Funniest range bet I've witnessed was while shooting with a post AMU. We had 18 enlisted men on the team, plus the CO, who was a 1st LT. We practiced daily, and the 16 high averages went to next match(s) as shooting members, on one of the four man teams. The three low averages also went to matches, but as alternates.
Fortunately, our CO was a great guy. He and an E5 and a Spec 3 were always vying for a slot on a team. They had a running bet of a beer on every shot in the 20 round practice string. (Low score on each shot bought a round for all three). Their scores were consistently so close that no one got hurt at the end of the day.
One day, the E5 got hold of the LT's ammo can, pulled the bullet on one round, dumping about a fourth of the powder out, pushed bullet back in and replaced it in the box. Everyone on the team except LT knew what he had done. Half the team went to the pits to pull targets for the rest of us. Offhand string was first and, of course, we were all waiting anxiously.
Finally, LT called a 5 (old 5V targets) at 6 o'clock and when his target came up, it was followed by the red "Maggies drawers"! Amazingly, only the top half of the spotter was barely visible over the low berm in front of the targets.
A miss was unheard of on the team and the team member in the pits was enjoying waving the flag until LT had enough, called pits and had them "pull and paste", then grumbled, "I knew it was low but I sure didn't think it was
that low.
It was several days before the E5 got up enough nerve to tell LT what he had done and picked up the next round of beer.
Regards,
hm