Stone Bay is a satellite facility of

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune ( or ) is a United States Armed Forces, United States military training facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Its of beaches make the base a major area for Amphibious warfare, amphibious assault training, an ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. Based on the south side of Camp Lejeune, it is home to Weapons Training Battalion, which functions as the primary facility for weapons qualifications on Camp Lejeune, having several

shooting range A shooting range, firing range, gun range or shooting ground is a specialized facility, venue, or field designed specifically for firearm usage qualifications, training, practice, or competitions. Some shooting ranges are operated by milita ...

s: three rifle ranges, two pistol ranges, and one long

sniper A sniper is a military or paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with telescopic si ...

range and the headquarters of United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, with the MARSOC compound on Stone Bay opening in 2010. The parent command responsible for the ranges is Weapons Training Battalion (WTBN). WTBN is broken down into two companies, Range Company and Headquarters Company. Headquarters Company contains the Marksmanship Training Unit, which is responsible for training Marines to become Combat Marksmanship Coaches and Combat Marksmanship Trainers in support of range operations. Three of the ranges (Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie respectively) are standard USMC ranges up to 500 yards for rifle qualification. An excess of 25,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune conduct their annual rifle qualifications at Stone Bay. Two pistol ranges are standard USMC known distances. One range is the known and unknown distance sniper course. 1,000 meters is the longest known distance shot on this range. Stone Bay's rifle ranges have also been utilized for the purpose of testing new annual rifle training qualifications for the Marine Corps at several points in its history, most recently during the transition from the Annual Rifle Training (ART) course of fire to the Annual Rifle Qualification (ARQ). The new ARQ course of fire has an intent of replicating combat conditions where participating Marines "Close distance" with a human-sized target starting at the 500 yard line, advancing to the 300, 200, 100, and 25 yard lines over the course of fire conducting numerous shooting drills. In August and September of 2020, a total of 205 Marines from the ranks of Private to Captain completed two trial runs of the ARQ course of fire at Stone Bay utilizing the

M16 rifle The M16 (officially Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of assault rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States Armed Forces, United States military. The original M16 was a 5.56×45mm NATO, 5.56×45mm automatic ...

M4 carbine The M4 carbine (officially Carbine, Caliber 5.56 mm, M4) is a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed in the United States during the 1980s. It is a shortened version of the M16A2 assault rifle. The M4 is extensively used by the US mi ...

, and M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle. The Marine Corps has since adopted ARQ as its standard annual qualifying course of fire for service rifles.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Onslow County, North Carolina United States Marine Corps installations