My local indoor range has the policy that any shoulder mounted firearm must be shot at the full 25 yard distance. I have asked many employees (mostly RSOs) and no one seems to understand why. Does anyone know the foundation for this rule. If so, what is it, and do you think it's valid?
I don't know your range's exact reasons, but I can share some of the ones we run into:
Targets placed against the backstop mean bullets hit in exactly the right place -- just behind the target in the backstop. Targets placed out farther from the backstop start to involve shot angles that get "iffy." Yes, if you pull the target in on a perfectly straight line to your muzzle, the bullets should still hit the same spot. But if you're a little taller or a little shorter or the target's a little left or right, now you're shooting down, up, or left or right at it, and the closer it gets to you the more of an angle off of the perfect line you're shooting at.
Like so, except in 3 dimensions:
That CAN mean you're putting rounds into the ceiling, into the floor, or into the walls and/or target hangers and other equipment if the issue gets extreme. And rifles do a lot of damage -- even more than handguns.
Now a corollary point to that is that very close-in targets are often used (and/or often ENCOURAGE) faster, more rapid engagements. That's a valid thing to practice as you never know just where your adversary's going to appear, and the closer he is, the faster you're going to have to get on target and shoot, a lot. But it is "sloppy" shooting from the standpoint of where do those bullets end up. If you're shooting 3-5 shots a second at an "Extreme Close Quarters Combat" target scenario, you aren't putting those 3-5 shots per second into a neat little 2' square impact zone back at the berm or backstop. That's just the nature of the situation. So when we do practice those things we need to ensure that we're on a range that can handle, and contain, impacts scattered over a larger cone of fire. And yeah, we tend to do that stuff WAY closer to the berm than 25 yards.
So the range may very well be seeing a combined benefit here. By restricting targets to back against the backstop, they're getting better containment of the impacts, and they're also encouraging people to slow down and take the required care to be able to hit their target that far away, which again, contributes to better containment of the bullet strikes.