Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Stupid people at the range

I remembered this while reading the lifetime ban from gun range thread. I was shooting at a public rifle range and noticed a man walking downrange while everyone was shooting. I got the range master's attention and he called a ceasefire. The man said that he didn't want to wait for a ceasefire and thought he was safe as long as he stayed in his lane while putting up his target.

I imagine that many of you have seen something just as stupid.

We have a mechanized running deer we use for turkey and ham shoots. 3 shots any way you like. It goes across the berm about 60 yards each way. You can shoot anything you like rifle pistol shotgun with slugs. The AR guys like to load fully loaded 30 round magazines and sometimes try to turn around with a hot rifle. They seem disappointed when we tell them you can use any magazine you want, just load only 3 rounds. Very poor gun handling and not just them. The one public range nearby has raised its rates and a lot of these guys don’t belong to a club.

I won’t go to one anymore, I shoot at deer lease.

Uhm no. That’s pretty [bleep] stupid.

Yes unfortunately....The guy walking downrange is about the same with the people who keep shooting. You did good with alerting the range master.

Next time you're at a busy public rifle range, sitting at a bench, and all you;re seeing is thru your scope, remember what you just said.

Are there any other kind?

One of the ranges I used to go to had a button that could be pressed and the red cop light would flash and the bell would clang indicating a cease fire. Everyone was to immediately open the action and step back behind the line.

The stupidity that goes on at ranges all over this country before deer season could make for a sadly funny version of America’s Funniest Home Videos.

I shoot year around but usually stay clear of the range just before opening weekend (today).

It's been over about a 25-year period, but twice I've seen people standing downrange near the target board to show the shooter where the bullets hit. Both times it was when they thought no one would see them. One was on a pistol range where I would have thought the shooter could see the bullet holes, but the other one was on a high power range at the 100-yd. board; it was getting dark and the shooter couldn't see where the bullets were hitting.

Public rifle and pistol ranges scare me, but I sure like shooting skeet and sporting clays..

i posted some time ago about some gang bangers at range in socal where one with a modified sks with 30 round mag, broken sear, turned around and sprayed his homies, all the while with a what do I do look on his face. only had to airlift one of his buds.
turned in my badge and headed north. have not been to a open range since.

My friend of 60 years that I hunt and shoot with related to me a week or so ago that when he was a young kid, he would go out with his Dad to sight in the Dad's rifle before hunting season, Dad had him stand off to the side of the target and point out each shot impact. I always thought his Dad was a pretty cool guy and was vastly surprised to hear this.

I used to go out and help at our club's Public Sight In day but it got so crazy I just quit. Goofy, goofy people with guns in their hands.

Our range in Yuma is wide open to the public with no range officers or other supervision except when our club is holding an organized event. I will not even go out there unless it is on one of those days when we have control of the range, it is just absolutely insane and I dont know how someone doesn't get killed there about once a week.

Got a friend in PENN who has a 200 yard range on his property that he built himself. Lucky dog.....

Had a guy messing with his rifle, pointed at us, while we were down on targets, while the range was called cold by the range master. Something was jammed in his rifle he says. I told him to get his hands of his rifle. He told me he could because it was unloaded.

Another guy was in line at a gun show clearing his pistol, while pointing it in my direction. This all happened with another forum member here.

Both times, it took me a lot of effort to keep from beating either one of them to a messy pulp. Both times, they knew I meant business and they complied. If they didn’t, it would have escalated.

Pure ignorance. Which if they die for it, I could care less. Just not me, my family or friends.

As long as you keep putting that up to luck you'll continue your "unlucky" streak.

Every time you guys start typing up horror stories, I just cringe. I am fortunate to have a benchrest just outside the front door of my house. I can only shoot to 135 yds at home. But i can see the BLM two miles away where I can go out to 1000 yds if I so desire.I mount a rest in the receiver hitch of the pickup for those occasions.

I shot a Garand one summer (DCM) at a small local public range with a bunch of guys from my work place. But there was no drama there.

Well...there was this 90 year old man at the range recently.

Lecturing us about gun safety with a 12 ga pointed at my guts. Fuggin tongue stickin outta his mouf like a parakeet. Maybe he was having a TIA.

I haven't been on a public outdoor range in 25+ years. Last time I went, a group of hikers came blundering out an old logging road adjacent to the bermed area. People often used the logging road for long range shots. Even if shooters were staying within the berm there are always fliers going over top.

I worked for several years as a rangemaster at a local range. The idiot factor at a place like this is amazing.

The weekend before deer season, a guy shows up with a full auto Thompson sub. We have signs about every 10 feet from the time you pull in the parking lot that no automatic fire is allowed. Of course this ahole manages to get off a full stick in full auto. He was thrown out and never allowed to return, and no, he wasn't one of my shooters-I was working the other end of the line.

Late winter, and I had just two shooters, older fellows, up on the 100 yard range. After Christmas, the range was monitored from the main office via closed circuit t.v. I noticed one of the guys is shooting, but can't see the other on any of the cameras, and I hadn't seen him come down to the bif or anything. I went up to check on them. The shooter told me his buddy was out behind the target butts-when he shot, his buddy would come out from behind the birm and check his shots!

Muzzle's pointed all over the place, especially on the handgun range, defective weapons that should have never been uncased, except by a competant gunsmith, wrong ammo shot through guns, you name it we saw it out there. One nimrod even managed to destroy a bore sighter out there. The range owner was working sight-in one time. She'd mounted the bore sighter in a shooter's barrel, and turned to answer a question from someone else. You guessed it-the guy she was bore sighting loaded a round, point the gun down range with the bore sighter in the barrel, and pulled the trigger. One very nice Browning Belgian made BAR now had a blown barrel.

I personally threw at least 5 guys off the facility that showed up drunk.

I see why guys never go to public ranges to shoot. It's scary to know some of these idiots are actually walking around in the woods with loaded guns.

I went two weeks ago and got all my range work done before the range got busy. I won't be back this fall. It's just too dangerous.

I've had loaded guns pointed at me many a time while at the range, which is why I always choose days and times when there is typically no one there but myself anymore.