RO Tales

[alienbogey]

I remember when I first started going to an RO'd range I was initially irritated at RO's watching seemingly every move I made, but I got used to it and realized that it was necessary because you can't know the level of expertise of every shooter who comes in the door. Now, as an RO, I realize what a great thing they can be because regardless of expertise you can't know the common sense of everyone who comes in the door, and regardless of experience level everyone has brain farts. Two examples from my shift yesterday.

1. A guy comes in with a fairly worn range bag, takes out a Ruger Blackhawk and factory ammunition, and proceeds over the course of 30-40 minutes to shoot some nice groups. He's friendly, knowledgable, and gets in a conversation with the guy at the next shooting station. No problems at all, and early on I start paying less attention to him.

I'm walking by his station and I hear him say, "What the heck?" to himself so I stop. He has a fresh target out, he's fired 6 shots but there are only five holes in it and he thinks he's had one (factory) round fail to fire. I watch as he rotates the cylinder and ejects empties, and ask, "Did you maybe have a squib and the bullet cleared the cylinder but lodged in the barrel?"

He says, "I don't think so," and points the barrel straight into his eye so he can get a good look down it and see. :banghead:

2. Another experienced shooter comes in with a big, well worn range bag and trays of handloads. He has a new pistol and is working up loads for it. He spends a lot of time shooting from a V rest and placing fresh targets for getting good data. He knows what he's doing.

I'm walking down the line, do a double take, and see this experienced shooter holding his 1911 at 90 degrees to downrange, pointing directly at at least 7 other shooters in their booths, as he explains some feature of the pistol to his neighbor. :banghead:

I say, "Down range, pistol down range only, please," and his reply is, of course, "It's not loaded!".

To be fair, after a few seconds of reflection he apologized, said I was right, and said he didn't know what he was thinking to do what he had done.

RO's ====> A Good Thing

FWIW

 

[bigalexe]

I like to be free of RO's when it is just me, or groups of less than 10 people whom I know. When I get on a range with people I don't know or large groups, then yeah they are needed.

 

[THE DARK KNIGHT]

Honestly if the cylinder is open or the slide is locked back, and the magazine/cylinder is empty, I don't see what's unsafe about looking down the bore to see if there's a squib or not. I don't think that the chunk of lead can magically fire itself out of the barrel.

 

[alienbogey]

<<Honestly if the cylinder is open or the slide is locked back, and the magazine/cylinder is empty, I don't see what's unsafe about looking down the bore to see if there's a squib or not. I don't think that the chunk of lead can magically fire itself out of the barrel.>>

No, but remember that his concern was that he had a round that failed to fire.

The Blackhawk is single action so the cylinder can't open, only the loading gate. I could only see the one cylinder at a time, plus I hadn't seen him clear all 6 cylinders. I watched him empty 3 or 4 cylinders, asked my question, and he immediately looked down the barrel.

So, he suspected a fail to fire, it could possibly have been a hang fire, and he looked down the barrel of the single action revolver to check for a stuck bullet.

I asked him to remove the cylinder completely if he wanted to peer down his barrel.

 

[kingpin008]

Honestly if the cylinder is open or the slide is locked back, and the magazine/cylinder is empty, I don't see what's unsafe about looking down the bore to see if there's a squib or not. I don't think that the chunk of lead can magically fire itself out of the barrel.

I was gonna say the same exact thing. I know the four rules and I understand why they're there, but there has to be some reality involved when applying them. If the fella was obviously investigating a manfunction, I don't see a problem with this particular incident.

 

[HOOfan_1]

Had the same thing happen with my Ruger Security Six. (Ended up that I had just loaded an already fired case in). I had the cylinder outand looked down the barrel.

I thought at the time, people might think I am stupid looking down the barrel, but the cylinder was out and I didn't have anything thin enough to stick down the barrel.

My range has no safety officer other than your peers. Personally I am glad of that. I think some of the rules they have are too restrictive as it is. If I see people being unsafe, I leave. I'd much rather go out into the boonies, find a good backstop and throw some 2 litter bottles out there to shoot with no one looking over my shoulder the entire time.

I understand the absolute need for safety, but people are people and some of them go overboard. Just see the thread with the guy who said he had a malfunction, the RSO, ran over told him to put the gun down, then proceeded to pick it up and fire off a couple of rounds.

 

[alienbogey]

<<<I was gonna say the same exact thing. I know the four rules and I understand why they're there, but there has to be some reality involved when applying them. If the fella was obviously investigating a manfunction, I don't see a problem with this particular incident.>>>

You don't see the problem with pointing a revolver with a possible misfire/hangfire at yourself??????

Perhaps I wasn't perfectly clear in my original post, but I tried to be in post #4: He suspected a misfire, cleared only 3 or 4 cylinder holes of their brass, then pointed the revolver at himself with cases - perhaps one a still live round with a struck primer - still in the cylinder.

That's not a problem?

 

[Balrog]

Busy bodies everywhere I suppose.

 

[alienbogey]

<<My range has no safety officer other than your peers. Personally I am glad of that. I think some of the rules they have are too restrictive as it is. If I see people being unsafe, I leave. I'd much rather go out into the boonies, find a good backstop and throw some 2 litter bottles out there to shoot with no one looking over my shoulder the entire time.>>

I understand your point and like shooting in the boonies myself, but from what I've seen as an RO I'm no longer comfortable shooting with unmonitored strangers around me.

You say that if you see people being unsafe you leave and that's good, but in my event from yesterday the 7 people to the left of the guy with the 1911 had no idea they were being swept. The fact remained that a .45 with closed slide and magazine inserted was being pointed right at them, but if they had walked by the guy earlier they would have thought he was the safest guy on the range.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Whenever I hear, "It's not loaded," I know two things with absolute certainty:

1. I'm in the presence of someone who doesn't understand firearms safety
2. It's time to worry

 

[Liberty1776]

I'm torn on this one. I've had a RO stop a guy from aiming his rifle at my body from 4 feet away as he explained it's operation to his grandson (and said, somewhat irritatedly "It's not loaded!")

and I bless the RO for saving me from that.

Then, I've had a new RO tell me I was doing everything all wrong and I should do it his way... (and I'm not talking safety here - just sighting in a scope)

Overall, I'm glad they're around, except for when they make the line cold when I'm in the middle of a group...