Hopefully they don't also modify their firearms in such a way that they discharge if dropped
Cold range vs. Hot range
- Thread starter Trent
- Start date
- Status
Hopefully they don't also modify their firearms in such a way that they discharge if dropped
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Highly tuned race/space guns? Oh what ever are the odds?
But at 99% of IDPA/USPSA or similar competitions, no one would have a loaded gun on them unless they are actively shooting, or preparing to under the SO's watch.
Old Dog
Member
Gosh, Sam, I just don't remember saying that ... or even implying such.
And apparently, we have some divergent views as far as the definition of "hot range" vs. "cold range."
Note that training facilities such as Gunsite (which runs a true hot range) does in fact vet all applicants for its classes.
Easy to be in favor of no rules when it's not your own range we're talking about ... but if you are the property owner or on the board of directors of a club, I guarantee you might be thinking a bit differently.
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Did you? I didn't check if you'd said any particular thing. I think you were only referring to "knuckleheads." Not "others." Big difference there.
YIKES! I don't want to shoot, or even STAND, near anyone who feels that "no rules" is a safe and sane way to handle shooting. Good grief! Even the Sainted Colonel could come up with FOUR!
Last edited:
trent,
i think it is very, very important to allow the ccw permit holding members to carry a concealed weapon on range property, provided the weapon is always concealed and is not manipulated in any fashion.
otherwise, i am a proponent of a "cold" range: no manipulation of firearms during a cease-fire.
drawing from a holster should be permitted at a certain time and location under the direct supervision of an nra certified rso.
murf
i think it is very, very important to allow the ccw permit holding members to carry a concealed weapon on range property, provided the weapon is always concealed and is not manipulated in any fashion.
otherwise, i am a proponent of a "cold" range: no manipulation of firearms during a cease-fire.
drawing from a holster should be permitted at a certain time and location under the direct supervision of an nra certified rso.
murf
Talk about a straw man
We are simply talking about letting people work from the holster, or letting people carry a loaded and holstered handgun.
At no time did anybody say anything at all about no rules.
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Ok, hold on. Cold or Hot range, there is NEVER supposed to be any manipulation of firearms on a range during a cease fire.
The primary difference between "Cold" and "Hot" is whether firearms are to be strictly UNLOADED when not being shot, or if they can be left loaded at all times.
Hence, when you finish a stage in IDPA or USPSA and the SO tells you to, "Unload, Show Clear, If Clear Slide Forward, Pull the Trigger, and Holster," that's standard Cold Range practice.
If, after shooting, you top off, safety, and holster, and then are free to paste targets, head off to the bathroom, go back to your car, and do other range activities with that gun loaded -- THAT's a "hot" range.
In neither case would ANYONE be allowed to handle weapons when not on the line shooting, and/or during a cease fire.
Well, that seems to be tying up range staff to supervise every person who might be practicing on their own in a pit range. Can't say as I'm all for that. I see why it might "feel" necessary to some, though.
Chief Day USN RET
Member
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2014
- Messages
- 49
I wouldn't go to a range which required me to unload in the parking lot. That would make the check in area a GUN FREE ZONE and we all know how dangerous those are.
First, full disclosure, I read page one only.
I can see both sides to the 'hot' and 'cold' debate. My guess is, and this is completely uneducated, is that cold is probably marginally safer in the aggregate. But I would not at all be surprised if there is no statistcal difference.
Shooting from a holster is a different story altogether. I wouldnt get near a bunch of strangers practicing drawing live weapons from holsters. No way. I understand the need to be good at it but I also understand the potential for NDs this creates. And you can be as philisophical as you want about it. Im not getting near it. I am lucky enough to have a private place to shoot and practice myself.
I can see both sides to the 'hot' and 'cold' debate. My guess is, and this is completely uneducated, is that cold is probably marginally safer in the aggregate. But I would not at all be surprised if there is no statistcal difference.
Shooting from a holster is a different story altogether. I wouldnt get near a bunch of strangers practicing drawing live weapons from holsters. No way. I understand the need to be good at it but I also understand the potential for NDs this creates. And you can be as philisophical as you want about it. Im not getting near it. I am lucky enough to have a private place to shoot and practice myself.
How much experience do you have at public ranges that allow working form the holster?
Because some of us, myself included, have a lot of such experience. It isn't a problem. In fact, people not working out of holsters, in my experience, present far more of a danger to other people.
Well, I suppose I should phrase that to say that working from a holster or not is an insignificant factor in determining muzzle sweeps/risk to others
Fair enough point Warp. I have little that I can remember. But I do believe that, and this could also be wrong, that holstering and unholstering are a major factor for negligent discharge. Again this could be a case where perception is different from reality.
I will have to admit I do not have a lot of faith in the general publics ability to control themselves. And that gets worse every year. That is not just about guns but just a general statement. I have always been uneasy at gun ranges and have have at different times in my life spent years not going to them at all. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with concealed carry. I am perfectly comfortable with people carrying. It is the act of shooting I think that makes me nervous.
I almost exclusively shoot on private land.
Over the years I have noticed a repetitive theme:
People are always worrying about things they lack experience with.
PS: If in/out of holster is a factor in ND's, they are the type of ND that primarily risks injury to the shooter, not other people.
People are always worrying about things they lack experience with.
PS: If in/out of holster is a factor in ND's, they are the type of ND that primarily risks injury to the shooter, not other people.
tactikel
Member
I share the concerns of many about safety issues associated with hot ranges. A range should be a place to learn and practice shooting skills. Since we now have concealed carry in Ill. It is more important then ever to provide a place for CC practice. Perhapse a session with a RSO to qualify for a sticker for their range ID to allow holster draw. Certain days set aside for holster draw with a supervising RSO may allow the enjoyment of all aspects of shooting in a safe manner.
Of course not.
But it gets old when they argue until they are blue in face about how these things they think will be a problem, will be a problem...when faced with people who have actual experience who are saying it is not a problem.
It's like the antis who worry about shall issue leading to regularly shootings from road rage. Or antis (or "pro gunners") who worry about legal college campus carry resulting in accidents or shootings. Or people who worry about legal open carry resulting in a rash of gun grabs.
These things all already exist in many states and have for a long time, and they are not a problem.
The same is true of public ranges that allow work from the holster.
larryh1108
Member
Another man's opinion.
1) Carrying concealed should mean they can carry onto the range. To say they can't is backwards for a gun range.
2) I do not support ever allowing drawing from a holster to shoot on a range with any one else present. If you look at it logically, when is the most likely time to have an ND? When you are drawing or reholstering. Sorry, I don't want to be anywhere near the newbie gunslinger practicing his new draw with his new, hi-cap pistol. There are too many morons out there who don't think they are the problem. Now, if the posted rules say no drawing from a holster, you can't do it whille you are carrying concealed and you can't do it if anyone else is present. Of course, human nature as it is, no one is there to stop someone who is drawing from a holster if he is the only one present. However, I'm sure you'll see the holes from the less experienced shooters and will be thankful they weren't near anybody else when it occured.
3) I believe that the average poster, here, is a lot more gun safety orientated than the newbie shooter who is short on common sense and long on testosterone. Don't kid yourselves, they are out there. They have every right to go to the range but they also need to learn to follow rules and to learn firearm safety from experience, not from a book or lecture. IL just got their CCW permits and I'm sure there will be a lot more inexperienced shooters at the ranges. I believe they are the ones who need hard, fast, rules, not the experienced shooters like we have here. Safety is, and always will be, the #1 factor in any range. You have to eliminate to most common causes of accidents and, unfortunately, that is handling your firearms while holstering or unholstering it. Just watch the youtube of the officer teaching safe gun handling a few months back. Now imagine a group of newbies practicing their draw on a hot day with their girlfriends present. No thanks.
1) Carrying concealed should mean they can carry onto the range. To say they can't is backwards for a gun range.
2) I do not support ever allowing drawing from a holster to shoot on a range with any one else present. If you look at it logically, when is the most likely time to have an ND? When you are drawing or reholstering. Sorry, I don't want to be anywhere near the newbie gunslinger practicing his new draw with his new, hi-cap pistol. There are too many morons out there who don't think they are the problem. Now, if the posted rules say no drawing from a holster, you can't do it whille you are carrying concealed and you can't do it if anyone else is present. Of course, human nature as it is, no one is there to stop someone who is drawing from a holster if he is the only one present. However, I'm sure you'll see the holes from the less experienced shooters and will be thankful they weren't near anybody else when it occured.
3) I believe that the average poster, here, is a lot more gun safety orientated than the newbie shooter who is short on common sense and long on testosterone. Don't kid yourselves, they are out there. They have every right to go to the range but they also need to learn to follow rules and to learn firearm safety from experience, not from a book or lecture. IL just got their CCW permits and I'm sure there will be a lot more inexperienced shooters at the ranges. I believe they are the ones who need hard, fast, rules, not the experienced shooters like we have here. Safety is, and always will be, the #1 factor in any range. You have to eliminate to most common causes of accidents and, unfortunately, that is handling your firearms while holstering or unholstering it. Just watch the youtube of the officer teaching safe gun handling a few months back. Now imagine a group of newbies practicing their draw on a hot day with their girlfriends present. No thanks.
How much experience do you have at public ranges that allow working from the holster?
Also, I find your attitude towards fellow shooters (and not just yours, many here) to be quite derisive. Does it make all of us feel great about ourselves to constantly put down everybody else?
I think one of the reasonable concessions to safety would be to say that drawing from a holster and other practical handgunning/fighting-with-a-gun skills are welcomed only in the 270-degree pits
I should have mentioned this earlier; a lot depends on your facility. For example, one range I go to has conventional 'coldish' ranges (CCW OK, but no working from the holster), but they also have some lanes - areas maybe 25 feet wide by 25 to 50 yards deep, with the berm on one narrow end and surrounded by those giant stackable concrete blocks to a height of 8 feet plus. The only open part is the other narrow end. Those are single party lanes; you can have multiple people in your party, or be alone, but it's for your party's sole use. You can work from the holster, put up multiple targets, shoot-n-move, or whatever in those, as long as you're hitting the berm.
If you can do something like that, then only willing members of the party are at risk, unlike a shared range where 30 people are shoulder to shoulder.
I should have mentioned this earlier; a lot depends on your facility. For example, one range I go to has conventional 'coldish' ranges (CCW OK, but no working from the holster), but they also have some lanes - areas maybe 25 feet wide by 25 to 50 yards deep, with the berm on one narrow end and surrounded by those giant stackable concrete blocks to a height of 8 feet plus. The only open part is the other narrow end. Those are single party lanes; you can have multiple people in your party, or be alone, but it's for your party's sole use. You can work from the holster, put up multiple targets, shoot-n-move, or whatever in those, as long as you're hitting the berm.
If you can do something like that, then only willing members of the party are at risk, unlike a shared range where 30 people are shoulder to shoulder.
Not only that, but it is far more usable and practical to be able to fire in a direction other than straight ahead.
RetiredUSNChief
Member
Hmmm...I think I get it now.
In an indoor range, I'm not much for caring one way or the other, but would prefer to have my carry pistol on my person at all times. In fact, I can't think of an indoor range I've been to in the last few years which cared about this one way or the other.
At an outdoor range, however...bugger all if I'm not going to be allowed to have my carry pistol on me at all times. I will NOT go down range for any reason whatsoever without being armed. Color me paranoid, paint me stupid...I don't care.
It's my opinion that the only place where you will see more people who are ignorant or dangerous around weapons than at a liberal arts political rally on a college campus will be at a gun range. I would wager that anybody on this site who regularly shoots at a public range, perhaps even a private range, knows exactly what I'm talking about. If not, then like a bike rider who hasn't laid down his bike yet, it's only a matter of time.
I carry my weapon on me for a reason. That reason is no more diminished at a gun range than it is at all the gun-free zones we see on the TV news.
THAT SAID:
Drawing from a holster introduces a whole 'nother level of issues that a Range Officer (if present) has to be aware of and watch for. I understand the reasoning for either restrictions (such as no shoulder holster drawing) or outright prohibiting it. It is difficult enough to keep a proper eye on a dozen or more people at one time who are, essentially, "bench shooting".
I may not like this, but that's OK...I can go elsewhere if I need to.
Sam has nailed the concept I am talking about with a "hot" range.
Holstered, loaded sidearms for self-defense purposes only!
There would never be weapons handling at any point during a cease fire, (when the range goes cold) while people are down-range. The issue here is will people be allowed to keep a firearm on them for self-defense during these cease fires or while going about other business on the range.
A separate (but related) issue the board wants to address is practicing live fire from a holster.
We do have a higher-than-average safety factor on the range. Our waiting list is *10 years plus*. No one wants to get expelled for breaking the rules. It's a good, private, low-membership range.
Do we have people who are less gun savvy than others? Sure!
Can we take steps to address this and do it safely? I feel we can.
I want to present a set of rules which honors peoples rights to self-defense and allows them to improve skills for self-defense, while not creating an unsafe environment (e.g. free for all) in the process.
As far as holster retention; a good holster should allow you to do damn near anything without any risk of droppage. I've worn my Glock 19 every day, all day, for 3 months now without issue; including doing lots of physical work gardening (tilling the garden, planting, weeding), teaching classes, installing servers at work, etc. At no time has the firearm budged. (IWB Blade Tech Nano holster, holds it solid as a rock in the hollow behind my right hip.)
By the same token - I was shooting last Friday with a friend who was pocket carrying a single stack XD compact in a crappy generic nylon holster. Took him about 2 whole minutes to dig the gun out of his pants pockets. We had a chat about "getting a better holster". He's a club member; received his CCW instruction from another instructor... it was definitely sub-par training (or maybe he slept through the class?).
So I understand what people are saying about CCL holders not being "reliably good."
UPDATE:
I passed the "draw badge" concept to another board member today, as well as use of the 270 degree range exclusively for draw practice. The idea I had is to have members be evaluated by one of the three club concealed carry instructors and receive specific instruction on drawing and firing safely, as well as what holsters are appropriate for doing so at the range (e.g. shoulder holsters, small of back, and crossdraw wouldn't be allowed due to sweeping issues). Guests or members without the 'validation' would not be allowed to practice live fire from the draw. Whether we issue a badge or sticker for the range card is irrelevant, what is relevant is it would (help) weed out people who haven't received specific instructions on drawing and reholstering properly and safely, know what gear is allowed, and to prevent the random guest brought by a member from playing Mall Ninja and shooting himself in the leg and bleeding out on our range.
The other board member was very receptive to the ideas. (And he was one "on the fence" last night about the subject).
Now over the next month, I just need to call the other board members for a 1 on 1 and see if I can stack the odds in my favor of this idea.
I value safety first - I've lost a family member to a negligent discharge - but I also value "shall not be infringed" and realize people can only improve their abilities if they have a venue to do so.
larryh1108
Member
None. I don't feel a public range is a place to learn how to draw. It's borne from the knuckleheads I have seen along with the fact that most NDs are caused by holstering or unholstering a pistol. Combine knuckleheads with the most common reason for an ND and you have a recipe for disaster. I don't know any public ranges that do allow drawing and firing. I'm guessing it's for a reason. I'm sure they are out there but I don't use them.
Well, watching knuckleheads (briefly since I choose to leave rather than wait for them to screw up) has skewed my opinion.
If you've read the countless threads on what members here have witnessed at gun ranges, you can see that our opinions have merit. No, it's not all newbies but when you are dealing with firearms, it only takes one testosterone filled show off to make a bad day for someone. I prefer I am not that someone.
There is a pattern here.
I am well aware of the many things people have done, do, and will do at ranges.
The vast majority of which are unrelated to working from the holster. And, when they are related to working from the holster, almost exclusively put the shooter at risk to themselves, not others.
How many people have been shot by another person, who was working from the holster, as a result of the other person working from the holster?
I've been muzzle swept many times and seen many unsafe things at ranges, but I cannot recall a single instance where it resulted from somebody else working their draw.
There was one guy who dropped his gun, actually kind of threw it forward past the line, but I don't think he violated rule #3 and he knew not to go beyond the line until it was cold. But that was a police recruit on the clock at the academy, not a public range. And he was a fine shot, he just blew it on that sequence that one time (it was a really really fast sequence).
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Well, shucks, that would really make several tens of thousands of folks across the country sad every weekend, when told their IDPA and USPSA and ICORE competitions were all shut down.
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Folks, I appreciate everyone's positions, but in the spirit of helping Trent formulate his postition statement for his board members, let's try to be extra patient and polite to each other. This has the possibility of getting kind of personal, with the "have you evers" and the "no but I've seen..." sides of the argument cutting at each other. I certainly feel a tendency to get hot about it myself, so let's just ease back a little and give all due credence to the opposing side's views: To wit, yes drawing from a holster may be new territory for some folks and heightened caution is not unwarranted, but also NO, it is not reasonable to tell the world's new carry permit holders that they aren't welcomed to come to A GUN RANGE to practice the skills they most desperately need. That's like demanding someone get all cleaned up before they can take a bath. I think both sides can agree to those points, at the very least.
...
It sounds like 'most everyone is cool with the idea of a concealed defensive sidearm (at least) being carried, so long as it stays in the holster at all times. That's a good step, though it can be a bit of a trick to make clear the separation between that and holster-work on the range.
...
For full disclosure, I would have just about zero interest in being a member of, or even visiting any range that didn't allow holster work. I've just nothing going on in my shooting regimen that would benefit from that. Even the kids work from holsters at this point. But I fully understand that the whole shooting world doesn't work that way.
I think both sides can agree to those points, at the very least....
It sounds like 'most everyone is cool with the idea of a concealed defensive sidearm (at least) being carried, so long as it stays in the holster at all times. That's a good step, though it can be a bit of a trick to make clear the separation between that and holster-work on the range.
...
For full disclosure, I would have just about zero interest in being a member of, or even visiting any range that didn't allow holster work. I've just nothing going on in my shooting regimen that would benefit from that. Even the kids work from holsters at this point. But I fully understand that the whole shooting world doesn't work that way.
- Status
