Our public range is pretty quiet, with most (not all) shooters respectful and careful. No range officers, just a small town public range a couple miles out of town. If it looks too busy, I go home and try again later. The only really negative interaction I've had was with a fellow who hung out there to collect the brass others left. Mostly he did a service, I'd say. He wasn't shooting, just hanging out with a pair of earplugs in, drinking coffee. I asked if it was ok to shoot, wanted him to know the range was hot, and after ejecting an empty, it rolled off the concrete table. He made a beeline for it and grabbed it from the floor right next to my bench. I said hey, that's mine,, and he told me if brass hits the floor it is his. I took the bolt out of my rifle (didn't want any misunderstandings of how far I'd go for a piece of brass) and told him that till I left, my brass was mine. Must have looked serious as he handed me my brass and quit circling my bench like a vulture. It was first time reloaded Nosler brass....wasn't going to give it to a brass hound!
At a range I used to shoot at sometimes there were vultures hovering around too. Same thing, I don't care if they're there but sometimes they go too far. The worst was one day showing up and there was 4 very sketchy looking tweakers in a beat up truck that were out there with tools scouring the place for anything they could find. One was at the line with a hard tined rake scraping the dirt and grass around the benches and the other three were digging up the berm with large sieves scavenging bullets. They were prepared with several large drums in the back of their truck for their diggings so that wasn't their first time raiding a shooting range. It was on public land so I called a warden on the way out to report them, hopefully they got arrested.
