For a while, I used to use a public state owned range. It was free....conveiniant a few miles from the house...benches were nice enough.
It was often a war zone. Despite a 5 round loading limit, no rapid fire etc...guys would burn through a box of 20 high power rifle rounds in a couple minutes.
My favorite thing to do was glass other guys targets while I waited for a barrel to cool. Made me feel not so safe sharing the woods with them....and made me feel like the deer were likely safe. I couldn't believe how poorly the "average" guy shoots. I never thought holding a group with a scoped rifle at 100yds off a bench was that big of a deal....but 00 buck patterns better than many of those guys.
The whole cease fire going down range crap got ridiculous. They'd either do it every 3 minutes or go forever. I learned to put up a number of targets and plan to sit there till I was done.
Now I'm pretty fortunate. I have 2 clubs within 2 miles of the house. I can step outside and take a listen and see if the ranges are occupied lol. I'm a member of one. I am going to join the other this year as well...buddy said they have a really nice setup and a lot of steel and longer ranges than my current club. And will give me another option if one is busy or closed...ran into that last year...someone booked it for a wedding or something and I was working on a flintlock turkey gun.
