Bizzare range stories

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danprkr

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For a long time I worked graveyard, and would often go to the range first thing in the morning when I got off. Often during the middle of the week. The result was that I had the range to myself frequently. It was really nice. I got to be friends with the crusty old codger who was the range master, and learned a lot from him.

Well one day I'm plinking away, and I catch some movement out of the corner of my eye. My first thought was some idiot was going downrange to hang targets without calling a cease fire. So, I stopped firing and cleared my weapon. Only then did I look over and see the full grown COW just sauntering along. It had come up from behind me, across the firing line, and was headed down range, around the berm. No idea where it came from or went, but it disappeared into the trees behind the berm, and was apparently totally unconcerned with my firing.

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to have a huge Bar B Que that weekend, but I was just so dumb struck I couldn't think to shoot it. ;)

Anyone else have any weird stories like this. Preferably not stupid people stories, we have plenty of them, but just odd things that have happened to/around you at the range.
 
Um, cease fire called for alot of reason
favorite

Red cock headed woodpecker
It was an AT4 range, afterwords a buddy hit the tree the dumb bird flew into,
apparently he has a nasty flinch when firing the rocket, it's a bit of whump you know.
 
The OP reminded me of way back in the early 80s we used to drive out behind Travis AFB in California to shoot pistols. The cows were all quite indifferent to the sound of the guns going off. One day as I was gathering my stuff to leave, one of those plastic shopping bags flew in on the ever-present stiff breeze and caught on the barbwire fence. The sound of that bag flapping angrily in the wind caused the cows to kick up dirt with their hooves trying to get away from it.
 
i've had to stop for deer walking in front of and behind the targets - during rifle deer season.

one time i was sharing the range w/ a prominent local doc and his son, and a few other guys. doc has many african trips under his belt, a few guided elk, caribou, bear, etc... only shoots custom rifles, is partial to s&b optics... he does pretty well for himself financially. doc was trying to teach his kid to shoot a 340 weatherby, and it just wasn't going well. anyway, doc would have his boy shoot one, and then call for a cease fire so he could walk downrange to look for the bullet hole. meanwhile, the rest of the shooters, many of which were as poor or financially unstable as they could be would peer thru their spotting scopes to find their groups. just thought it was pretty ironic that the guy there w/ the most means to acquire something as common and necessary on a rifle range as a spotter wouldn't buy one...
 
Ben, trust me,
ask any soldier how to say it who has been posted to bragg
us poor paratroopers just cant seem to wrap our mouths around that fancy of a word


Other time, was when my sergeant decided to drive on to a live helicopter gunnery range, I mean it was so bad the lieutenant banned him from reading a map and driving. His excuse, as we poor peons screamed excitedly about dying, was that was where the GPS said to go....
Never mind the many signs we passed or that everybody but him seem to know where that road went... The range didn't go cold (lucky for us, they were using the far targets) but when I was talking to the pilot later, she was a little surprised to see us come out of the woods under her firing point.
 
The sound of that bag flapping angrily in the wind caused the cows to kick up dirt with their hooves trying to get away from it.
Click to expand...

Cows are notional funny creatures that way.
 
Have had the RO call a cease fire for deer that cross the range while it is full to the max Saturday afternoon, people waiting on the bleachers!

Knob Creek Range KY
 
Mine happened while I was shooting in an IDPA match. I was on the firing line, loaded & holstered.

"Shooter Ready?" "Ready"

"Standby!"

BEEEP! - and as if on cue, a huge beaver pops up on top of the berm, not ten yards away.

I had already drawn, so I looked at the safety officer and said "Is this part of the stage?"
He laughed and said "No." I asked "Well, can I shoot it???"
He said "You can, but if you do, you have to eat it, and we don't have a grill."
 
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alohachris

Don't be that way! We want to know. Did you shoot at it? If so did you hit it? Don't be a tease.
 
At our weekly evening silhouette match last week, a pronghorn buck ambled out in front of the firing line about 25 yards downrange. We walked out to spook him off, he just kept ambling until he was out of the danger zone. A pretty common occurance at our range both with deer and pronghorns.
 
I usually set up balloons near the targets and as were moving toward them shooting with rifles or carbines we then switch to shotguns with birdshot for the balloons. Well...during break time my gf and friend were filling up balloons with air and I turned around to see my friend with a long balloon and two round rounds tied together hanging from a certain area with a shotgun slung around his shoulder. Twas hilarious.
 
Military operations in urban terrain
think shoot house, but more like shoot town...

Naked, your brave did range control save the video?
 
The beaver got away...

I didn't shoot because the IDPA club is guests of the county sheriffs and we shoot at their range. The saftey officer was a sheriff so I was a little afraid of violating some wildlife ordanance and going to jail.
 
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We were in MCT, Marine Combat Training. At the M60 range. We go through all the warning how we weren't allowed to shoot anything other than targets at the range. About 5 minutes into the firing an 8 pt. whitetail walks onto the M60 range. Of course everyone yells "Cease Fire" and everyone stops.

The instructor looks around. Looks around again. And yells "SHOOT IT!!!".

20 M60s open up on this deer which simply just runs across the range and into the woods on the other side unscathed...

Then we were sitting at Viagus (or however you spell it) Island in Peurto Rico. 14 Amtracks sitting on the range and the range master is a total codpiece. Yelling at us how we weren't allowed to shoot into the water. Yelling that it costs upteen millions of dollars in fines and studies if so much as one .50 cal round enters the water and how he's going to personally throw us off the range if we so much as put half a bullet into the water. This went on for 15 minutes and at the very end of his speech a harrier comes in and drops a 500 lb bomb about 100 yards short of the range sending a geyser of water 80 feet into the water...

You almost couldn't hear the explosion over a platoon of amtrackers lauging their butts off.
 
I was at the range late one day and I was the only one at the range. It was starting to get low light when a huge flock of partridges flys in and lands exactly where I was shooting. They didn't seem to care that the ground where they were wanting to hang out had dirt flying here and there. I didn't shoot any that day, but since then I have taken up upland game hunting and every time I try to get near a flock of partridge I can't help but think I should have taken atleast one with a .22.
 
Had two children cycling across the top of the bern backstop!! RO called ceasefire pretty quick on that. No idea how they didnt see the red flags. Several shooters were shooting Enfields so its not like they couldnt have heard the shots.. It was only a 50 yrd range as well.

Talk about dangerous!!
 
When I was stationed at Charleston AFB, one of the CATM guys was telling us a story about a day they were shooting when someone noticed little legs dangling down from the louvers over the targets. Some kids had climbed up in there to watch!
 
Stopped by the gun club range late one night to use a portajohn and look for brass with a flashlight (long story), and had a couple of badgers come out of a hole in the side berm and announce their displeasure with me interrupting their evening.

Once when I was a kid, I went shooting with an older brother at this place in the country where people went, a "Bubba Range", I call 'em. We were talking with a feller, when his kid came racing up out of the woods, all excited and in a big hurry to leave, like right now! We stayed for awhile, and when we got home our dad told us he'd heard on the radio that some guy working on a nearby oil drilling rig had gotten hit by a .22 bullet, at about the same time that kid came running out of the woods. Obviously, the little jerk was popping off shots at the drilling rig and realized he'd hit somebody.
 
M60 range at Ft Gordon. 1967.
They had biig hollow mounds where a couple guys would sit and hoist targets at various ranges.

We were blazing away when some fool ran out of one over to the side to take a leak.

We also had to cease fire pretty often to put out fires started by tracers.

One morning it snowed so hard for several hours that you could not see 50 feet-thickest snowfall I ever saw.

No authorization to cease training, so we spent the rest of the day firing into the blizzard.
 
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