local area.

“Basically, we made it a one-stop shop,” Hensley said. “Everything that you can imagine you would do outdoors, we have.”

Located at 1701 Addison-New Carlisle Road, the new store opened in November of 2023. The indoor firearms and archery range opened in February of 2024, Hensley said, after approximately $1.5 million in renovations to the building.

“The building used to be a doctor’s office,” he said. “We re-did the whole thing.”

In the basement, a 25-yard indoor archery range offers virtual targets and hunts ranging from North American game to African safaris.

“It will actually project pictures and actual hunting footage,” Hensley said. “You actually feel like you’re in the stand, and an animal is walking by in front of you.”

“It just gets boring shooting at a piece of paper,” he said. “This adds a little bit of flair to it.”

The archery department also includes three full-time bow techs offering bow stringing and tune-up services, and a 100-yard outdoor archery range with 3-D targets and elevated stands. The indoor range is also available for rental by groups.

“We do kids’ birthday parties, bachelor parties, and bachelorette parties,” Hensley said. “Husbands and wives come in; they can sit here and play each other.”

Safe and Sound Outfitters also offers a state-of-the-art virtual indoor rifle and pistol range featuring approximately 100 different targets and games.

“You bring your own ammo,” Hensley said. “Nobody goes down range. You don’t have to buy paper targets.”

Hensley said all law enforcement officers receive free range time, and there is also a discount for members of the military and first responders. Range memberships are also available. More information can be found online at www.safeandsoundoutfitters.com.

Hensley and his wife, co-owner Taylor Hensley, first opened Safe and Sound Outfitters in July 2020.

“My wife helps me tremendously with this,” he said. “She loves it and has started a program called the Armed Ladies.”

An all-women group, the Armed Ladies meet at Safe and Sound Outfitters on the first Thursday of every month. The group is the second chapter of the Armed Ladies organization, originally started at the Vandalia Range and Armory. “I was a part of that for a couple of years,” Taylor Hensley said. “We asked her if she would start another chapter here, so this is actually the second chapter.”

“It’s just girls,” she said. We spend one hour in the classroom and then one hour together on the range.”

Armed Lady members also receive half-price range time. Other classes offered at Safe and Sound Outfitters include youth archery and the National Shooting Sports Foundation First Shots program.

Originally from Bethel Township and New Carlisle, Mark and Taylor Hensley currently live in Bethel Township with their two sons, Timothy and Thomas.

“They love to come and shoot,” Mark Hensley said. “They take most of the classes they’re allowed to be in.”

“With two little boys, you’re always looking to teach them,” he said. “It’s a passion I’ve always had with firearms and instruction for people who don’t know how to use firearms.”