Your funniest range story

[Backpacker33]

I entered the USAF in 1968. The father of one of my best friends through flight school was a famous SAC Lt. Col. When he was a new 2nd LT he was assiged to Panama. One of his first tasks was to oversee marksmanship training. Many of the "old heads" had no interest in shooting the issued S&W .38, and made it clear to the 2LT. He, however, was a crack shot with almost anything put in his hands.

Sooo, a Senior Master Sergeant came reluctantly to the range to do his qualifications. Not to be intimidated by a "butter bar", and oozing disdain, he picked up the S&W and sorta "threw" six rounds downrange, completely missing the target. He tossed the revolver on the bench, declaring it was worthlessly inaccurate.

The young 2LT said "OH! Well, let me try it." He loaded six mil-spec rounds and faced downrange. He then turned his back to the target, bent over and shot all six between his legs into the 10 ring. He stood back up, handed the revolver back to the SMSgt and said "Seems OK to me. Try it again." No one ever tried to bamboozle him again.

When I met him he had retired from the nuclear missle service. He cooked a wonderful prime roast as a send off to Vietnam for us. During my second tour he made the news when some idiot broke into his condo. The 70+ year old man leaped out of bed, grabbed his .357 Magnum and chased the burglar, leaping over bushes and fence to capture and hold him for police. His son, my friend, went on to fly both USAF and Navy planes (as USAF liaison, off carriers!) and then for FedEx until he retired at age 60.

Fast forward to about 8 years ago. I'm at the range with my shooting partner, a female lawyer. I had told her the story and she was shooting one my least favorite guns, a 9mm Kurz Walther PPK. With an appreciative male audience watching, she faced the target, turned and bent over, shooting seven rounds between her legs into the 10 ring.
- Backpacker

 

[COgunner]

Took an old girlfriend to the indoor range once. She was wearing a low-cut top and, while shooting my 1911, a (quite hot) shell bounced off the lane divider and went right down the cleavage. She normally had good range safety awareness, but lost it all when that happened. I had to deflect the pistol up as she turned left with it in her hand. Luckily no AD or anything and it's funnier now than it was at the time.

 

[danprkr]

Shooting by myself one morning at the range. Got there early and no other customers, this happened often at the time since I worked nights and could go early during the week so I liked to avoid the crowds. Anyway, I knew I was alone, and as I fired I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes the range master would come up and we'd BS for a bit since he had nothing else to do, so I, as per usual, kept firing. I knew he'd wait until I was empty so no biggie. But it kept coming, and I realized that it was on the down range side of the firing positions so I ceased fire, cleared my weapon, and looked at the COW sauntering down range, around the backstop, and into the next pasture in absolutely no hurry whatsoever. You'd have thought the muzzle blast for my 45 would've stopped it or hurried along, but no, it just sauntered along at a nice leisurely pace.

The range master finally figured out that the fence was down to the dairy farm next door, and the cow had wandered off in the night, but needed to get home to be fed or something.

Good thing I wasn't in my truck, or I might have had steaks for a loooooooooooong time.

 

[bullitt4248]

Funny youtube

A guy was showin how to sight in your scope. Put the cone on the muzzle end with the sight picture in it. Now he's got this thing mounted in a lead sled vise deal.

He shows how to look through the scope and adjust up - down right left. The video pauses for a second.

You then see him chamber a round and before anyone could stop him he pulled the trigger. That rifle bounced up - he went flying - he forgot to pull the arbor plug out of the barrel before firing it.

Never seen anything like it!

 

[FROGO207]

Never seen anything funny at the range, I've seen lots of stupid though, but not funny.

 

[chuwee81]

bullitt, there's a pic of a rifle that match your story here somewhere. The barrel peeled back like a banana. scary stuff. I think they found the boresighter thingee at the 100 yd line. may not be the same incident though.

danpkr: not at the range but almost hit an already hit cow one time while driving at night. Driving 50 mph, the big blur on the road that came up pretty fast made me slam the brake and swerved put of the way only to catch a glimpse of a dead cow carcass (black hide). 20 yds down on the side of the road was a car with a missing front end. The driver was on his phone calling for help.

 

[scoutsabout]

My uncle told me a cow story, too.

He was driving at night and saw the headlights of an oncomming car jump up into the air. There was a shower of sparks all over the road when they came back down and the car rolled into the opposite ditch as he pulled over to see *** was up. The poor old lady in the car was bewildered, there was a dead cow in the road, and a 16 wheeler up the road that had originally hit the cow.

When he put it all together, he was like "whoa... you jumped a cow!"

 

[devildog4329]

While at the range for qualifications with work I was working as a range coach. I was watching over a few shooters and one female who thought she was a real shooter. She had numeros stories of "when i worked for the FBI, and when i was in a Anti terrorism unit in the coast guard, when i was a police officer in Louisiana, Jamaica, and other places."

Any way back to the story. I am watching the shooters load their magazines and get ready for the next string of fire and i see the female shooter doing something I cant even beleive.

I let it go to see how she does and when the command to fire is givin "click". She pulls the trigger again and "click" She looks around dumbfounded with her hand in the air. The whole while im giggling like a school girl.

I then ask her what the problem is. She tells me her gun is broke. I then inform her that her weapon is not broken and that she should inspect her weapon and let me know what is wrong with it. She drops her mag. Looks at the weapon for a while and says " I told you its broke. I then ask her to look at her magazine and to tell me what is wrong with it. She looks at it and says " My magizine is backwards."

At this point I am dying laughing and wondering how this lady could possible be trusted to carry a weapon. I then say "No mam your magazine is not backwards, you loaded your rounds into the magazine backwards".

After all is said and done and she fixes herself. She then tells me that she wants an alibi. I tell her no you dont rate an alibi because you did not complete the string of fire due to user incompetence not weapon malfuntion.

This lady was later promoted to Capt. and trusted to load and disarm other officers

Just my story and sorry if others dont think its funny. I sure did because my coworkers and I got to laugh at our superior who most certinly was not as superior as she thought. I also forgot to mention that she only qualified by 1 point.

 

[GEM]

I went to the indoor range. It had this really giant metal clip that held the paper targets and came quite aways down the target. Almost touched the top of a B-27 to hold it. It was like a giant metal wedge.

I decided to shoot with my nondominant hand and take a head shot. Good to practice with your off hand.

Well, I shot too high. The round must have hit the bottom edge of the target clip. A shower of sparks ensued and a fragment cut the B-27 in half and set it on fire!

The guy next to me asked what kind of round was that! The best man-stopper!

 

[mustang_steve]

I'm a lefty shooter.

When I went out to fire my SCCY for the first time, I learned two things:

1) Polo shirt must be buttoned up ALL THE WAY or the shirt should be untucked

2) ranges with lane dividers make brass ricochets very common.

I tried a double-tap and got TWO hot casings down into my polo. I quickly placed the pistol on the bench and nearly ripped my shirt off in front of everyone. This wouldn't be as bad except I'm rather fat and people were laughing and grimacing at the same time.

There were two bright red marks on my belly...and the RO saw it. For the rest of the day he called me "Spots".....correction he still calls me spots, it's just he's RO for the rifle rnage more often now.

 

[larry_minn]

My brother pulled a similar move to GEM's. He was shooting a .22lr and hit the clip. It CUT the target in half. (a lowly .22) R.O calls cease fire. we are about falling over and he wants to inspect what kind of ammo we are shooting. (Indoor range) To be honest it cut a half circle @3" below clip.

Another fun one was a relative with a Security Six. His buddies hand loads. He had to POUND the cylinder against wood to get it out then push against bench to get empty brass out. Wanted me to try "real loads" in my 66-2 S&W (I passed) Dang nice fireball...:0

A carbine course. We had a picnic table at the 30yd (pistol/carbine transisions) and we moved back to 200yds. Instructor said the folks going prone to be careful of table. (as we were moving back) One guy takes his ammo off table and puts on ground.
First string the table jumps. Nice crease across top of picnic table. (almost exactly where the ammo box had been)

New range. They hired a trainer to train the "future" R.O.s. (Former military,Police, competative shooter,very safe,good trainer....)
We are all done/passed and he is going to "break in" the new range. (ok we had shoot some but this is official)
He steps to line with @20 guys watching and is going to do slow fire with 1911. Take first shot (10) loweres muzzle and puts rd into floor @8' infront of firing line.


BTW I think its important to note that I have seen more unsafe/funny/strange (and dang dangerous) activities with automobiles then firearms. I wonder how many non gun owners think that only people who handle guns do dump/stupid stuff. The range is safer then the highways...

 

[Bliggida]

DevilDog's FBI chick.
Geez, those 'super LEO's'. Can't stand it. Anyone that has to toot their own horn, usually hasn't done anything they are talking about.
Watching a real LEO, you'll know who/what he is in 5 minutes - and he'll probably never tell you anything unless you directly ask.

A buddy of my academy class, and myself both purchased matching revolvers...
stainless steel Rossi 972's - 6" .357's (will come into play later) for our qualifications.
I got a holster for my gun belt, he used a paddle holster.
On the command to draw and fire, I see him out of the corner of my eye rip the gun and holster clean off his trousers, point the gun and holster downrange and prepare to fire.
I wish I could tell you he blew the holster clean off the gun, but he caught it just before it happened.

Since we had absurd matching polished 6" .357's to everyone elses' blued 3 or 4" rental .38's - I mean Tackleberry & Dirty Harry, the instructor saw us next to each other at the end of the line, almost touching the target at 1 yard, and called out,
"Is the line ready?"
"Is the RIFLE team ready?"
Fire!

I about put a round in the dirt, laughing.