Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles DANGER AT THE RANGE - WHATS YOUR EXPERIENCE ?

We cleared a 400yd strip below our camp several years ago and I built a good bench, which we concreted into the ground. Prior to that, I used a portable bench, made with plans that bxroads once sold here on the classifieds. I'd shoot on pipelines or wherever folks would let me. Up through highschool, we shot at the local range/dump that was much like the one you described. We would see washers and dryers, old refridgerators, dishwashers, all kinds of cans and bottles, even auto body parts. The only good thing anybody ever brought was a box of old bowling pins, which lasted quite a while. The strangest was a large console TV with a pink douchebag taped to the busted screen. We got a big kick out of that one....

Who hasn't wanted to bust a cap on some douchebag on TV?

Nice follow-through on that setup! Lol.....

The only good public range I've ever been to was in Mosinee, WI. It's truly run like a range should be. It's VERY reasonable to shoot at. There is a rangemaster on duty at all times and they do their jobs well. It's a great facility and would literally bring MILLIONS in profit if it was near a larger city. Though, then it wouldn't probably be as cool of a place.

Not a danger but I did have someone ask me about my GPS setup and what it was used for. The GPS setup was a chronograph.....


Had a guy sweep the entire line with a 12 gauge at a turkey shoot once, I was the only guy to immediately drop to the ground when the barrel came swinging around.


I hate folks in gunshops etc always pointing guns at you, as if the apparent fact that it is unloaded makes it alright.

As a whole I dislike the majority of 'gun' guys.

Forgot one, hows about the guy that wanted to put on a leather glove and wrap his hand around the factory Pendleton brake on my 460 WBY barrel to see if it kicked me any harder when fired.

What AFDA.

Gunner

Shoulda let him.

There was a range I visited outside of Woodland, California. I was shooting with a couple family members. Im looking threw the scope and I here a swoooooosh. I open both eyes just in time to see a sky diver land right in the middle of their 100yd range! There is a skydiving school next door and this guy was a little off course. Good thing we were not shooting skeet...

Who puts a skydiving school next to a shooting range? That's really stupid. Just noticed that you mentioned it was in California.....

Saw a video once where a sky diver screwed up and landed in a fenced croc or gator pond. It did not end well...

I went to the truck and got a roll of duct tape and made about 5 wraps around the brake then fired it.

I said see, that could have been your hand, he said, oh no, my leather glove is tougher than that tape.

I said, Son, please dont play with guns and go read up on vasectomy, would ya?................WHAAAAAATTT????, he said.

Gunner

I shoot at a public range and it can get a bit...interesting at times. Mostly, it's really well run though. It is always staffed with two or more range officers. They are usually fairly strict without being jerks about it. The main range has 30 bays, and two officers can run it fine but often they will have three and, sometimes, four.

Even with good range officers you can still get a dipwad next to you. I usually like to go right at opening on Saturday morning. You get about 2 hours of good shooting before the yahoos arrive. Or just go in the winter when there is a couple of feet of snow on the ground and it's 0-20* F outside. Usually only the die-hards show up then...

This isn't so much unsafe but shows the stupidity of people.

I rarely visit the local range usually do my shooting in the woods. The range I do go to every so often has steel targets at 100 meter increments shaped as different animal silhouettes. One of the silhouettes is a chicken. Everybody is allowed to shoot the steel silhouettes. Anyways we were at the range one day and my brother went up to the bench got set up and started shooting the steel. He shot one of the chickens. At that point a guy gets up and walks down to us and starts yelling at my brother about shooting his chicken. He brought it from home etc... My brother said okay, sorry I won't shoot it again. Between that point and the time the guy left he had about 5 other confrontations with people over shooting his chicken that was exactly the same as all the other chickens on either side of it.

He was just beside himself as to why someone would shoot his chicken.

I had a guy next to me put his rest bag full of plastic beads right under the muzzle of his barrel. Might have been ok but it was a 30-378 weatherby with a factory brake. He pulled the trigger and plastic beads flew everywhere. Several hit my face, neck and arms. It looked like I had the chicken pox with little red welts everywhere.

He hardly even said sorry and then went on to brag about how powerful his rifle was and that it could kill an elk at a mile. I asked how it can kill an elk at a mile when it can't hit a target at 100 yards. Then he was pissed and I was the bad guy.

Bb

I haven't had any range issues but I shoot a well regulated range. I was in a gun shop a while back when two challenged individuals came in with a Marlin that they said wouldn't fire. The guy holding it said "see" as pulled the trigger and shot a hole in the roof. All three of us helped him out the door. I know you can't fix stupid but there sure seems to be a bunch of it in recent years.

Sad but true, regardless of guns, I find it very hard to not dislike the majority...

Had sight-in days at my club this past weekend. One of the members was heard to say that he had never seen so much defective equipment in the posession of people that do not know how to use it and can't follow the simplest of instructions.

That's the reason I stick to private ranges.

I shoot at the free public range run by SC DNR in Pickens and have never had a problem. They have a pretty good range officer that spends enough time on the line to keep it orderly.

The public range in VA where I usew to shoot wa unsupervised. No one took care of the range. People left all their trash, shot up the port john and DNR finally had enough and closed the range. I'm in SC now in Sumter and shoot at the DNR range here. The range is clean, range saftey officers are present and supervise hot,cold and cease-fire on each range. Shooters with semi-autos must hold a full second between rounds. Saw two shooter get tossed off the range for not following instructions. So far I am impressed with their efforts.

I had to quit my Shooting club because of nonsense like that posted above at our private range. I just got tired of all of the safety violations, dimwads that didn't know how to use a range, and members not keeping track of their guests who were quite often breaking every safety rule, even with signs at almost every bench explaining what to do during cease fires, etc...

I'm a little nervous to use public ranges after some of the stories my buddies have told me. I know of at least two public ranges in this area that have been closed down due to vandalism and safety issues.

Bob

Wingnut53,
You stationed @ Shaw?
The DNR range is well run, they do a nice job there.
I lived in Sumter 2002-2003; nice town, very nice people.