Bad Range Behavior

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AKElroy

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I was at the range recently; 25 yards, individual tables with benches. A well dressed older gentleman takes the station to my right, a scout leader with a 6 or 7 members of his troop. I thought this was really cool for a professional, straight from work, to spend time teaching kids about guns. He opens a stainless case, and pulls out a gorgeous Desert Eagle .50 AE. He shows the kids how to load a mag, picks up the slide-locked pistol, pops in the loaded mag, and releases the slide. He then PUTS THE GUN ON THE TABLE, FINGER INSIDE THE TRIGGER GUARD, POINTING DIRECTLY AT ME. I jumped up from my station, and used one finger to point his gun downrange & then sat back down. He was red faced angry, and the kids chuckled. What is the worst range behavior you have had to correct?
 
I jumped up from my station, and used one finger to point his gun downrange & then sat back down. He was red faced angry

Completely understandable. Keep in mind he had no idea it was a bad thing do to so, and all he saw was someone jump up and physically push his gun over.

Might just want to say something next time.;)
 
have done the same at one point... but it was a 270 rifle that some ppl sighting in they loaded a 5 shot mag and shot 4 then flopped it onto the table and guncase right at me .... i asked if i could see their SWEET SWEET :rolleyes:gun lol and simply put it back down safely
 
Might just want to say something next time.

I was trying to not embarrass the guy in front of his troop, but the irony of him teaching the kids about safety while I moved his gun downrange was not lost on the kids. I admit I was angry about it. He later offered to let me shoot his AE; I ran three mags through it before he asked for it back. At $3 a round, I figured it was only proper to exact some payment for the offense.
 
I was at the range a couple of weeks ago, and two lanes down it
appeared that a family (Pa, Ma and two 20-something kids)
were taking Ma shooting for the first time. Well, Ma had a Sig
in her hand and was marveling at it as she swept half the patrons
with it. Hell, I took cover behind a shell barrel! Fortunately, one
of her boys put a stop to it pronto, but it was a little unnerving.
I don't mind people new to the sport at all, and welcome them,
but I sure wish they would just sign up for a safety course before
they start blastin' away for the first time. I don't think that's too
much to ask, do you? Shootin' time at the range has really become
an adventure since November, if ya catch my drift. ;)
 
range behaviours

What is the worst range behavior you have had to correct?

Had a dude wander out to change targets while the line was hot. Saw the sides of the M1A front sight start to slide over the white-T-shirt silhouette near automatically. That turned into yanking the muzzle up to vertical and standing up waving my hand vertically in front of my face yelling "Cease Fire! Cease Fire!" Which was surreal as I was the only person among the full firing line to have any sort of military training to respond to either input I was giving.

Nimrod comes back from the line totaly unaware. Just would not get it. As far as he was concerned, he'd never had a problen "yet" so why worry now?

Was shook up enough, I decamped to the pistol range--but that was no good either. RM asked why I was packing up early, and he said dufus had asked him what sort of range he was running, with people shouting at shooters and all. I gave my version, and RM said that dude was unlikely to be back in either of our lifetimes, so, it'd all be good.

I do know I needed some 18 y/o nerve tonic when I got home. Probably better that, than the butt stroke dufus almost got.
 
Was in basic training and we were live fire training in our fox holes. Cease fire was called. The Drill Sergeant was yelling at one of the more dim witted privates in a hole off to my right. The Drill continues to yell at him until he swings around, sweeping the Drill, myself and other soldiers with his M16 until it's pointed 180 degrees from down range. The Drill yells so loud that he then proceeds to loose a round somewhere into Fort Knox. The Drill ran up to him and kicked him in the head like he was punting a football. I thought the kid was dead when we were told to fish his unconscious body out of the fox hole.
 
The Drill Sergeants carry side arms at the range and inform you that if you endanger their lives or the lives of others they can and most likely will shoot you and it would be 100% legal for them to do so. I'm not sure i that's just a scare tactic or not honestly, but the kick to the head was far more impressive than seeing this idiot shot.
 
I was at the public range outside of Ocala a while back and some guy brought his toddler shooting. The little guy kept crying and throwing off his muffs. Even worse he kept trying to run down range while it was hot. :what::eek:

Eventually a group of us asked him to leave since this guy was more concerned about his grouping then the safety of his son.
 
In the early '80s, I was on the Fort Knox Public Range with another officer when a couple of townies showed up to shoot.

We ceased fire so that they could put up targets, then resumed firing. A while later, we called a cease fire so that we could go downrange and change targets. Halfway downrange, we started hearing the "snap, crack!" of bullets passing us. Larry and Daryl (minus the other Daryl) were firing with us fully in view. We yelled for a cease fire and ran back to the firing line. We asked those two morons what they were doing, and whether they saw us down range before they started shooting. They replied, "We wasn't shootin' at ya, we was shootin' PAST ya." We replied, "Do it again, and we'll shot INTO you." We picked up our firearms and headed straight to the range control shack. The two jackasses were gone by the time we got back.

The last time I shot at Stonewall Range near Cleveland, I was swept by the guy immediately to my right. I didn't even have a chance to finish setting up my shooting box before he swept me with a Ruger semi-auto with the action closed. I debated saying something, but since it looked like he was leaving, I preferred just to have him out of my general vicinity. I was zeroing guns for Camp Perry and didn't have a lot of time to do it, having just left another range where I couldn't shoot my .38 Special M1911 because they would only let me shoot jacketed hollow points (which don't even fit in the magazine). Not five minutes later, three guys several stalls to my left were yelling at each other in Serbo-Croatian and wrestling over a loaded Remington 870. I packed my stuff and immediately left. I haven't shot on that range since. It's been 7 or 8 years, and I'll never shoot on that range again because of the total lack of supervision.
 
The public range just outside of yuma AZ has a pretty nice 1000yd rifle range and a good selection of pistol and shot gun ranges. The problem is people seem to miss the giant sign that says ALL targets on the rifle rang must be placed on the 0 yd line. What happens is folks show up and park at the 1k line then walk out to the 900 line and set up their targets and start shooting. Then the rounds bounce off the hard ground and end up all over the place link the pistol range and shot gun range. During an IPSC match we had several rounds fly over us and it didn't take long for a few of the local border patrol guys to fix the problem.
 
The worst behavior I've seen at the range wasn't unsafe or against the rules.

Some jerks with full auto ARs set up some human female manniquins with realistic female masks and wigs about ten to fifteen yards downrange, and amid assorted misogynist comments and laughter, repeatedly riddled them with bullets. Had my daughter been with me at the time, I would have complained to the range. As it was, my opinion of the full-auto community and of my range went a notch lower. I came very close to throwing my weight behind an effort that year to ban full auto weapons from that range.
 
I took my wife shooting about a year ago, for the second time in her life. I made sure that she was properly dressed; high neckline, long sleeves, closed toe shoes, eye/ear pro, and so forth. We're at an indoor range, and assigned to a station on the left side of the shooting line.

Halfway thru the second magazine of the P6, a round of hot brass SOMEHOW makes it down her neckline. She turns to the right 90 degrees and starts to do the HOT HOT HOT dance.

With her finger on the trigger of a loaded and cocked pistol.

With a dozen people shooting in their lanes to the immediate right of her station.

I leap in, grab her right wrist hand and push the gun downrange, and then take it from her when I can pry her fingers off of it. She then started crying that I yelled at her when I told her to 'point that gun downrange!'

<sigh>

That pretty much ended that range trip.
 
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I was at a public range testing some handloads and three guys next to me were sighting in their hunting rifles. I asked for a cease-fire to check targets. They said they didn't need to check theirs, but were OK with me checking mine.

I went to my 25 yard target, marked the holes, and turned around to return. One of the three guys was at the bench, holding his rifle and looking through the scope. I thought he was checking his target, but didn't appreciate it for obvious reasons.

Here's the kicker--when I got within 5 feet of my bench, he FIRED!!! The rat-b*stard inbred POS had the thing locked and loaded while I was down range!!!

I was so angry I was shaking. But three big armed inbreds out at an east BFE range are more than I'm willing to confront. Fuming, I packed my gear and left, looking for a park ranger or cop to at least throw them out (I didn't see one).
 
At the rifle range here you can set targets up out to 2000m before hills are to low to see (next stop would be the cliffs seven miles away). I have a 32x spotting scope I bring with me to check the range. One day we had a guy out there with some sort of large rifle, didn’t stop to ask what it was but it could have easily been a 50 BMG. All I know is that during an all clear he went out to set up some really far out targets. A short time latter people where asking if the range was hot. I picked up my spotting scope and started scanning around where he was supposed to be. My single shot rifle had the bolt open and was on the rack and I was holding the scope in both hands when some guy came up and started chewing me out yelling at me that there could be someone down range. I looked at him and asked him what he though I was doing with a spotting scope and everyone ells on the range asking if the guy was still out there. As it turned out the guy came back while he was yelling at me, I tolled the man I was checking for people, he puffed up like a bull frog and left. i was standing ther going "what was that about?"
 
servantofinari -- spotting scope or rifle scope? Spotting scope is not attached to the gun.
"Spotting Scope" it has a 45 degree off set to the recital and its about as wide as a soft ball. it had a tri pod dangling beneath it! Had I been holding a rifle scope I could have understood him.
 
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Worst I've seen was my last range trip a few weeks ago. It was at a public range that's run by a private club, only 16 shooting stations total, and a minimum of two R.O.'s at any given time. One of their policies is no 'rapid firing' however they're lenient on it to the point of saying no more then 5 rounds every 10 seconds, basically as long as you don't do anything dangerous/stupid/annoying to other shooters, they won't say anything.

Well, of course, some people don't listen. The REASON the R.O. felt the need to point it out during the ceasefire that time is because two guys a couple stations down had come to the range with an AR, and were bump firing the thing. During the ceasefire speech they had to be told to quiet down because they were talking, and the first magazine in after the ceasefire they bump fired. They were of course immediatly removed from the range.

As for the 'Hot! Hot! Hot!' dance, I had one of those the same trip...wearing a shirt underneath my sweat shirt, and SOMEHOW a .45 shell casing from my fathers 1911 finds it way into my shirt....I had the presence of mind to clear the rifle I was firing before laying it on the bench, jumping behind the line, and pulling at my shirts for a minute trying to get the shell out....all the while my father and the two guys shooting with us were laughing and trying to figure out what I was doing....of course once telling them they just laughed more...
 
As for the 'Hot! Hot! Hot!' dance, I had one of those the same trip
Most of us have, but females seem to get it more than the lads, especially if their shirt neckline is a bit low cut.

The worst is when it gets caught between the templepiece of my glasses and my skull. It takes some serious presence of mind to control the weapon while the side of your skull feels like its catching on fire.
 
Both men and women do it. Nobody enjoys participating, everybody enjoys watching.
 
Halfway thru the second magazine of the P6, a round of hot brass SOMEHOW makes it down her neckline. She turns to the right 90 degrees and starts to do the HOT HOT HOT dance.

I had a 9mm case get trapped behind my shooting glasses, right on that really soft skin below the eye. Melted to it; yanked off a little skin when I popped it off. Still have a scar. Never shoot without a ball cap now. Freaking safety glasses actually injured me.
 
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